Billionaire Wants To Mine The Moon

Billionaire Wants To Mine The Moon

Moon Express, a California-based company co-founded by billionaire entrepreneur Naveen Jain, is currently developing and testing commercial robotic spacecraft to land on the moon with a targeted date of 2016; one future goal is to mine the lunar body for its valuable contents.

A company backed by a billionaire entrepreneur has its sights set on one day mining the moon.

Its plan is to send the first commercial robotic spacecraft to the lunar body in 2016 with subsequent trips for “ongoing exploration and commercial development.”

The moon is known to contain vast amounts of valuable natural resources including gold, platinum, iron, and Helium-3 which is a valuable gas in nuclear power.

Based in the NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View, CA, Moon Express was founded in 2010 by three men, one of whom is billionaire entrepreneur Naveen Jain.

Though privately funded, its researchers are working closely with NASA which is encouraging U.S. commercial moon exploration through its Catalyst program.

In 2014, Moon Express became the first company to successfully complete test flights of its lunar lander prototype, and as a result, was awarded $1 million from the Google Lunar XPRIZE.

Can you find the words in the text that mean the opposite of these?

1. past

2. small, little, tiny

3. publicly

4. loosely

5. previous

6. infrequent, rare

7. worthless

8. excluding

9. to call back

10. artificial

Key:

1. future

2. vast

3. privately

4. closely

5. subsequent

6. ongoing

7. valuable

8. including

9. to send

10. natural