GST FORUM: Forum looks to moon missions for inspiration

Dr. Ramin Khadem, chairman of Odyssey Moon Limited, gave an account of his company's planned commercial moon missions and made a case for the region to look further for its space exploration.

He explained that early lunar missions by the USSR and USA lacked an economic agenda and explored less than one per cent of the Moon’s surface.

Recent plans for lunar exploration are designed to map and discover new areas of the moon, further scientific research, provide a galactic gateway to other parts of the solar system and beyond. This should also forge a new frontier for business, he said.

The recent discovery of water on the moon's surface could also help support life and could also be converted into rocket fuel,” Khadem added.

“Space commerce is a mature business with more than US$160 billion in annual revenues earned by orbiting satellites, and the highly-profitable satellite communications industry has extended Earth’s economic sphere to 40,000km.

“Lunar commerce will extend the economic sphere another order of magnitude, and greatly increase revenue,” he said.