The Golden Spike Company was an American

space transport Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...

startup active from 2010 to 2013. The company was chartered for business in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

with the objective to offer private commercial space transportation services to the surface of the Moon. The name of the company is in reference to the ceremonial final spike placed in the First transcontinental railroad upon its completion. The company's Internet site was taken offline in September 2015.

History

The first public mention of a concept related to the name of this company and involving people associated with the company was at a conference in Hawaii on May, 2012, where it was suggested that "A privately circulated proposal, known as 'Golden Spike' and backed by respected scientific and astronautical entities, envisions the development of a reliable 'Cislunar Superhighway'." The company was formally announced at a

press conference A press conference or news conference is a media event in which notable individuals or organizations invite journalists to hear them speak and ask questions. Press conferences are often held by politicians, corporations, non-governmental organ ...

held on December 6, 2012, at the

National Press Club Organizations A press club is an organization for journalists and others professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press ...

, wherein details of the company and its ambitions were presented. Golden Spike was founded in 2010 by

Alan Stern Sol Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957) is an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has been involved in 24 suborbita ...

, former NASA associate administrator for science (2007-2008), and

Gerry Griffin Gerald D. Griffin (born December 25, 1934) is an American aeronautical engineer and former NASA official, who served as a flight director during the Apollo program and director of Johnson Space Center, succeeding Chris Kraft in 1982. When Gr ...

, former NASA Johnson Space Center Director. Griffin was the initial chairman of the board. Additional members of the board of directors in 2012 were space entrepreneur

Esther Dyson Esther Dyson (born 14 July 1951) is a Swiss-born American investor, journalist, author, commentator and philanthropist. She is the executive founder of Wellville, a nonprofit project focused on improving equitable wellbeing. Dyson is also an ang ...

and

Taber MacCallum Taber MacCallum is the co-founder and co-CEO of Space Perspective, a human spaceflight company planning to take people and payloads to the edge of space by balloon, and the former Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF). He is c ...

, co-founder and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corp. Other advisers include former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, former NASA

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

manager Wayne Hale, author and aeronautical engineer

Homer Hickam Homer Hadley Hickam Jr. (born February 19, 1943) is an American author, Vietnam War veteran, and a former NASA engineer who trained the first Japanese astronauts. His 1998 memoir ''Rocket Boys'' (also published as ''October Sky'') was a ''New ...

, and former governor of New Mexico

Bill Richardson William Blaine Richardson III (born November 15, 1947) is an American politician, author, and diplomat who served as the 30th governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011. He was also the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary ...

Plans and resources

Company President/CEO Alan Stern announced in briefing papers that the company had commenced feasibility studies into commercial missions to the Moon from early 2010 and formed the company in the third quarter of that year. Since then, the company had been building its business models and soliciting investment. The company had budgeted between $7 and $8 billion to achieve their objective, followed by approximately $1.5 billion fee per each "two-human lunar surface mission". Golden Spike would follow a model like that of the Russian spaceflight industry in the 1980s and 1990s. The company said it can cut costs by partnering with other aerospace companies and using existing rockets or rockets already in development, needing to only build a lunar lander and a specialized spacesuit for astronauts for the Moon. Stern said they expected to sign up as many as 15 to 20 countries or foreign space agencies as well as companies and individuals who want to explore the Moon for science or adventure. They had identified a mission profile, including various launch options as well as trajectory and spacecraft for landing on the Moon. It involved two sets of two launches from Earth to Earth orbit: one set for the lander and the propulsion unit to send it to Moon orbit, and the other set for the crew vehicle and the propulsion unit to send it to Moon orbit. The two propulsion units are then disposed of. In Moon orbit, the lander and the crew vehicle have a rendez-vous, and the crew move to the lander. They land and return to the crew vehicle, and return to Earth in the crew vehicle. Spacecraft and components used by this company would have been manufactured by American companies. The first robotic flights to the Moon were proposed to take place by 2020.

Lunar lander

In January 2013, Golden Spike contracted with

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military techn ...

for the design of a lunar lander, as one component of their "head start" commercial lunar architecture. Contracted tasks included "reviewing requirements and synthesizing a set of study ground rules and assumptions emphasizing system reliability, automated/ground command operability, and affordability, establishing velocity (

Δv Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...

) budgets from and to low lunar orbit for pragmatic lunar landing sites, exploring a wide variety of lunar lander concept options, including staging, propellants,

engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...

, reusability, autonomy, systems capabilities for exploration, as well as landing site flexibility, and establishing the design trade space and pragmatic limits for future more detailed analysis and development."

Reaction

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'' wrote that "Golden Spike's plans rank among the most audacious privately funded space exploration missions ever proposed." Former director of NASA Johnson Space Center says "If NASA wants a ride, we'd be glad to put them on our railroad". NASA was supportive of the effort, and said it showed the merits of supporting commercial spaceflight. John E. Pike of GlobalSecurity.org said that the company's cost estimate was unrealistic: "Stern doesn’t have enough zeros in his budget." The company's Indiegogo funding campaign raised $19,450 of its $240,000 goal.

References

External links