Dr. Paul Spudis Announced as Chief Scientist of Odyssey Moon Limited, the First Official Contender for the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE

Mountain View, CA, July 24, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Dr. Paul D. Spudis has been named Chief Scientist of Odyssey Moon Limited, the first official contender for the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE. Dr. Spudis is a prominent scientist in the international lunar community and served as deputy science team leader for the highly successful Clementine lunar mission and is the Principal Investigator of the Mini-SAR imaging radar experiment on the forthcoming Chandrayaan-1 mission to the Moon. Dr. Spudis is an outspoken advocate of the Moon as a focus of scientific exploration and human settlement and has served on numerous advisory committees, including the US Presidential Commission on the Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy. The announcement was made during a NASA Lunar Science Institute conference at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

A geologist and Senior Staff Scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, Dr. Spudis has an extensive background in geology and planetary science, including interpretation of remote-sensing and image data. Dr. Spudis will be applying his combined passions for science and lunar development to help Odyssey Moon deliver a valuable scientific mission while pursuing the $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE and an ongoing commercial lunar enterprise. “Evidence indicates that abundant energy and material resources exist on the Moon, including deposits of ice within craters at the poles,” he said. “Returning to the Moon will teach us the skills we need to live and work productively on other worlds.”

Odyssey Moon CEO Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards says the addition of Paul Spudis to the Odyssey Moon Executive Team broadens and strengthens the scientific capability for the commercial company. “Paul is a persistent champion of the value of the Moon to the human species,” Dr. Richards said. “He understands the Moon’s role in furthering human knowledge and securing a prosperous future and he has the experience and the credentials to help us make it happen.”

Odyssey Moon Limited is a commercial lunar enterprise headquartered in the Isle of Man. The company was unveiled in December 2007 as the first official contender in the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE competition, announcing a series of robotic missions to the Moon during the International Lunar Decade in support of science, commerce and exploration. The company intends to offer frequent, low cost and reliable access to the lunar surface for private and government customers.

In addition to serving as Principal Investigator of a synthetic aperture radar device (mini-SAR) experiment on the Indian Chandrayaan Moon orbiter mission launching in 2008, Dr. Spudis is also a team member of the mini-RF technology demonstration experiment aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, also bound for the Moon later this year. Prior to this he was Principal Investigator in the Planetary Geology Program of the NASA Office of Space Science, Solar System Exploration Division, specializing in research on the processes of impact and volcanism on the planets. He served on NASA’s Lunar and Planetary Sample Team (LAPST), which advised on the allocations of lunar samples for scientific research. He is also a member of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Science Working Group (LEXSWG) that devised scientific strategies of lunar exploration, and the Planetary Geology Working Group, which monitors overall directions in the planetary research community. Paul served on the Committee for Planetary and Lunar Exploration (COMPLEX), an advisory committee of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Synthesis Group, a White House panel that in 1990-1991, analyzed a return to the Moon to establish a base and the first human mission to Mars.

More information about Paul Spudis and the importance of the Moon can be found at his website: http://www.spudislunarresources.com

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