Author Topic: GLXP Update Thread  (Read 93323 times)

Offline koraldon

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #160 on: 01/08/2018 03:26 am »
According to SpaceIL website, they are making technical prograss:
Fuel tanks integration on s/c - http://www.spaceil.com/news/integration-of-the-fuel-tanks-into-the-spacecraft/
Testing of the landing gear - http://www.spaceil.com/news/testing-the-landing-gear-the-spacecrafts-legs/

Offline ringsider

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #161 on: 01/08/2018 11:01 am »
"To date, the non-profit has raised a sum of $55 million, but to complete its mission, it requires a total of $85 million."

Wow. Just raising the first $55m is pretty good going to be honest.

Offline jamesh9000

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #162 on: 01/09/2018 07:06 pm »
Oh Dear. "TeamIndus, The First Indian Space Start-Up, Drops Out Of Moon Race".

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/team-indus-the-first-indian-space-start-up-drops-out-of-moon-race-1797928

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Sources said TeamIndus was unable to mobilise the funds or technological resources to put the mission together. It was planning to build India's first privately funded spacecraft, which would have been able to achieve a soft-landing on moon, piggybacking on Indian space agency ISRO's PSLV rocket.

To me, this would seem to be the end of the competition, as it would take Hakuto out as well. The PSLV was the only rocket being used that actually exists and is flying, and isn't backed up years on it's manifest. I certainly thought these two teams had the best chance. I suppose one of the other teams could pull out a hail mary but it's such a long shot I wouldn't hold my breath.

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #163 on: 01/10/2018 02:41 pm »
Moon Express would seem to me to be the only one still capable of a flight around the time of the deadline.  More likely they will be delayed beyond that, but I would still say the only one likely to fly this year.

Offline koraldon

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #164 on: 01/10/2018 05:51 pm »
I doubt anyone is going to make it to the moon by March 2018.
It is probably GLXP call, but if they make it March 2019, this might help. Of course, we might say the same thing in a year's time.
Except for SpaceIL updates and now team indus pullout, I'm not sure what are the other teams status.
I know astrobotic is out but still working on something? The same for PT scientists...

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #165 on: 01/10/2018 07:59 pm »
I doubt anyone is going to make it to the moon by March 2018.
It is probably GLXP call, but if they make it March 2019, this might help. Of course, we might say the same thing in a year's time.
Except for SpaceIL updates and now team indus pullout, I'm not sure what are the other teams status.
I know astrobotic is out but still working on something? The same for PT scientists...

IIRC Astrobotics booked a rideshare Atlas V flight in 2019 for their landing attempt on the Moon.

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #166 on: 01/10/2018 08:16 pm »
Astrobotic and PTScientists are both talking about flights in 2019, outside the GLXP.  I have just been following the NASA lunar lander meeting at NASA Ames :

https://lunar-landing.arc.nasa.gov/

where less than an hour ago (as I write this), both Astrobotic and iSpace (the Hakuto parent company) spoke of flights in 2019. 


Offline ringsider

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #167 on: 01/10/2018 09:03 pm »
Moon Express would seem to me to be the only one still capable of a flight around the time of the deadline.  More likely they will be delayed beyond that, but I would still say the only one likely to fly this year.
Did they show anything more substantial than a model spacecraft?

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Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #168 on: 01/10/2018 09:12 pm »
Moon Express would seem to me to be the only one still capable of a flight around the time of the deadline.  More likely they will be delayed beyond that, but I would still say the only one likely to fly this year.
Did they show anything more substantial than a model spacecraft?
Yes. I've seen their tests.

Seen their demoralized, overworked GenY staff. Don't believe in their investors (one told me he no longer invests in space), or management, who has driven away the best of their talent, in order to feed a singular ego.

And also don't believe in their orbital mechanics, nor that their LV/provider is up to such a mission this year.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #169 on: 01/10/2018 10:22 pm »
Kinda wish GLXP would die so we can see if there's any deep pockets willing to pick up the pieces.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #170 on: 01/10/2018 11:32 pm »
Kinda wish GLXP would die so we can see if there's any deep pockets willing to pick up the pieces.
Understand the sentiment for this "half working" ... thing.

There has been some incredible work, and I'm amazed it got as far as it did.

Don't know of any specific "follow on" "pickups" as you'd suggest. These efforts aren't arranged that way.

That they got so far, and raised so much, means that they are in some cases close to "striking distance". Surprise.

Most have some idea as how to continue on past GLXP. Others will just go away.

Interestingly, you have enough to fund a launch of multiple ones on a single LV. So likely some will fly anyways, eventually.

