Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE to Create a Space Race for a New Generation

[savuporo]

Im actually very supportive of the prize, i'd be glad to be part of any teams myself ( anyone needs a embedded developer, with lotsa robotics and control systems background ? )

When i said "PR material for google", i meant it as a good, useful PR material ( since when did any mention of PR begin meaning "shooting it down?" )

Google is a internet company, they should know how to present stuff on the net to attract lots of public interest, there are plenty of opportunities here. However, you need to have some good core material to keep people interested and coming back to your site. Having rough plans from teams competing, publishing progress news once in a while, the works.

Lunar Lander Challenge website for example got off to a good start ( http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge/ )  with the Participant overview, "Team Matchup page" and so on. However, it hasnt been updated much and isnt very well publicised, people dont stumble on it often. There is no comments section, no updates from teams ( or at least aggregated newsfeed from team blogs or something )

Google definitely has resources to pull something better off. Provided, that the core material to work with is actually worth something .. which brings me back to my original point.

There should be some entry barriers for the teams, to keep clowns and just viewgraph sketchers out.

[kevin-rf]

colbourne - 19/9/2007  4:37 AM
I guess an inflatable crash bag could do the trick if we can slow the spacecraft down with the ion drive enough.

Seriously look at the plans for ranger 3 and 5. The plan was to hard land a seismometer on the moon wrapped in a balsa wood shell with a solid retro rocket. And this was in the 60's. Obviously the closing speed is low enough that a lander equiped with a simple retro and a balsa wood shell or air bags could surive. If you use Ion power to go from earth orbit to lunar impact a fairly large rover with a solid retro can be launched on a pegasus or falcon I or a GTO hitch hiker or ... You just have to budget large solar panels, the ion engine, the rover and the  retro.

There is an excellent pdf on the history of ranger, only 471 pages ;-)

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19780007206_1978007206.pdf

[hop]

colbourne - 19/9/2007  1:37 AM

I wish that the competition had been to Mars instead , as then we could use aerobraking instead of having to rely on rocket thrusters.

That would certainly reduce the odds of google having to pay out. Mars is FAR harder than the moon, for many reasons.

I guess an inflatable crash bag could do the trick if we can slow the spacecraft down with the ion drive enough.

For all practical purposes, using any current ion drive would be the same as not slowing down at all. For example, the PPS-1350 hall thruster on smart-1 is rated at 88 milli-newtons of thrust, and has a mass of 5.3 kg It's not entirely clear what that mass includes, but certainly not 1.5KW worth of solar panels.

Needless to say, this kind of thrust/mass ratio cannot prevent a multi km/s impact on the moon, from which "crash bags" will offer little comfort.

A solid retro as kevin-rf suggests is an entirely different proposition. It can relatively easily soak up the required dV, although I suspect mass constraints will argue for a softer landing and a higher ISP rocket. A minimum mass rover is going to be more delicate than a simple seismometer.

[savuporo]

to fit on Falcon-class payloads ( ~700kg ), you realistically have to have above 350 ISP for the entire LEO to lunar surface leg.
Probably single gimballed engine or single set of differentially throttled engines, dropping tanks may or may not help the payload mass fraction,
Big single set of tanks: better volume to surface area ratio, multiple sets of drop tanks : less weight for next burns, but added complexity and weight of dropping systems, plus poorer volume to surface area.
Lox/Methane or Lox/Propane could fit the bill.

[Michael Z Freeman]

savuporo - 20/9/2007  12:47 AM  When i said "PR material for google", i meant it as a good, useful PR material ( since when did any mention of PR begin meaning "shooting it down?" )

I thought you were being facetious. In the UK any mention of PR, or "Spin" is usually a chance to have a gripe at the system and the money bags. So, yes, nothing wrong with Google generating a bit of publicity ... the whole point of this commercial space enterprize anyway, is exactly that, to be commercial !  

Google is a internet company, they should know how to present stuff on the net to attract lots of public interest, there are plenty of opportunities here. However, you need to have some good core material to keep people interested and coming back to your site. Having rough plans from teams competing, publishing progress news once in a while, the works.  Lunar Lander Challenge website for example got off to a good start ( http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge/ )  with the Participant overview, "Team Matchup page" and so on. However, it hasnt been updated much and isnt very well publicised, people dont stumble on it often. There is no comments section, no updates from teams ( or at least aggregated newsfeed from team blogs or something )  Google definitely has resources to pull something better off.

I'll have a closer look at the site. That's a good point. As a net enthusiast myself I know what you mean. It's at it's best when there are up to date continuous reports. When a remote interested party actually feels like they are being bought into the buzz of the whole thing. Maybe something like NASA TV's "The Edge" program would do the trick. Where we have the "expert" and the "newbie" interviewing various people in a humorous way. That could be published on Google Video. I wonder if it would stretch to a full time streaming TV channel ?

I have aspirations of joining a team, but I don't have engineering or development skills. I do have lots of multimedia and artistic skills though... hmmmmmmm.

DJ Barney 

 

[Michael Z Freeman]

I received this information from X Prize..

