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Google Backs $25 Million 'Lunar X Prize'
On Sep 13, 2:11 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Google Backs $25 Million 'Lunar X Prize' http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/te...xprize.html?hp quote The prize for reaching the moon and completing the basic tasks of roving and sending video and data will bring the winner $20 million, according to the contest rules; an additional $5 million would be awarded for additional tasks that include roving more than 5,000 meters or sending back images of man-made artifacts like lunar landers from the Apollo program. end quote Expires sort of 1-1-2013, rather soon... GOOGLE's 'Lunar X Prize' $30 Million Foremost, they'll obviously need at least a one-way viable fly-by- rocket soft lander with loads of reliable down-range flight capability, whereas that accomplishment alone might also be a first time quest, especially since there's nothing even within the very best of any R&D prototype that's quite up to such a task of demonstrating that level of perfected robotic talent, as is. BTW, unless our NASA/Apollo wizards were not sharing the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it should not take hardly any kind of delivery rocket, especially with such a small robotic payload of perhaps as little as 1% the nearly 50 tonnes worth of those supposed rad-hard Apollo missions that got off Earth within their nearly 30% inert GLOW, and were otherwise stuck with utilizing a mere 60:1 ratio of rocket per payload, plus the fact that unlike accommodating our frail DNA there's no great hurry in getting such robotics there (could take advantage of as much as a full lunar month or two). A one-way fly-by-rocket ticket to ride might by now actually be affordably doable, and you'd have to believe with such R&D efforts being fully prototype demonstrable, at least at nearly zero payload and hosting minimal fly-by-rocket down-range capacity so as to fully simulate their 1/6th gravity at full-scale application. A terrestrial R&D controlled mini-deorbit could certainly be simulated and thereby accomplished, along with at least a km worth of controlled down range past a simulated mascon issue, whereas the actual lunar deorbit and electrostatic dusty down-range trek of demanding 10s of km worth of multiple and continuous controlled reaction thrusting, as such might not have to be fully proof-tested, especially if those impressive supercomputers in charge of those fully modulated thrusters and of those momentum reaction wheels are each doing their thing, with sufficient energy and fuel to spare. http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lun...new-generation About the Prize Purse: · The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. To win the Second Prize, a team must land their spacecraft on the Moon, rove and transmit data back to Earth. Second place will be available until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. · Bonus prizes will be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances ( 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days). The competing lunar spacecraft will be equipped with high- definition video and still cameras, and will send images and data to Earth, which the public will be able to view on the Google Lunar X PRIZE website. - In addition to this GOOGLE 'Lunar X Prize' of $30 million, there has already been the ongoing official NASA prize that's offered for anyone getting the first of such fly-by-rocket lander through its R&D and protype phase, of subsequently demonstrating the talents and team expertise of how such applied fly-by-rocket technology can under the very best of terrestrial conditions safely manage a given simulated deorbit and down-range task of soft landing without losing its cookies. Thus far, they're not even close to having accomplished this for-real simulated deorbit drop and down-range test, that which includes a reasonably controlled down-range and at least one repeat soft landing function, without something going terribly wrong, and damn spendy wrong as well as at least thus far demonstrating their 100% humanly lethal aspects at that. These lander prototypes are of course configured with minimal payload and least amount of inert structural mass and limited fuel, so that they do in fact simulate the real application as though operating at 1/6th gravity. They are also using a lower CG, the most modern of sensors, momentum reaction wheels and nearly supercomputers, as well as fully modulated reaction thrusters that simply didn't exist as of those Apollo missions (of which most all documentation and whatever supposed expertise has been lost or hidden by some damn fool), and those efforts are still not good enough or much less trustworthy enough for any public demonstration. Of course them Russans of far better robotic fly-by-rocket expertise would be having the very same demo complications. - Brad Guth - |
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