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I just looked trough the site and I could not find a single reference to the team they are using to hitch a ride on.

If im going to make a walking smartphone then i would love to know after the fees what actual Xprize team is offereing the ride.

since i did not find anything about the team that i would be hitching a ride on i can only assume its either one of the teams that has no chance of actually going there.

Or its just an elaborate way of promoting your cloud computing business

WOW WAIT A MINUTE AM I READING THIS CORRECTLY!
seems the team that the ride is hiched on is a team called Team Phoenicia after typing their name into google this link showed up.
http://www.googlelunarxprize.o...
AND THEIR STATUS IS WITHDRAWN THEY ARE NOT EVEN PART OF THE COMPETITION ANYMORE

to end with a line dogecoiners would say
Wow, Such Scam

Yes.... a privately funded company would be something like SpaceX, Planetary Resources, or Bigelow Aerospace. Amateur hobbyists are groups like a bunch of students and interested amateurs (perhaps even professionals working in their spare time) such as Team Pulli or Team FredNet. You can argue that they are likely not going to get to the Moon, but the point is that purely amateur hobbyists are participating in the GLXP and some have serious plans for actually getting to the Moon.

That some privately funded companies are also participating with GLXP is sort of besides the point, but it is worth mentioning that some folks think they can make the trip to the Moon through pure philanthropic donations or simply holding out a tin can begging people to help with their trip.

Yes.... a privately funded company would be something like SpaceX, Planetary Resources, or Bigelow Aerospace. Amateur hobbyists are groups like a bunch of students and interested amateurs (perhaps even professionals working in their spare time) such as Team Pulli or Team FredNet. You can argue that they are likely not going to get to the Moon, but the point is that purely amateur hobbyists are participating in the GLXP and some have serious plans for actually getting to the Moon.

That some privately funded companies are also participating with GLXP is sort of besides the point, but it is worth mentioning that some folks think they can make the trip to the Moon through pure philanthropic donations or simply holding out a tin can begging people to help with their trip.

Wake me up when the Chinese get anybody above 400 miles. I seriously doubt that any Chinese astronauts are going to do much of anything.

Besides, launching people into space only once every three years or so isn't going to give them the ability to do much of anything. I am significantly underwhelmed by the progress of the Chinese space agency and their ability to recreate the Ranger missions.... and boldly go where dozens of amateur rocket hobbyists plan to tread in the very near future.

There certainly is no plan by the Chinese Space Agency to develop the hard infrastructure needed for major missions like you are implying. They don't even have a good equivalent of the Deep Space Network.

I'm really tired of internet trolls dismissing United States' science and technology capabilities by inflating the significance of China landing a rover on the Moon. "OMG, China now owns the moon, they are the number 1 now, we all need to bow to China."

Here the reality check, Google is funding an X Prize for private rovers on the Moon, so what China did using the resource of a entire country is not only 40 years late, it's also something we're asking private enterprise to do for less than a day's profit of Google. The same is true for their manned capabilities, we have 2 private companies building spaceships for NASA, and more building sub-orbital planes/rockets, the vitality and innovation in the private space sector is something China cannot dream of as long as the communist party is in charge.

The only thing less optimal in the US space program is NASA's lack of direction in manned space flight and reduction of funding in automated missions, even so the projects they're working on (SLS, JWST, new Mars lander) far outpace China's plan in these areas (LM-5, more lunar probes with sample returns)

You might want to check out the team page on the Google Lunar X-Prize site for more details:

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/astrobotic

The GLXP site also has a blog with some conferences and even some video of at least some of the teams. I would presume that if they are on the SpaceX manifest, they have put some real money down to reserve a launch slot too.

Some of them did
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/teams/omega-envoy/blog/earthrise-space-inc-launches-kickstarter-project

As I recall Google has an outstanding promising $30 million to the first group to send a robot back to the moon. Maybe they're going for a moonshot to pad their budget!

Placing a satellite into orbit costs between 20 and 300 million.

Placing a satellite in orbit can cost as little as $40k. That is what a Cubesat launch costs. Groups of university students have put satellites in orbit.

Sending something to the Moon would cost more, but can probably be done for far less than $20 million. I know some people working on the Google Lunar X Prize, and their robot is about the size of a carton of cigarettes, and weighs less than a kg. Their plan is to put it in LEO, and then use an ion thruster to slowly build up to escape velocity. The biggest challenge is slowing down as they approach the Moon, but that requires far less energy that leaving the Earth.