Two things missing from GLXP  - structuring the deadline, and assessing reasonable launch contracts. Too much upfront time to get to an advanced state (e.g. a credible mission), too little time to finance/launch such. Launch contracts should only have been acceptable if said LV had even made it to any kind of orbit a once, and that the contract/deadline, relative to the provider/means, could actually make it to the pad before expiration (including stand-downs/other issues).

If you were going to do a "GLXP 2", you'd want to clear away the "launch obstacle" better.

The best of these have had good investors/management. As a result, they tend to find a way.

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #171 on: 01/11/2018 12:09 am »
If team is relying on prize money they are probably doomed. Best teams have business plan that doesn't need prize money but would be nice bonus if they could win it.

Offline koraldon

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #172 on: 01/11/2018 03:32 pm »
Kinda wish GLXP would die so we can see if there's any deep pockets willing to pick up the pieces.
If those deep pockets exist they will just be vultures. Nobody stopping anybody from starting their own private lunar lander company.
Anyway, based on past teams folding, I'm not sure how much hardware exists - except for SpaceIL and maybe moon express. Based on what is shown from Team Indus it is mostly test hardware and not flight.
Moon express changed the lander concept radically and have some strange numbers - doubt they have any actual flight hardware.
Only SpaceIL have shown actual hardware and they also outsourced quite a lot of work to local aerospace companies, mainly IAI.

Offline Pomerantz

Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #173 on: 01/22/2018 06:37 pm »
First, a little disclosure, for anyone who doesn't already know: I was the main author of the Google Lunar XPRIZE rules, and I ran or was part of the team running the prize from its inception through early 2011. So, obviously I've got both knowledge and bias on this topic!

I've summed up my basic feelings on the prize before, but they are fairly in line with what Space Ghost said above. I'll be sad if it does indeed wind down in the next few months without a winner, but mainly I'll be pleased that (I suspect) multiple teams will live through that ending and continue on as serious, meaningful efforts. Don't get me wrong, not awarding a prize will be a bummer to me personally, but despite what the heart feels, the brain knows that what comes next is actually what matters most.

The fact that teams are still in it for the moment despite the three pillars upon the prize was built (a flush venture capital market, cheap access to space in the form of Dnepr and Falcon 1, and massive lunar programs from basically every government space agency) all being knocked down within a year or so of the prize being created is truly astounding to me.  The fact that more than 3x the target number of teams registered to compete, and that some of those teams were as talented as they were, still boggles my mind.

There are still some untold stories that both thrill and devastate me. The most tantalizing/frustrating of which is that there was an individual investor who was prepared to write a >$100M check to fund a single team all the way back in 2008, but eventually was so put off by the fact that the university affiliated with the team was going to take out such a large amount of overhead that the deal never closed, and the team never even registered. The fact that the prize got such a deal to the point where it was literally one phone call away from happening tells me it was probably worth doing even if just for that.

Some other thoughts, in response to these:

Two things missing from GLXP  - structuring the deadline, and assessing reasonable launch contracts. Too much upfront time to get to an advanced state (e.g. a credible mission), too little time to finance/launch such. Launch contracts should only have been acceptable if said LV had even made it to any kind of orbit a once, and that the contract/deadline, relative to the provider/means, could actually make it to the pad before expiration (including stand-downs/other issues).

If you were going to do a "GLXP 2", you'd want to clear away the "launch obstacle" better.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean with the first part of this quote. The GLXP is intentionally pretty unstructured on purpose. The thought is that if, let's say, Blue Origin, Skunk Works, and Masten each tried to win the prize, they'd take three very different paths and proceed along three very different timelines. We very much want to be open to each path, because I for one think any of the three of those have the capability to win the prize and to persist afterwards.

A similar type of theory applies to the second point. When I was in charge of the GLXP, we kept all of the initial hurdles as low as possible. To register a team, you basically had to be able to raise $10,000 and you couldn't be relying on alien technology or artificial gravity. This means that we admitted teams about whom we were incredibly skeptical. But our guiding thought was that if prize runners set high hurdles at the beginning or in the middle of prize competitions, rather than just at the end, we likely would never have had a John Harrison or a Charles Lindbergh in those competitions. To bring that forward to today, if we applied those kinds of tests, I probably wouldn't have kept TrueZer0 or Unreasonable Rocket in the Lunar Lander Challenge--a lot of very smart people were very wrong about both of those groups, and they continued being wrong about them basically right up until the moment they had rocket taking off under the watchful eyes of our awesome judges.

