Shackleton Energy Company

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Shackleton Energy Company

Type Private

Industry Aerospace

Founded 2007

Founder Bill Stone

Dale Tietz
Jim Keravala

Headquarters Del Valle, Texas

United States

Key people Bill Stone (Chairman)

Dale Tietz (CEO)
Jim Keravala (COO)
Erika Ilves[1]

Website shackletonenergy.com

Shackleton Energy Company was formed in 2007 in Del Valle, Texas to build equipment and
technologies necessary for mining the Moon. Shackleton Energy was a subsidiary of Piedra-Sombra
Corporation[2] until March 2011, when it was incorporated as an independent C-corporation in the
State of Texas.[3]

Contents

 1Plans
 2Rationale
 3Failed crowdfunding
 4Project phasing
 5Legal regime absent
 6See also
 7References
 8External links

Plans[edit]
Shackleton intended to undertake lunar prospecting,[4] but has met no milestones and failed to
secure funding.
The company planned to develop an "industrial astronaut corps" that would select individuals who
have many of the characteristics of previous explorers—such as Ernest Shackleton, Edmund
Hillary and Lewis and Clark.[5] They further state that they plan to have humans stationed on the
Moon by March 2021[6]

Rationale[edit]
In the belief that significant reserves of ice will be located, the company hopes to establish a network
of "refueling service stations" in low Earth orbit (LEO) and on the Moon to process and provide fuel
and consumables for commercial and government customers.[7] Shackleton hopes to build a fuel-
processing operation on the lunar surface and in propellant depots in LEO. Their equipment would
be designed to melt the ice and purify the water, "electrolyze the water into
gaseous hydrogen and oxygen, and could condense the gases into liquid hydrogen and liquid
oxygen and also process them into hydrogen peroxide, all of which could be used as rocket fuels.
Should other volatiles like ammonia or methane be discovered, they, too, would be processed into
fuel, fertilizer, and other useful products."[7]
They stated that the economics that would make the enterprise potentially profitable are based on
the relatively low costs of getting fuels and other consumables from the Moon into low Earth orbit,
because "such a haul requires just 1/14th to 1/20th of the fuel it takes to bring material up from
Earth."[7]

Failed crowdfunding[edit]
Shackleton began a US$1.2 million crowdfunding campaign in November 2011 for seed funding,
working with crowdfunding partner RocketHub.[8][9] At the end of the fund raising period, only $5,517
was raised of the $1.2 million (0.46%) they hoped for.[10]

Project phasing[edit]
Shackleton originally planned a phased project through 2020.[11] Their plans were funding dependent
on a raise in early 2013. However, funding was not secured. There have been no updates as to their
progress.

1. 2012 - 2014: Systems planning and enterprise planning were to happen .

2. 2014: Robotic precursor missions, lasting two to three years, were projected to begin as
early as 2014.
3. 2014 (concurrent): Establish prototyping and engineering infrastructure in LEO to test
interchangeable modules.
4. Establish production-scale equipment and transport vehicles, both in LEO and on the surface
of the Moon. Once the lunar polar base confirmed and equipment is landed, human teams
follow to monitor and operate facility for water ice extraction.

Legal regime absent[edit]

Although the requisite legal regime to enable the ice mining technology does not exist,[12] major world
space agencies, including NASA, have put in place a "voluntary, non-binding coordination forum (the
Coordination Mechanism) where nations can share plans for space exploration and collaborate to
strengthen both individual projects and the collective effort."[13]

See also