A US company has secured funding to become the first private entity¹ to travel to the moon, with a planned 2017 voyage that will be an international milestone² in space exploration.

 

一家美国公司已筹集到资金确保其成为首个赴月的私人公司，他们计划于2017年开启月球之旅，此举将成为国际空间探索中的里程碑。

 

Moon Express, a Florida-based firm, said it had raised $20m in financing, which will allow it to send a robotic spacecraft to the moon's surface later this year.

 

The funding is a major step in the company's efforts to become the world's first private enterprise to travel outside the Earth's orbit.

 

Last year, Moon Express gained historic approvals from the US government after submitting a request for its voyage to the Federal Aviation Administration. An outer space treaty, which was adopted by the United Nations and regulates exploration of the celestial³ world, requires governments to authorize⁴ and supervise "non-governmental entities⁵" seeking to travel in outer space.

 

"We now have all the resources in place to shoot for the Moon," Bob Richards, Moon Express's CEO, said in a statement announcing the funding achievements. "Our goal is to expand Earth's social and economic sphere to the Moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests."

 

Moon Express has said it aims to mine the moon for minerals, and the tech entrepreneur Naveen Jain, its co-founder and chairman, has said he hopes to lower the costs of space travel and help pave the way for the colonization⁶ of the moon, and eventually of Mars.

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