Lastly, in regards to removing the launch obstacle, this is a very sensible solution. It's actually something we looked at when I was still at XPRIZE. We internally considered lowering the prize purse a bit, but then going out and procuring a ride on a Falcon 9. It was an intriguing idea, but ultimately we decided against it for several reasons.

* It would put us in the position of picking who got a spot on the rocket. Certainly a fairly likely scenario is that only a few teams would have anything resembling flight hardware, but what if more teams want spots than there is room on the rocket? Is XPF really a good org to pick who gets the spots and who doesn't? Would we leave a future Lindbergh on the ground because we filled up the rocket with Fonck, Nungesser, and Byrd?
* How do you divvy up the rocket into discrete spots? Presumably you carve up the total TLI capacity of a rocket into a certain number of equal mass, equal volume spots. But what if teams think the best design is a little bigger than that? Or what if it's actually much much smaller than that? How early do you call your shot, and how? Can you set up some kind of auction system? How?
* For that matter, is TLI the right 'place' to send the rocket? Some teams innovated about their cruise stage--are we basically eliminating that part of the competition? Should we? Or maybe we should go further, and go all the way to lunar orbit insertion, or something else...
* We're putting all of our eggs in one basket. What if the launch fails? Or the fleet is grounded?
* How do you pick a launch vehicle without favoring some teams over the others? If we pick the Falcon 9, does the team based in China really have a chance? Do all teams based in the US have an advantage over everyone else? Similarly, if we pick the PSLV, are we adding a burden to our US teams?
* Let's say we solve all of the above, pick a vehicle, pick a selection method. Then, on final integration day, only one team shows up. Do we delay the launch? Does we really have the guts to launch a rocket that is 75% empty (presumably not literally empty, but empty of prize competitors? Is that really even a good thing to do?

I thought, and continue to think, that this is a fascinating idea. And I bet you could make a cool competition out of it. It's just not clear to me that it would actually be a better competition than what the GLXP was. If I could send a message back in time to the days when we were designing the GLXP, I'd probably start with other tips.
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I post here for fun, but in the interest of full disclosure, I work for Virgin Orbit. That said, I'm an honest fan of pretty much everything space.

Offline Andy Bandy

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #174 on: 01/23/2018 03:40 am »
Moon Express would seem to me to be the only one still capable of a flight around the time of the deadline.  More likely they will be delayed beyond that, but I would still say the only one likely to fly this year.

Bob Richards showed off a model of the lander last summer. I think they said they would reveal more in September, but that came and went. The last actual hardware I remember seeing was involved in some landing tests but that was years ago. It's not clear that Electron can get them to the moon. In short I'm not sure there's any there there.
« Last Edit: 01/23/2018 03:41 am by Andy Bandy »

Offline Llian Rhydderch

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #175 on: 01/23/2018 12:15 pm »
So if there is "no there, there" (flight-ready lander hardware) from Bob Richards and Moon Express, then the recent successful orbital launch of the first Electron LV from Rocket Lab would seem to make no difference.

I thought I saw that Moon Express was still pushing that Electron launch by 31st March 2018.  No?

Anyone have insight into that?
Re arguments from authority on NSF:  "no one is exempt from error, and errors of authority are usually the worst kind.  Taking your word for things without question is no different than a bracket design not being tested because the designer was an old hand."
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Offline ethan829

Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #176 on: 01/23/2018 12:42 pm »
https://twitter.com/TeamIndus/status/955789080465297409
Quote
2017 has been a defining year for TeamIndus and as we move into the New Year, we want to thank you all for the support till date.

Since the beginning, we’ve tried to make this an open and accessible mission. Stay tuned as we share what the future holds for us on 25th Jan.

Offline meberbs

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #177 on: 01/23/2018 03:09 pm »
So if there is "no there, there" (flight-ready lander hardware) from Bob Richards and Moon Express, then the recent successful orbital launch of the first Electron LV from Rocket Lab would seem to make no difference.

I thought I saw that Moon Express was still pushing that Electron launch by 31st March 2018.  No?

Anyone have insight into that?

Best and most recent insight I have seen into Moon express is from NASA's Lunar Catalyst program.

It looks like the passed TRR (test readiness review) for component radiation testing back in September.

By now they are supposed to have:
-vacuum engine tests
-start manufacturing
-structural tests

In February:
-Avionics integration
-TVAC

And finally launch readiness review in May.

Putting aside that the Jan/Feb part of the schedule seems ridiculously compressed, it looks like even back in September the expectation did not allow for launching before the X-prize deadline. (Interestingly, they plan launch 2 just 6 months after launch 1.)

