A Two Stage Boost for Odyssey Moon



Google Lunar X-Prize contender Odyssey Moon, a newspace company with a strong Canadian connection, seems poised to benefit from two important announcements today.

The first boost is the announcement by Odyssey Moon Founder and CEO Dr. Robert Richards and Chairman Dr. Ramin Khadem that several well respected international firms have joined the Odyssey Moon "corporate team" to assist with the firms quest to "become the first private company to provide payload and delivery services to the Moon" according to this press release posted on the NASA Commercial Space Watch website.

The new partners are as follows:

• Near Earth LLC, an investment bank specializing in satellite, media and telecom properties.
• Ad agency The Brand Union, a member of the WPP group of companies, one of the six largest marketing and communication companies in the world.
• Aon International Risk Brokers, the worlds only insurance broker dedicated exclusively to the space industry.
• International law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, which has a strong telecom and space focused practice.

These new business relationships join existing partnerships with NASA (to develop a robotic lunar lander), MANSAT, the Paragon Space Development Corporation, independent merchant bank Quayle Munro plus Canadian based companies Optech and prime contractor MDA as part of the Odyssey Moon team.

The press release also announced the addition of veteran investment banker Carol Goldstein to the Odyssey Moon executive. With 25 years experience on Wall Street financing commercial satellite and telecommunication projects, Ms. Goldstein will focus on fundraising activities.

These items cannot help but be perceived as beneficial to Odyssey Moon and a solid base for consolidation of the business structure preliminary to moving forward with the actual hardware development.

And this is only their first boost of the day.

The second boost is another press release, also available on the NASA Commercial Space Watch website from the X-Prize Foundation. It promotes a recent study by the Futron Corporation, a well respected aerospace consultancy which predicts that companies such as those competing for the Google Lunar X-Prize "will be able to address a market in excess of $1 billion over the course of the next decade."

According to the press release, the study:

"...involved a detailed examination of the 19 teams already registered in the competition, as well as a robust analysis of potential lines of business, identified six key market areas: hardware sales to the worldwide government sector, services provided to the government sector, products provided to the commercial sector, entertainment, sponsorship, and technology sales and licensing.

Taken together, the study projects the value of these markets to be between $1 - $1.56 billion within the next decade. Additionally, some Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors have set their sights on additional market sectors that fell outside of the scope of the Futron report, which could result in an even higher total market size."

Futron has also written well recieved white papers and reports on space tourism, and the satellite industry in the past so this second boost of the day should go a long way to simplifying Ms. Goldsteins new job at Odyssey Moon, which is to raise money for their Google Lunar X-Prize attempt.