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.

FMI: http://moonexpress.com/