Offline Andy Bandy

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #178 on: 01/23/2018 08:26 pm »
So the prize could have been won if the right billionaire had written a $100 million plus check back in 2008. One team getting that much money and the great recession might well have driven out all other competitors. Unless they could get a rival billionaire to pony up that much money in the middle of the great recession. The Ansari X Prize went much the same way; one winner backed by a billionaire and the other teams fading away.

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: GLXP Update Thread
« Reply #179 on: 01/23/2018 09:47 pm »
First, a little disclosure, for anyone who doesn't already know: I was the main author of the Google Lunar XPRIZE rules, and I ran or was part of the team running the prize from its inception through early 2011. So, obviously I've got both knowledge and bias on this topic!
Indeed. Thank you for this post.

Quote
I'll be sad if it does indeed wind down in the next few months without a winner, but mainly I'll be pleased that (I suspect) multiple teams will live through that ending and continue on as serious, meaningful efforts. Don't get me wrong, not awarding a prize will be a bummer to me personally, but despite what the heart feels, the brain knows that what comes next is actually what matters most.
Sorry for the bummer. Glad that you still did it. It was, and is a first. You still get a "gold star".

Quote
The fact that teams are still in it for the moment despite the three pillars upon the prize was built (a flush venture capital market, cheap access to space in the form of Dnepr and Falcon 1, and massive lunar programs from basically every government space agency) all being knocked down within a year or so of the prize being created is truly astounding to me.  The fact that more than 3x the target number of teams registered to compete, and that some of those teams were as talented as they were, still boggles my mind.
Suggest that this also played into the near miss here (a three time near miss!).

Both Dnepr and Falcon 1 aren't flying. If there was more "small" LV, things might have been different (Pegasus doesn't count unfortunately for various reasons I won't go into).

Quote
There are still some untold stories that both thrill and devastate me. The most tantalizing/frustrating of which is that there was an individual investor who was prepared to write a >$100M check to fund a single team all the way back in 2008, but eventually was so put off by the fact that the university affiliated with the team was going to take out such a large amount of overhead that the deal never closed, and the team never even registered. The fact that the prize got such a deal to the point where it was literally one phone call away from happening tells me it was probably worth doing even if just for that.
Few people understand the different administrative dilemmas in university, aerospace, and investment/angel/private.

(You didn't know you could do this by a means of a JV that the university contributes IP/staff time to, and it varies (Stanford/MIT/Berkeley/UCLA/CU for example all handle this differently.) And once you've opened the wrong can of worms, you can't close it. I've done these twice, and the only reason they came off was because all were unbelievably micromanaged to avoid this trap, and the fact that in both examples the wealthy individuals had been professors aware of this nightmare beforehand. And with all that the university was STILL trying to do it the entire damn time. I'm sorry you were put in that position, it's awful.

Quote
Some other thoughts, in response to these:

Two things missing from GLXP  - structuring the deadline, and assessing reasonable launch contracts. Too much upfront time to get to an advanced state (e.g. a credible mission), too little time to finance/launch such. Launch contracts should only have been acceptable if said LV had even made it to any kind of orbit a once, and that the contract/deadline, relative to the provider/means, could actually make it to the pad before expiration (including stand-downs/other issues).

If you were going to do a "GLXP 2", you'd want to clear away the "launch obstacle" better.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean with the first part of this quote. The GLXP is intentionally pretty unstructured on purpose. The thought is that if, let's say, Blue Origin, Skunk Works, and Masten each tried to win the prize, they'd take three very different paths and proceed along three very different timelines. We very much want to be open to each path, because I for one think any of the three of those have the capability to win the prize and to persist afterwards.

Let me explain more. I meant that you structured the competition in a way that allowed more "upfront" successes on a portion of the endeavor, not that you limit how things are done/timelines/etc.

As an example of this (but not limited to), one could have the final step (perhaps a rover) prototyped and demonstrated by N teams (as the surface mission), then the descent and surface mission, likely by N-M teams, then the "cruise", descent, and surface mission ...

The suggestion was to have value be demonstrated, like with makerthons and hackathon, to advance the concept such that early value would be visible fast, such that private/other interests could have more reason to be encouraged into becoming a backer of the follow-on "rounds". From my involvement with these people, they are very impatient and sometimes erratic, and this settles down when they can "match" better (surprise, am a "match maker"). These are immensely proud people who fear embarrassment, even though they do dumb things even knowing ignorance, because their "gut" drives them (how they do investment in the first place, as an intensely emotional involvement).

