Next NASA Centennial Challenge Competition

Andrew-Unit writes "NASA today announced the next competition in the Centennial Challenge series. A prize of $250,000 USD will be awarded to the team that can autonomously deliver the most lunar regolith to a collection device in 30 minutes. From the press release: 'This challenge continues NASA's efforts to broaden interest in innovative concepts ... We hope to see teams from a broad spectrum of technical areas take part in this competition,'"

Comments

Man.. I Can See Where This Is Going...

[ackthpt]

$250,000 USD will be awarded to the team that can autonomously deliver the most lunar regolith to a collection device in 30 minutes.

I can see exactly where this is going*...

• 300,000 USD First craft to achieve orbit.
• 350,000 USD First craft to carry man in orbit.
• 400,000 USD First craft to reach Moon.
• 450,000 USD First craft to orbit Moon and return.
• 500,000 USD First craft to take man to Moon orbit and return.
• 550,000 USD First craft to land on Moon, take off and return.
• 600,000 USD First craft to land Man on Moon, take off and return.
• 650,000 USD First craft to land materiel on Moon, build structure.
• 700,000 USD First craft to land Man and materiel on Moon, build structure, inhabit for one day and return.
• 750,000 USD (optional) First craft to land Man on moon who spends 1 night in haunted Moon Mansion and return alive (Bonus: Gets eccentric uncle's inheritance)
• 800,000 USD First to build town on Moon
• 850,000 USD First to build domed city on Moon
• 900,000 USD First to build Monorail (Monorail, a monorail!) on Moon

NASA, if very, very cagey can do what they want on a pittance, letting people knock each other over trying to do for piddly prizes. Of course, Richard Branson will probably end up owning the Moon anyway...

*Prizes not necessarily in order. Actual prize amount may vary. NASA employees and their family members not eligible (especially if an abnormal amount of materiel is missing from NASA) Offer subject to withdrawal at whim of sponsor or Congress.

Re:Man.. I Can See Where This Is Going...

[Soft]

NASA, if very, very cagey can do what they want on a pittance, letting people knock each other over trying to do for piddly prizes.

Actually, with adequate funding, this could be a nice incentive. As Henry Spencer said:

As I've noted before, if the government wants to put Americans back on the Moon and is willing to spend (say) ten billion to make it happen, much the most effective way is to simply announce that the next hundred Americans to walk on the Moon will each be given $100M. It will be the biggest stampede you've ever seen, and nobody will have to "oversee" anybody.

More mundanely, consider having NASA announce that starting in 2010, each year it will buy 20 round-trip tickets to the Moon from the lowest bidder, bids not to exceed $50M/ticket. If concerned about safety, stipulate that each year, one of those tickets will be used to fly a randomly-selected senior executive of the spaceline, refusal being grounds for cancellation of the contract.

Re:Man.. I Can See Where This Is Going...

[techno-vampire]

First craft to land Man on moon who spends 1 night in haunted Moon Mansion and return alive

You didn't specify, but I presume you meant a Lunar Night. Spending roughly two weeks there is far more worth a prize than a mere eight to twelve hours.

Re:Man.. I Can See Where This Is Going...

[MightyMartian]

Don't forget 1,000,000 USD if you figure out how to put someone with some brains in Congress.

Re:Man.. I Can See Where This Is Going...

[Rei]

The footnote doesn't change that these prizes are orders of magnitude too small to even be humored.

But the idea seems rather sound even if the prizes were higher. As Open Source development teaches us, many eyes make for better code, same applies for engineering.

There aren't "many eyes" who have tens of billions of dollars, and the ones who do have that money didn't get it by flitting it away on prizes. Please either reread my post on the subject, or respond to my particular critiques.

the Russians with their old rockets have shown whizzy isn't necessary to get the job done

Don't deceive yourself - Russian rockets are no low-tech contraptions. They're cheaper for a number of reasons - lower labor costs and surplus capacity often playing big roles, but also the long-time use of the same general model (almost any model, used long enough, will become "relatively" cheap). As for the US, our only "expensive" launcher of sizable payloads is the shuttle; the rest of our prices aren't bad (have you looked at a Delta-IV heavy's prices?)

Who knows what some band of geeks in the desert can accomplish

Without a personal fortune, not much. Physics is a harsh mistress, and the simple facts are that even LOX/LH2 exhaust leaves the best-designed engines at a fraction of merely LEO orbital velocity, requiring a huge difference between propellant and craft mass (and beyond that, complex stagings and/or expensive advanced materials), and all you get out of it is a tiny payload fraction. Because of this, orbital craft are monstrous things with a lot of materials and labor costs. It's nice to think that anything can be accomplished if someone wants it enough and works hard enough, but this is a world without fairy elf magic.

