This afternoon the ORE Syndicate announced its intention to begin SCC-market sales and distribution of moon mining equipment, as well as components and building blocks for the construction of deep-space starbases. The type of equipment in question has not, up until now, been made available on open markets due to the immense startup costs associated with its use. According to ORE CFO Nase Bekour, however, the concurrent release of revolutionary new moon mining equipment into the open markets will drastically increase the feasibility of such endeavors for smaller corporations and entities. Market analysts agree that the most likely target market for the new technologies will be pod pilots, that specific class of spaceship captain qualified to fly ships outfitted with capsule technology. Now numbering just over fifty thousand, this breed has taken to the outer regions, where they have formed their own alliances and dominate vast tracts of space, coming into constant conflict with each other as well as the regions' native pirate inhabitants. With the massive capital these capsuleer organizations have at their disposal, it is considered very likely that they will be the primary benefactors of this new technology. ORE's announcement has met with mixed reaction in interstellar political circles. A spokesman for the Caldari Chief Executive Panel was quoted as saying the CEP wished to initiate discussion with the Syndicate on the advisability of proceeding in this manner, and the rest of the empires made statements much in the same vein. The Jovians, as is their wont, made no comment. According to the announcement, the new equipment will hit the markets November 17th.