By Ramin Khadem, Odyssey Moon Chairman “Why do it?” is a question posed frequently and one that as an older member of the founding team I am particularly asked. “Is it not better to sit back and relax after a successful career?” My answer is simple. I believe human beings have been created to help carry forward an ever advancing civilization. That means pushing boundaries and enlarging humanity’s zone of activity and influence but doing so in a responsible way. This private ground-breaking mission is about that, taking preliminary steps to go beyond the bounds of our planet to discover the Universe while remaining mindful of how we can better serve our mother earth and our common family living there. I am hopeful that by combining this ideal with good science and plenty of hard work and initiative we can demonstrate that we have a sound business that will prove attractive to many like-minded people willing to see the benefits of doing something extraordinary like this which is both enterprising and fun. That is the driving motive. As a school boy, I remember Yuri Gagarin’s Sputnik launch of just over 50 years ago with great fascination, and British scientist, Sir Arthur C Clark’s earlier predictions of how geostationary satellites would one day allow instantaneous global communications and live pictures to be transmitted from one part of the world to be seen in other distant parts. That was fantasy then but it became a reality. Our fantasy of today will also become the reality of tomorrow, I am certain. Well and good, you might say, but what about all the risks? Yes, there are risks at every turn; much like the business of operating satellites at 35,000 km in space is risky. This is an area with which I am intimately familiar and know what it takes to design and build satellites, to have them mated on rockets fired into space, to insert the spacecraft into geostationary orbit after its separation from the rocket, to establish communication links back to ground and then to run a profitable business on earth. Over two and a half decades ago the risks in doing this type of business was enormous and mind boggling. Today, companies across the world are running hugely profitable satellite businesses and their shares are much sought after and traded on stock exchanges, just like any other company. True the Moon is further out beyond the geosynchronous orbit but relative to the vastness of space it is within our reach. That was proven almost 40 years ago by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and it is thrilling to see so many national space agencies now focused on getting back to the Moon. So you may ask why do you think you can succeed so quickly in getting to the Moon when space agencies with massive funding and resources are having a longer horizon? Firstly, ours is a small-scale operation focused on what we can do best robotically. Space Agencies will be involved in much larger payloads with a view to man-rated missions down the road. Secondly, we are not competing with Space Agencies. On the contrary, we see ourselves working with them and being responsive to their requests should they have small payloads they wish ejected onto the lunar surface. We also believe if you are clever, nimble, of the right size and right ambition you can do what major space agencies cannot achieve. This we believe constitutes the sweet spot of private enterprise. As to our funding, we focus on 3 important criteria: a) First, to have important backers who are committed to our vision for the development of the Moon. b) Second, to have a diversity of investor base, where possible, to enhance our international scope. c) Third, to attract vendor and project finance, as well as other forms of funding, to drive down our cost of capital. As for our structure, we like to have diversity and strongly believe in the concept of “unity through diversity”. As a result, we have made a conscious effort to allow new joiners from countries not represented on our shareholding roster to come in based on equitable principles. We will do a fair valuation at the time of such requests and allow such bona fide shareholders to take a small stake in the Company. This will help build broad international support for our venture and benefit all our stakeholders. Now that I have explained “why” let me ask you “when”. “When will you join us in our journey to the Moon?”