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

[Moe Grills]

Things take time, much longer than you think it will at first. Rutan's bird is just now getting ready to send people (and even then, it will take a while until paying folk go... I'm sure a good year after first breaking the Karman line in SpaceShipTwo), SpaceX took longer to get payloads to the Space Station than first expected, and there are several other examples.

Should we throw up our hands and give up? Does this mean it's all fake? Nope and nope.


It's taking longer than original projected, but that doesn't mean it's some kind of fake.

   First: My remark was directed at Mr. Allen, the sponsor of the prize money. It is he who is dangling a 'carrot' that is most likely out of reach
of all participants.

  Second: A Moon shot requires a booster of at least a million Newtons thrust, 1'st stage, for minimum payloads about the weight of a laptop; and that piece of launching hardware is NOT CHEAP.

  Third: If you plan to soft or hardland anything with electronics and supporting systems on the Moon, consider the Delta Vee to do it.
Roughly about negative 2500-2700 meters/second.
And with expensive hypergolic propellant at about 330 seconds of Isp,
the mass ratio is (off the top of my head) nearly 2.3.

So if any of the participants wants to send 230 kg to the Moon, make sure
130 kg of that is propellant.

Doable, I guess, if you have a few million dollars in your piggybank.

[Kryten]

510 kg empty?
16 tons fully loaded?

What is that rocket made of? Unobtainium?

That's only a 32:1 ratio of fueled to empty weight; given Atlas had over 50:1-at least as far as I can tell-it seems reasonable enough.

[R7]

What is that rocket made of? Unobtainium?

Probably cheapest composite money can buy, wood, some furniture metal pipes and paper mash. ARCA has produced many cool looking mock-ups but little else.

That's only a 32:1 ratio of fueled to empty weight; given Atlas had over 50:1-at least as far as I can tell-it seems reasonable enough.

Huh, which Atlas?

[Kryten]

Huh, which Atlas?

Was working off Mark Wade's figures for the Atlas-D core stage-turns out I ended up miscalculating slightly, but it still comes out as ~ 49:1

Stage 1. 1 x Atlas D. Gross Mass: 113,050 kg (249,230 lb). Empty Mass: 2,347 kg (5,174 lb).

[R7]

But that's just the core stage, Moe's figures are for entire LV. Include the 0-booster stage in Atlas D and ratio drops to 21.5

In any case it's apple (real 1.5STO) vs orange (imaginary SSTO)

[Kryten]

In any case it's apple (real 1.5STO) vs orange (imaginary SSTO)

Agree with you there. There's not really much point arguing about technical specs of a rocket when both it and any attempt to actually build it don't really exist.

[QuantumG]

The ignorance displayed on this thread in the last dozen posts (except for Robotbeat) is shocking.

Go read about the progress that the various teams are making. It's still likely that Moon Express will make the deadline, and maybe a few others too.

As for the prize money total, you *never* want to offer a prize so big that it attracts people who only want to win the prize and then go back to working on other things (or the next prize). What would be the point of that?

[Robotbeat]

If no one gets the prize, but two or three exploration-oriented businesses (like Astrobotic, for instance) are spun off as a result, then the return-on-investment of the prize money (not counting overhead) is infinite.

[Danderman]

The ignorance displayed on this thread in the last dozen posts (except for Robotbeat) is shocking.

Go read about the progress that the various teams are making. It's still likely that Moon Express will make the deadline, and maybe a few others too.

As for the prize money total, you *never* want to offer a prize so big that it attracts people who only want to win the prize and then go back to working on other things (or the next prize). What would be the point of that?

Let me address some of these issues.

First off, if there has been significant progress towards winning the prize, that news should be posted here.

Secondly, I did not state that the prize money should be equal or greater than the cost of mounting a mission, but that rather, the lack of significant progress by the teams is telling us that there are no significant secondary profits or downrange profits from the prize effort.

The reason that teams try to win prizes that don't recapture their costs is largely due to the existence of secondary profit centers  (or donors)  or the possibility of future profit streams from winning the prize. In this case, these have not materialized.

BTW, there is talk that the prize rules may be changed. This could only happen if no one is close to actually launching.

[spectre9]

Seems obvious to me.