Surefire plan

[Red Flayer]

The Pacific Ocean is my container. A lasso is my collection device. If I get it all, I win $250,000, right?

Re:Surefire plan

[ackthpt]

The Pacific Ocean is my container. A lasso is my collection device. If I get it all, I win $250,000, right?

How about just buy a missile from DPRK, blow up the Moon and catch pieces with a butterfly net?

oh, you wanted to do something else with the Moon?

Re:Surefire plan

[Red Flayer]

"How about just buy a missile from DPRK, blow up the Moon and catch pieces with a butterfly net? "

No fair, you used gravity to move the samples. I used a lasso.

Can't wait to get started

[joeflies]

Now where did I leave my Saturn V and lunar lander? Maybe I can get one on Ebay?

Cheese Grater

[mysqlrocks]

Why not just use a cheese grater?

Meritocracy over aristocracy

[Safe Sex Goddess]

The article does make a good point when it says that these competitions let everyone compete on a level playing field.

We get to see a published set of standards, an open competition, and the winner isn't based on who has taken whom to dinner.

Wow! Making awards based on what one has accomplished rather than who one knows. This could have a major impact on business integrity if it's widely adopted.

Wow, Imagine that.

[GeneralEmergency]

Millions of years of evolution.

Thousands of years of painstaking acquisition of knowledge.

Decades of space exploration.

The next big challenge:

-- How to get dirt into a bucket. --

"How do I get out of this chicken shit outfit?"

Re:Wow, Imagine that.

[paco3791]

I don't think it can be overstated how important automation is to our future.

If we can turn technologies like this into something that: collects, proccesses, and utilizes' raw matireials, and self replicates, the possibilites are limitless. If we can get automation sufficiently advanced we can send a small robotic factory to the moon or mars and have a habitate, fuel, air, water, and bio-mass ready for use when we get there. Terraforming and other "sci-fi" ideas become a little more plausable.

The raw matirals are out there that will allow the human race to expand away from the "one planet, one disaster away from extinction" problem. And the solution isn't people in space it's automatons as an extention of our will.

*checks above post* Whoa! Too much Red Mars today.

Re:Wow, Imagine that.

[Andrew-Unit]

Secure that shit, Hudson!

John Henry

[lilmouse]

Have they already ruled out a guy with a shovel? I bet John Henry would break down less often, as well as maneuvering around objects more quickly.

I know, let's put a penal colony on the moon! That way, we'd have cheap labor there, and could remove troublesome elements from our society. At least until they start raining gravity bombs on our head...

Seriously, though, a guy with a shovel is at least a viable option. Abrasive lunar dust is gonna suck for anything out there, and spacesuits may well be cheaper then gears for robots.

--LWM

What about gravity?

[Dareth]

Will the difference in gravity between Earth and the moon make a difference in the performance of these devices?

Oh, and will any of them bounce over craters, and have massive 2 directional (front and above) firepower?

And the winner goes to:

[temojen]

Catterpillar. Oh wait... there's probably weight restrictions.

vacuuming in a vacuum?

[raygundan]

Perhaps you are missing that you can't vacuum so well on an airless rock, since the whole idea of a vacuum cleaner depends on there being some air pressure to work with.

Teams required to pay $300 registration fee.

[ChickenFan]

From the rules (http://www.fsri.org/Grant%20Process%20Chart/DRAFT %20MoonROx%20Rules.pdf):

"b. Teams are required to pay a registration fee of $300."

So it's going to cost you to enter your Hungry Hippos idea.

US FIRST

[orn]

This sounds like one of the US FIRST competitions. Perhaps FIRST should pick up the project and end up giving a small pile of cash to the school that wins it...

Re:How about a realistic mission?

[kevin42]

What's not realistic? They have another $250k challenge to see who can extract the most oxygen from the regolith in 8 hours. If you wanted to establish a base, you need something to bring all that regolith to get oxygen from.

Re:How about a realistic mission?

[Anonymous Coward]

this seems a bit absurd. The old Apollo program brought enough regolith back

Who said anything about bringing regolith back? As far as I can tell, this is about gathering lunar soil for mining the moon. To extract minerals / metals, or to make bricks. The goal will be to build things on the moon - not take more lunar soil back to Earth.

It's easy to imagine a machine which gathers soil and dust - filters, compacts and heat-treats - then spits out some sort of brick which can be used to construct walls or help cover / bury underground living quarters. And automating this process (so robots can have built a structure before astronauts have even arrived) is going to be extremely important for permanent moon habitation.

Re:Moon damage.

[the darn]

Charo wanted for questioning

Re:Is this for the Oxygen conversion?

[Cerdic]

Soylent green is regolith! Reeegooliiittth!

My idea

[SpaceAdmiral]

I'm just going to buy a Roomba and spray-paint my name on it.