I must see too much SF because this seems intuitively too easy.

You're correct.
 

500m and HD video is an hdpro in a transparent sphere with springs. The landing itself will make it move more than 500m. I rationally know that sending a 300g mass to the moon isn't trivial, but it does look easy.

By the time you add in enough batteries and the necessary radio equipment - you're looking at considerably more than 300g... and trying to bounce that weight (in earth equivalent) the length of a football field. (Your springs *alone* are going to weight several kg...)
 
But your scheme won't meet the intent of the rules anyhow.

The original NASA policy document is worth looking at, especially as it collects together a lot of interesting photos: http://go.nasa.gov/JDYo9v (links to PDF)

It is linked from the relevant X Prize press release: http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/media/press-releases/nasa-offers-guidelines-protect-historic-sites-moon

The contest is called the Google Lunar X Prize - and was announced back in 2007.

This was just a silly reporter from the BBC that was somehow impressed with the idea but otherwise clueless about the whole thing. If you want to read something much more authoritative on the topic, read this:

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

The goal here is to make a low-cost vehicle that can do surface exploration of the Moon. Mining isn't even really a goal, although the technology to get it done would ultimately be useful to engage in mining activities eventually. It is not a sample return mission through.

WTF? The google Lunar X-prize was first announced back in September of 2007. I can name a few companies right off the top of my head that have been working on getting there since then. Interorbital Systems is the first one that comes to mind (though I think they got axed from the roster due to wanting to use hypergolics or something like that). Astrobotics has been working on this for awhile as have Odyssey Moon, White Label Space...The list has been up on Wikipedia for well over a year now. How the hell did this make it to the front page of Slashdot?

*Scans Official X-Prize Website*

Oh! I see! The foundation simply down selected for the final *official* roster. The prize isn't anything new at all. The actual news is that the final competing team roster has been settled. As usual, the summary and TFA completely gloss over the actual new development to ramble on about something that isn't particularly new to anyone that has been paying attention to the commercial space market (or slashdot) for the last few years. And, of course, they don't list the final roster. Here's the actual news portion of this story.

WTF? The google Lunar X-prize was first announced back in September of 2007. I can name a few companies right off the top of my head that have been working on getting there since then. Interorbital Systems is the first one that comes to mind (though I think they got axed from the roster due to wanting to use hypergolics or something like that). Astrobotics has been working on this for awhile as have Odyssey Moon, White Label Space...The list has been up on Wikipedia for well over a year now. How the hell did this make it to the front page of Slashdot?

*Scans Official X-Prize Website*

Oh! I see! The foundation simply down selected for the final *official* roster. The prize isn't anything new at all. The actual news is that the final competing team roster has been settled. As usual, the summary and TFA completely gloss over the actual new development to ramble on about something that isn't particularly new to anyone that has been paying attention to the commercial space market (or slashdot) for the last few years. And, of course, they don't list the final roster. Here's the actual news portion of this story.

Helping the Google Lunar XPrize teams (there are twenty currently) would be a far more interesting, fun, and productive way to spend some millions. Slashdotters could help support Google's important Lunar competition.

Still true today.

The government stranglehold on space travel is crippling research, it's only in recent years that a little sanity has prevailed, and commercial ventures are starting to make their mark on a bold new horizon for humanity.

Yes, this is not only possible, but happening. I don't know about getting to the Moon, but getting into orbit is something that is actively being tried. One really cool video of a rocket getting launched off of a balloon can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnq3r3tRVP0

This was launched by JP Aerospace and is the real thing, from a balloon flying at 10k feet. It was merely a demo flight to test the flight control hardware and to make sure that a rocket actually would launch... and in this case it was just an Estes rocket shoved in a tube when the flight computer remotely ignited the fuse to launch the rocket. The trick was to get the rocket to launch at all, not necessarily to go anywhere.

One other interesting group is the N-Prize that is offering a £10k prize for the first team to launch something into orbit for under £1000. What is really crazy is that there are several teams working on the idea, and that some of them are actually in the process of "bending metal" and trying to make it work. Even if it is just a ping-pong ball sent into orbit, that would be some kind of accomplishment to get a payload of that size to orbital velocities.