In 2007 NASA was going to the moon. Now they're not.

[baldusi]

Seems obvious to me.

In 2007 NASA was going to the moon. Now they're not.

Actually LADEE is launching this year. Or may be you mean human crews?

[spectre9]

Yes, I was referring to CxP.

[Joel]

Barcelona Moon Team launch slips (by about a year?)

Barcelona Moon Team announces a new date for its launch attempt. It will be during June 2015 according to the new estimations of the team.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/barcelona-moon-team/blog/barcelona-moon-team-launch-shifts-june-2015

[hop]

From the ISRO general thread http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32023.msg1161842#msg1161842

Team Indus also needs $34 million (about Rs 200 crore) to build and launch the spacecraft. Isro itself will charge about Rs 100 crore for the launch

If ~$17 million for PSLV is the actual market price, that's would make at least one option that cost less than the prize purse. I've seen that number quoted for PSLV-CA before, but I'm not sure how reliable it is. How much can CA send to to the moon?  Chandrayaan 1 was launched on XL and reportedly 1.38 tons, but a substantial amount of that was used for propulsion. A naive extrapolation would suggest CA could do ~800kg to the same initial orbit. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=2008-052A says  Chandrayaan 1 dry mass was ~520kg. Taking the same ratio would give ~300kg (to lunar orbit, rather than direct landing).

From the same article: "We believe the US teams are spending some $80-90 million"
Somehow, I doubt any of the teams have that much to spend. They might need that much to actually fly.

edit:
Hmm, this was the most likely GLXP thread I found in search, but mods please move if there is a more current one.

[ChrisWilson68]

So it's September 2014.  16 months left.  There isn't much indications that any of the teams have actually booked launches, in spite of some earlier claims.  Astrobotic claimed they had booked a Falcon 9, but they're not on SpaceX's manifest, which is pretty full through the end of next year.  Team Indus claimed to be launching on an Indian launcher, but there hasn't been anything recently to indicate that's actually going to happen.

I'd love to see someone win this prize, but sadly it's looking pretty unlikely.  Or is there reason for optimism that I'm missing?

[as58]

I'd love to see someone win this prize, but sadly it's looking pretty unlikely.  Or is there reason for optimism that I'm missing?

Based on how the rules have been modified before, I guess there's a reason to be optimistic that the deadline for winning the prize will be extended once again.

[ChrisWilson68]

I'd love to see someone win this prize, but sadly it's looking pretty unlikely.  Or is there reason for optimism that I'm missing?

Based on how the rules have been modified before, I guess there's a reason to be optimistic that the deadline for winning the prize will be extended once again.

Would another extension really help?  If none of the teams has yet been able to raise the money to buy a launch, why would they be expected to do so in 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years?

I do think there's a reasonably good chance SpaceX will be able to get rapid first stage reuse working and sell cheap launches on used first stages before the end of the decade.  They might also have a lot of spare capacity on Falcon Heavy flights for secondary payloads.  Either of those and an extension to the Lunar X Prize deadline might be the only realistic hope the prize will be won.

[Kryten]

 At least one team does have a signed launch contract; Barcelona moon team.

[ChrisWilson68]

At least one team does have a signed launch contract; Barcelona moon team.

Astrobotic claimed the same thing about a flight of Falcon 9.  Then there was just silence and now they're not on the SpaceX manifest.

I think there's a difference between signing a deal for a launch and actually coming up with the money to pay for it later on when it becomes due.  Is there any indication that Barcelona Moon Team has come up with the money to keep their launch on track?  I haven't seen anything about a concrete launch date or position on the Chinese launch manifest.

[Kryten]

At least one team does have a signed launch contract; Barcelona moon team.

I think there's a difference between signing a deal for a launch and actually coming up with the money to pay for it later on when it becomes due.  Is there any indication that Barcelona Moon Team has come up with the money to keep their launch on track?  I haven't seen anything about a concrete launch date or position on the Chinese launch manifest.

This news posts shows they do have specific launch date arranged with CGWICG; beyond that there's a frustrating lack of specific information from either party. Their posts show that they've also ordered their lander's propulsion system from CGWIG, but none of them explicitly state if work has actually started on it or if it's part of the same contract. They haven't posted updates of any kind since february.