First, man landed on the moon.  The next step might be mining it for minerals. 

At least, that’s the business plan for Moon Express Inc., or MoonEx, a Silicon Valley start-up building robotic rovers capable of scouring the lunar surface for precious metals and rare metallic elements.  The company joins a growing group of entrepreneurs in the private space race. 

The private company is building its hardware alongside scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center northwest of San Jose.  It was co-founded by Naveen Jain, who made a fortune off his previous start-up InfoSpace Inc.; Barney Pell, the head architect behind Microsoft Corp.'s Bing Internet search engine; and Robert Richards, a commercial space entrepreneur. 

From my article in Friday’s Times:

MoonEx's machines are designed to look for materials that are scarce on Earth but found in everything from a Toyota Prius car battery to guidance systems on cruise missiles.  While there's no guarantee the moon is flush with these materials, MoonEx officials think it may be a "gold mine" of so-called rare earth elements. " From an entrepreneur's perspective, the moon has never truly been explored," said Naveen Jain, chairman and company co-founder. " We think it could hold resources that benefit Earth and all humanity." 

Aside from its founders' personal wealth and other outside investments, MoonEx has received a NASA contract that could be worth up to $10 million. 

The company is among several teams hoping to someday win the Google Lunar X Prize competition, a $30-million race to the moon in which a privately funded team must successfully place a robot on the moon's surface and have it explore at least 1/3 of a mile.  It also must transmit high definition video and images back to Earth before 2016. 

In the meantime, MoonEx is on firm financial footing, Jain said, notable because a moon launch would require massive investment.  MoonEx hasn't decided which rocket or company will launch its hardware quite yet, but one of the contenders is Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, Jain said. 

"MoonEx should be ready to land on the lunar surface by 2013," Jain said in the article. " It's our goal to be the first company there and stay there." 

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-- W.J. Hennigan

twitter.com/wjhenn

Images: From top, MoonEx logo and photo of company co-founder Naveen Jain.  Credit: MoonEx.