Subject:	RE: Publicity
Date:	Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:36:51 -0400
From:	"Becky Ramsey"
To:	"barney holmes"

   

Thank you for your interest in the Google Lunar X PRIZE! We are setting up a team information section on the Google Lunar X PRIZE website (www.googlelunarxprize.org), which will include: general team information, a way to contact the teams, blogs, multimedia, upcoming events, etc. This section will include a way to express interest in joining a team or offering a particular area of expertise to teams. We are just now beginning to receive official team registrations, and teams will need some time to gather content for the team information section. I encourage you to watch the website for future updates!

Regards,

Becky Ramsey

                                                                   

[MKremer]

(cynical) Oooooh! A marketing / PR webspace! OOOooooh! (/cynical)

[ckiki lwai]

I have some questions on how to get there.
Like how hard is it to build an upperstage to launch your rover to the moon, to get into lunar orbit and then land?
And for piggyback riding, could this student made upperstage be dangerous for other satellites onboard?
And how about communications? How big does your antenna need to be to receive HD television?
And for the bonus prizes, water ice only appears at the poles, how much extra fuel would it take to land there?
Because finding water ice would be very important for a moonbase in the future, and while being on a lunar pole it could be "easy" to ride to the far side of the moon (automatically of course) to keep it exposed to sunlight.

[jacqmans]

MEDIA ADVISORY: 07-145

NASA OFFERS $2 MILLION LUNAR LANDER COMPETITION PRIZE

WASHINGTON - During the X PRIZE Cup Oct. 27-28, NASA's Centennial
Challenges Program will offer prizes totaling $2 million if competing
teams successfully meet the requirements of the Northrop Grumman
Lunar Lander Challenge. The challenge will take place at Holloman Air
Force Base, in Alamogordo, N.M.

The purpose of the lunar lander challenge is to accelerate technology
development leading to a commercial vehicle that could one day be
capable of ferrying cargo or humans back and forth between lunar
orbit and the moon's surface.

To win the prize, teams must demonstrate a rocket-propelled vehicle
and payload that takes off vertically, climbs to a defined altitude,
flies for a pre-determined amount of time, and then land vertically
on a target that is a fixed distance from the launch pad. After
landing, the vehicle must take off again within a predetermined time,
fly for a certain amount of time and then land back on its original
launch pad. There are two levels of difficulty, with awards for first
and second place at each level.

For more information about the Wirefly X PRIZE Cup, visit:

http://space.xprize.org/x-prize-cup

For more information about NASA's Centennial Challenges program,
visit:

http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

[Adastra]

AM PARTICIPATING IN THIS EVENT AS COMPETITOR NO: 07. ANYBODY INTERESTED TO JOIN?


EMAIL ME.

VISIT moonforhumanity.zxq.net, please note, the contact page is actually disabled. So if you want to contact me, do it from here.

THANX

[jabe]

not sure if this was posted elsewhere yet... so...
isn't this sorta cheating?

Keep an eye out for Odyssey Moon Ventures — one of the contenders in the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition — to announce they have partnered with NASA for development of a robotic lunar lander

It increases chance of success and increases profile of competition but.....

anyone have any other thoughts?
jb

[corrodedNut]

Two more teams enter the fray:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28258165/

[Skyrocket]

Are there any teams, which can be considered serious contenders?

Any teams, which have a real chance to build and fly a lunar lander to the moon?

[Diagoras]

I think Astrobotic has chartered a Falcon 9 launch in 2012-2014. Anybody have that press release on hand?

[savuporo]

Out of 21 teams in running ?
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams

With most of these types of competitions, around 50% seem to be complete jokers, the rest of them have semi-credible ideas but mostly too ambitious, which usually leaves you with two or three contenders that could pull it off. Thats if the stars, but mostly funding, align right.

Of the current lineup, Odyssey moon and Astrobotic, perhaps also Selenokhod seem almost credible.
Any one that talks about developing their own launchers can be counted out.

[Garrett]

Of the current lineup, Odyssey moon and Astrobotic, perhaps also Selenokhod seem almost credible.
Any one that talks about developing their own launchers can be counted out.

I thought ARCA looked quite credible, and they're developing their own launcher:
http://www.arcaspace.ro/en/home.htm
http://www.arcaspace.ro/en/haas.htm
http://www.arcaspace.ro/en/ele.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Lunar_Explorer

I sure hope they work on aesthetics before going to the moon!

[corrodedNut]

I think Astrobotic has chartered a Falcon 9 launch in 2012-2014. Anybody have that press release on hand?

See here:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php#7

Hope that helps.

[savuporo]

I thought ARCA looked quite credible, and they're developing their own launcher:

Look at their long history of claims vs. what they have actually ever flown. No.

[hop]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/08/06/4834280-nasa-backs-commercial-moonshots (via http://twitter.com/Astro_Ron )

NASA says it'll buy up to $30.1 million worth of data about robotic lander projects - basically doubling the potential impact of the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize.

Neat.  I'm still dubious this prize will be claimed, but this seems like a good way for NASA to contribute.

[Danderman]

Whatever happened to this prize? How could a participant afford a launch to the Moon for such a small prize?