Yet another group using this approach is ARCA, and these guys are trying to get to the Moon. They are one of the original X-Prize teams that showed some real promise and have kept tweaking their rocket designs, with the latest attempts for getting to orbit using a very different kind of rocket staging system that you've simply got to see to believe. It pulls up each stage on a tether instead of pushing it up as a disintegrating pyramid.... presumably to develop economies of scale. They are doing most of their launches over the Black Sea, and is perhaps the one group using balloons that I think will get into orbit first.

How about a prize for the team that can destroy the most autonomous lunar rovers on their way to defile the Apollo landing sites in order to claim that idiotic x-prize.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/about-the-prize/rules-and-guidelines

the chances are that having teamed up with this company, their plans are to get the prize money, maybe develop, maybe not, and know for certain ahead of time it'll never leave the ground. They just want the money.

What? There's no prize money until you land on the Moon. From the prize website: "The first team to land on the Moon and complete the mission objectives will be awarded $20 million."

I heard Red Whittaker, the team leader, speak last summer; he said he does expect to make money off the project. Not from the prize, as the costs are several times the prize money, but from all the money that can be generated from the publicity of the landing. He wouldn't be doing the project if it was going to lose money; he's not in it for the science or the benefit to humanity. So yes, it is in large part a PR thing. But they definitely plan to launch; they've bought a launch rocket from NASA for several million dollars. Personally, I'm all for it; I think the lander is unlikely to mess up the Apollo site more than the launch rockers of the return stage already have, and it's perhaps the only site that will generate a bunch of public interest. As someone who wasn't alive during Apollo, I'm excited to see the video.

First off, it's bullshit. They may develop the thing, but it's not going to fly itself. The Google X-Prize money is for the development, not the flying, and it's not enough to get it there anyway.

They WANT to have it explore the moon (actually they want to be seen wanting to do so, in order to increase their chances of getting the prize money; you think the timing of the announcement was random?). There's nothing here about anyone else wanting them to.

And given their announced target, I think they've just pointed the space demodulator at their foot. Far too many people would be offended.

All in all, this is a PR job. The guy may be capable of developing, but the chances are that having teamed up with this company, their plans are to get the prize money, maybe develop, maybe not, and know for certain ahead of time it'll never leave the ground. They just want the money. The tip off? Such a device could do valuable research, such as roving around the south pole looking for ice. Are they planning any useful or noble venture like that? No. They're planning on some virtual tourism, and true to big ticket money tourist ideals think that they're permitted to walk on anyone's lawn they wish just so they can take their holiday photos.

Fuck 'em. If you think they're hosebags for wanting to trundle all over what may be the most historic of historic sites, complain to the Google Lunar X-Prize people http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/contact-us and tell them not to support this project.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams/next-giant-leap/blog/from-the-earth-to-the-moon

Between now and the 2012 deadline we're likely to hear more and more of the developments and adventures or the various GLXP teams.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams

A more appropriate question is of all the GLXP teams, how many will actually get to the point of getting off the ground and doing a successful Trans Lunar Injection, and of that number, how many are actually going to attempt to meet the "imaging man made artefacts" criteria.

Official GLXP team; White Label Space has recently written of it's Lunar landing intentions and the focus seems to be more on finding water (another bonus) than finding Apollo, Lunokhod, Surveyor et al. They're considering the peaks of eternal light near the Moon's south pole which would also provide nearby landing sites with rover routes into the permanently shadowed zones.

http://www.whitelabelspace.com/2009/05/preliminary-landing-site-considerations.html

Would really like to see this attempt succeed. Many of the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams are relying on it, and this would be an excellent first step in that direction.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/about-the-prize/preferred-partners

I am a space enthusiast, but I largely agree with the space critic above, who wants to shift space to the private sector. I think NASA's role should be reduced, with projects shifting to private companies and eventually NASA becoming the FAA of space

Projects that should be pursued right now are things like private companies putting men in true orbit (that will probably make money by opening up true space tourism) and perhaps sending unmanned probes to other planets to get concrete quantifiable knowledge by organizing prizes like the X-Prize (completed), and the Google Lunar X PRIZE (just starting).

Do these things well, get results, and the advocates will come. Old astronauts calling in, and hoping future presidents will give money doesn't do half as much. And then you wonder where have the advocates gone...

You must be new here. It's not a secret...

Actually, this isn't like the X Prize, this is the X Prize. It's part of the Google Lunar X Prize, which, as the name implies, is in being offered by Google and the X Prize Foundation.

