Naveen Jain Is Chairman Of The Google Lunar X-Prize Competitor,
Dr. Barney Pell Vice-Chairman And Chief Technology Officer
At the annual Explorers Club Awards Dinner in New York, Naveen
Jain ... a philanthropist, entrepreneur and a technology pioneer
... revealed that he is Co-Founder and Chairman of Moon Express,
Inc., winner of a $10M NASA commercial lunar contract and a leading
contender for the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE. "This is an extremely
exciting project as Moon exploration is vital to solving Earth's
present and future resource problems," Jain said.
Naveen Jain
It was NASA's creation and rapid deployment of its Innovative
Lunar Demonstration Data program that convinced Jain to invest in
Moon Express. "NASA's proactive efforts to embrace the
commercial sector have created an environment of balanced risk and
opportunity reminiscent of America's efforts to open its
western frontiers to commerce," he said. "Moon Express is aptly
named to honor the historic public-private railway partnerships
that led to national growth and prosperity, but instead of
crossing the frontiers, with Moon Express we will be crossing the
stars."
Moon Express was founded by Naveen, former NASA manager, Dr.
Barney Pell, Chief Architect for Bing Local Search at Microsoft who
serves as Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, and Dr.
Robert (Bob) Richards, who is also a founder of International Space
University and serves as Moon Express CEO. All three co-founders
also work together as trustees of Singularity University based at
the NASA Ames Research Park.
Jain is also founder of Intelius and InfoSpace, as well as
Co-Chairman of Education and Global Development at the X PRIZE
Foundation. He is a trustee of the board of Flow Mobile and Coastal
Aviation Software and a member of Pacific Council on International
Policy.
Moon Express is a privately funded lunar transportation and data
services company created to establish new avenues for commercial
space activities beyond Earth orbit. NASA selected Moon Express
last fall for a $10M lunar data services contract and further
selected Moon Express as one of only three U.S. companies for the
initial delivery order of this "Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data
(ILDD)" program. The company was also announced by the X PRIZE
Foundation as the newest competitor for the $30M Google Lunar X
PRIZE, a competition to place a robot on the Moon's surface that
travels 500 meters and transmits high definition video, images and
data back to Earth. Naveen says, "The company is planning to make a
number of exciting announcements during the coming months. Moon
Express will be sending a series of robotic spacecraft to the Moon
for ongoing exploration and commercial development of important
resources."
Dr. Barney Pell
Dr. Barney Pell ... a well known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and
former NASA R&D Manager ... has also joined the race as
Co-Founder, Vice-Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of
Moon Express. "We have barely begun to explore the lunar surface
and are already finding compelling evidence of resources that are
very important to Earth," said Dr. Pell.
Pell is excited to apply his expertise in artificial
intelligence, search and spacecraft control to the exploration of
the Moon and the search for lunar resources that can be of benefit
to Earth. "It's highly motivating for me to come back to my
roots of space exploration as a commercial space entrepreneur at a
time when the Moon is revealing compelling new secrets," he said.
"My career has been largely devoted to space and search technology
and I can think of no more important place to focus my attention
than on searching for new energy and resources for planet
Earth."
Pell spent almost a decade working at the NASA Ames Research
Center prior to becoming a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
He was a technology leader at NASA, managing an organization
responsible for innovation in autonomous systems, human-centered
computing, spoken dialog systems, search, collaboration, and the
semantic web. Highlights of innovations during Dr. Pell's career at
NASA include mission critical software to support planning and
science collaboration for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission;
Clarissa, the first spoken dialog system in space; and the
development of the Remote Agent, the first artificial intelligence
(AI) system to fly onboard and control a deep space probe. Remote
Agent is widely considered as one of the top achievements in the
history of Artificial Intelligence and won NASA's "software of the
year" award in 1999.
Dr. Pell left NASA in 2005 to serve as an Entrepreneur-In
Residence at Mayfield, a top Venture Capital firm. While at
Mayfield, he founded Powerset, a provider of a natural-language
based search engine that read each sentence in Wikipedia and
answered user queries in plain English. Powerset was acquired by
Microsoft in 2008 to help Microsoft with its new search engine,
Bing, where Dr. Pell is currently Chief Architect of Bing Local
Search.
Pell is also an early investor in Space Exploration Technologies
(SpaceX) and believes we are on the verge of an epic new era in
commercial space exploration, when new public-private partnerships
will form the new paradigm for a rational and sustainable space
infrastructure. "As with the opening of every frontier,
public-partnerships play an essential role in attracting risk
capital to new ventures pursuing new markets," Barney stated. "Moon
Express has the people, experienced partners and financial
resources lined up to blaze a trail to the Moon and establish new
avenues for commercial space activities beyond Earth orbit."
Pell and his Moon Express co-founders applaud NASA's creation
and rapid deployment of the Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data
program and confirmed that his team was highly motivated to respond
with the investment of private resources. "Together with NASA's
announced policy to increase engagement with the private sector,
the entry of NASA into the risk-reward mix through its ILDD
commercial lunar program was an essential ingredient to validate
the market and catalyze substantial investment," he said.