Lunar Mission One is determined to send a robot to the Moon to drill deep into its surface. And it needs your help.
The British company behind the mission is turning to Kickstarter to raise $1 million dollars in one month.
To encourage people to donate, Lunar Mission One is offering a unique perk. For £60 (about $90), backers can have a digital memory box included in a time capsule that will be sent to the moon and buried beneath its surface.
"Instead of getting a small number of entities -- space agencies -- spending large amounts of money, we're getting a very large number of entities -- people around the world -- spending small amounts of money and turning the funding model upside down," said David Iron, Founder of Lunar Missions Ltd.
Of course, $1 million dollars isn't nearly enough to fund the entire mission. That's just the first stage, to pay for development and design of the program. To actually reach the moon, Lunar Mission One will need to raise closer to $1 billion.
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"We're expecting some funding from corporates, from industry and indeed from governments," said Iron. "But be in no doubt, the major funding of this project will be from consumers around the world."
Lunar Mission One wants to answer this question: Where did the moon come from? Scientists believe it formed after the Earth collided with another Mars-sized celestial body, more than four billion years ago. That collision pushed trillions of tons of material up into space, and over the next 500 million years that material became the Moon.
By drilling deep into lunar rock and analyzing the samples, scientists hope to confirm that theory. If all goes as planned, Lunar Mission One would drill at least 20 meters down, deeper than ever before.
That will also leave a big hole -- big enough for all the digital memory boxes the company hopes to sell to fund the mission.