Do you think the purpose of this x-wing may be to claim the Google Lunar X Prize? If so, it would probably burn up in the atmosphere on the way back down, being made of wood and all. Not the best planning, if I don't say so myself!

Why is this unfair? Here is the summarized requirements from the Google Lunar X-Prize home page:

COMPETITION GUIDELINES: To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a team must successfully land a privately funded craft on the lunar surface and survive long enough to complete the mission goals of roaming about the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending a defined data package, called a "Mooncast", back to Earth.

PRIZES: The total purse of the Google Lunar X PRIZE is $30 million (USD).
GRAND PRIZE: A $20 million Grand Prize will be awarded to the team that can soft land a craft on the Moon that roams for at least 500 meters and transmits a Mooncast back to Earth. The Grand Prize is $20M until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15M until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation
SECOND PRIZE: A $5 million Second Prize will be offered as well, providing an extra incentive for teams to continue to compete, and increasing the possibility that multiple teams will succeed. 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
BONUSES: An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can 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.

MOONCAST: The Mooncast consists of digital data that must be collected and transmitted to the Earth composed of the following:
High resolution 360 panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the Moon;
Self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon;
Near-real time videos showing the craft's journey along the lunar surface;
High Definition (HD) video;
Transmission of a cached set of data, loaded on the craft before launch (e.g. first email from the Moon).
Teams will be required to send a Mooncast detailing their arrival on the lunar surface, and a second Mooncast that provides imagery and video of their journey roaming the lunar surface. All told, the Mooncasts will represent approximately a Gigabyte of stunning content returned to the Earth.
The complete Google Lunar X PRIZE Competition Guidelines are available in English, the official language of the prize, on the Google Lunar X PRIZE homepage.

It sounds to me like Carnegie Mellon University has the right idea. There are quite a few talented rocket scientists out there. Why not utilize them as a resource?

I think the odds of this being won in the next 20 years (and they only have 5 years to do this) are pretty small. This is similar to Branson's prize he's offering for removing CO2 from the atmosphere at some rather significant rate; the challenge to be surpassed in meeting the qualifications are high enough that there is little chance of having to make a payout.

If they do have to make a payout, the publicity is huge, and it's certainly possible that they have some commercial return in mind...perhaps rights to the rover design. I think the field of contenders will be small and weak, because the challenge is significant and the prize amount is unlikely to match the cost. At least for the original X-prize there was a hypothesized market for system developed as a result.

Of course, if I'm going to say this on Slashdot, I'd better be prepared to back it up:

The guidelines are that it must soft-land on the moon by the end of 2012, roam 500+ meters, and send back video and pictures. The basic prize is $20 million. If it can be done by 2014, the prize is $15 million. There is an additional $5 million if a second lander (by any competitor) to land by 2014. There is a bonus $5 million for extra duties like roaming 5000+ meters, photographing existing man-made objects on the moon, surviving the 14 day lunar night, or discovering water-ice.

The requirements and bonus objectives are roughly inline with the design parameters of the Mars Exploration Rovers. I'm sure a private group can build a device with that kind of capabilities for less than $30 million. However, I'm positive they can't get it to the moon for that little.

Landing a meaningful payload on the moon requires a fairly decent-sized launch vehicle. If we assume a mass similar to the old Surveyor Lunar landers, which were about 1/3 as heavy as the MER's (landing mass, not mobile mass) and not mobile, then we can start looking at launch vehicles capable of sending it on it's way.

The Surveyors were launched on Atlas-Centaur rockets, which have an LEO payload of about 5000 pounds. There isn't anything directly comparable currently on the market. There's few offerings that are too small. A Falcon 1 ($8 million, 1500 pounds) won't cut it. A Falcon 9, on the other hand would be significant overkill, with 21,000 pound LEO capacity and a $35 million price tag.

A Russian Dnepr would probably be the best bet. These converted ICBM's are what Bigelow hired to launch his two prototype inflatable modules with. It has an 8000 pound LEO capacity and costs $15-20 million.

So you're left with $5-10 million (because the last $5 million are only available to a second mission) to develop and build the rover (piece of cake), but also a reliable landing platform and an earth departure stage. The latter can probably be adapted from existing upper stage products, but the first two are being done from scratch.

I just can't imagine that much work being accomplished, even with heavy use of volunteer labor, for that price.

However, if somebody out there has got the money to front and wants a mechanical engineer to work for peanuts part time on such a nerdy project, the above doesn't mean I'm not interested.