Florida Company Gets Approval to Put Robotic Lander on Moon
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/science/moon-express-faa.html
Moon Express, based in Cape Canaveral, Fla., announced Wednesday that it had received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to set a robotic lander on the moon.
That feat would win the Google Lunar X Prize competition for the first private organization to reach the moon and an accompanying $20 million reward.
[...] The approval reflects an effort to encourage 21st-century commercial space endeavors while staying within an international space treaty written 49 years ago when outer space was a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the idea of a start-up going to the moon an unlikely fantasy.
“There are a lot of things in the treaties we’re testing the limits of right now,” said Henry R. Hertzfeld, a professor of space policy and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington. “We’re trying to define them in ways that will encourage private investment and private opportunities but not violate any international agreements.”