Quote
A similar type of theory applies to the second point. When I was in charge of the GLXP, we kept all of the initial hurdles as low as possible. To register a team, you basically had to be able to raise $10,000 and you couldn't be relying on alien technology or artificial gravity. This means that we admitted teams about whom we were incredibly skeptical. But our guiding thought was that if prize runners set high hurdles at the beginning or in the middle of prize competitions, rather than just at the end, we likely would never have had a John Harrison or a Charles Lindbergh in those competitions. To bring that forward to today, if we applied those kinds of tests, I probably wouldn't have kept TrueZer0 or Unreasonable Rocket in the Lunar Lander Challenge--a lot of very smart people were very wrong about both of those groups, and they continued being wrong about them basically right up until the moment they had rocket taking off under the watchful eyes of our awesome judges.
Suggest it always has to be "real", at every step and with every "partner", including launch providers.

Real means a plan where the time and money of each step has a greater than zero percent chance. Which steps up as time elapses.

Quote
Lastly, in regards to removing the launch obstacle, this is a very sensible solution. It's actually something we looked at when I was still at XPRIZE. We internally considered lowering the prize purse a bit, but then going out and procuring a ride on a Falcon 9. It was an intriguing idea, but ultimately we decided against it for several reasons.
Or, you could have booked as secondary payloads on multiple providers doing GTO insertions, where each of the customers for the launch would be a benefactor of the prize (post insertion and prior to stage disposal, one uses excess performance margin for a lunar transfer, with some restrictions on launch window/date). I've spoken with some and they were amenable.

Quote
* It would put us in the position of picking who got a spot on the rocket. Certainly a fairly likely scenario is that only a few teams would have anything resembling flight hardware, but what if more teams want spots than there is room on the rocket? Is XPF really a good org to pick who gets the spots and who doesn't? Would we leave a future Lindbergh on the ground because we filled up the rocket with Fonck, Nungesser, and Byrd?
Matter of competent judging.

Quote
* How do you divvy up the rocket into discrete spots? Presumably you carve up the total TLI capacity of a rocket into a certain number of equal mass, equal volume spots. But what if teams think the best design is a little bigger than that? Or what if it's actually much much smaller than that? How early do you call your shot, and how? Can you set up some kind of auction system? How?
The same way we allocate scientific instrument packages on any planetary mission - we have a mass/delta-v/power/thermal/whatever requirement for each as the mission develops.

You review as the contestants advance/fall-out/recover/make-up from last quarter. They start out with an overage that they have to work down over time, and as ones drop out, that frees up a resource for the others. At the late stage you do mission planning and integration, as things advance to flight quality.

Quote
* For that matter, is TLI the right 'place' to send the rocket? Some teams innovated about their cruise stage--are we basically eliminating that part of the competition? Should we? Or maybe we should go further, and go all the way to lunar orbit insertion, or something else...
You're right, there are multiple ways. Including SEP spiral out ...

But there aren't infinite ways (actually 5-6). And those ways have partners who do them. Consider them acceptable modes, and get back to the secondary payload model I mentioned above.

Quote
* We're putting all of our eggs in one basket. What if the launch fails? Or the fleet is grounded?
The key item is to have a means to launch. You can't do anything if you can't even get out of the gravity well. On time.

Quote
* How do you pick a launch vehicle without favoring some teams over the others? If we pick the Falcon 9, does the team based in China really have a chance? Do all teams based in the US have an advantage over everyone else? Similarly, if we pick the PSLV, are we adding a burden to our US teams?
Or, you can have the teams make multiple SC.

Almost every team will be making multiple SC as a means to handle test and evaluation. In the small handful number, there's little cost difference.

In this case, part of the program would be in the combined payload adapter or dispenser that would fly from those different global LV's.

Quote
* Let's say we solve all of the above, pick a vehicle, pick a selection method. Then, on final integration day, only one team shows up. Do we delay the launch? Does we really have the guts to launch a rocket that is 75% empty (presumably not literally empty, but empty of prize competitors? Is that really even a good thing to do?
You're really dealing with the mission coordinator or principal here.

I submit that when you don't have such, you almost never have a mission that gets off the ground. Because there is no one who is speaking for it, and making those decisions.

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I thought, and continue to think, that this is a fascinating idea. And I bet you could make a cool competition out of it. It's just not clear to me that it would actually be a better competition than what the GLXP was. If I could send a message back in time to the days when we were designing the GLXP, I'd probably start with other tips.

Which is why I'm attempting to contribute back here to you in a supportive way.

And this is a mere post. Meant to be crisp. Take it in the spirit of how it is offered.

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