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White Label Space

White-Label-Space is a upcoming Google Lunar Xprize team. Our mission is to create a brandless space enterprise that can provide space missions to anyone that that come up with a viable business case to cover costs.

Space Agencies are Brands TooJanuary 7

At first glance some people may find the idea absurd, but space agencies can in fact be viewed as brands with their own intrinsic commercial value. That is the finding by this recent Practicum Study by the Kogod School of Business.

How can a government-funded entity have useful brand value? Well, one only has to think back to the Space Race Version 1.0 (i.e. the race to land humans on the Moon) to see the resulting brand value for NASA, which is now a household name all around the world.

In fact, the Kogod study recommended that the "NASA" brand provides a unique "unexploited value to the American taxpayer". But how could that value be realized?

Some direct ways for NASA to capitalize on its brand value would be to sell the rights to show the famous "NASA" logo on products or to link the NASA brand to commerical brands in advertising campaigns. The revenues earned from the sale of such rights would then be available to NASA for use on new space projects (which might in t

NASA Moon Rover Tire Recreated from SpareJanuary 2

Now 80 years old, Farence Pavlicks (apologies if the spelling is wrong), invented the Lunar Roving Vehicle tires used in the Apollo Program while working for General Motors' Defense Research Labs back in the 1950's. The tires were manufactured by Goodyear and consisted of zinc-coated woven steel wires in place of the rubber compounds normally used for tires on Earth.

After NASA lost all traces of information on the design and manufacturing of the lunar rover tires, they used his advice to recreate the original design in a project redevelop new tires to support the NASA return to the Moon.

Follow this link to hear the complete story by NPR News.

Let's hope NASA is able to recover all the other knowledge gained during the Apollo program needed to for their return to the Moon. The need to re-capture that knowledge is surely a big driver for NASA to stick with its plans to return the Moon in the coming decade.

Rocket Mavericks the Sky's No LimitDecember 23 2008

Also part of the wave of young, private, non-profit and bold initiatives that are hitting the space sector recently, a group of like-minded individuals in the US established the Association of Rocket Mavericks, whos mission is to "bridge the gap between the hobbyist and the aerospace community, enabling the civilian, working in collaboration with international universities, to have the resources, technology, education and infrastructure resources to open the domain of space exploration for the common man".

Their main focus is on innovation in the launch vehicle sector, aiming at their first orbital flight in 2015. But they could also represent a good reference point to keep an eye on in the future as a possible provider for engines on a Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) lander.

You can read more about their endevors in this Wired article.

Keep on reaching for your dreams guys!

Moon 2.0 in IndonesianDecember 11 2008

One of our Indonesian volunteers was kind enough to provide subtitles in Bahasa Indonesia, the language of Indonesia, for our International Version of Moon 2.0, promotional video of the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP).

Please watch the video here. Subtitles can be selected by clicking on the small arrow at the bottom right of the YouTube view screen.

Since YouTube's automatic translate button still has big a red "BETA" label next to it, we still choose to use humans for our translations!

Is Space Exploration Expensive?December 8 2008

We are used to the concept of space exploration being a very expensive endevour, but this simple inflation-adjusted monetary comparison by Voltage shows that the complete budget history of NASA, including the entire Apollo Program, is only a fraction of the 2008 bailout of the US finacial sector.