THE next lunar lander won’t be designed by the new generation of plucky space privateers after all, and for a bizarre reason.
While a consortium that includes Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, builders of the first privately owned spacecraft, say they can build a great spaceship, they don’t have the expertise or resources to do all the paperwork.
“NASA wants 40 to 50 monthly reports on what you’re doing,” David Gump, president of the Transformational Space consortium told New Scientist on Monday. And while “we could build a great Crew Exploration Vehicle”, Gump says, the consortium cannot comply with the…
