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X-Prize Lunar Lander Competition a Go

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the spanked-with-moon-rocks dept.

Tiger4 writes "The X-Prize foundation and NASA have signed off on a $2.5 million prize for proof of concept lunar lander vehicles. From the article, 'NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale told MSNBC.com that the point of the competition was to "take advantage of new innovative technologies that have been developed" since the last lunar landing, during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972." There are two levels of competition, "In the Level 1 competition, the vehicles must be in the air for at least 90 seconds during each leg of the round trip, and land on a flat, even surface. The Level 2 competition is harder -- requiring 180 seconds of flight each way, with a rocky, lunar-style landing site.' NASA and X-Prize people are still working on the final rules, but they are already signing up teams and expect to see vehicles in time for the X-Prize exhibition in New Mexico, October 18-21, 2006."

36 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Consolation Prize by foundme · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is there a reason to have consolation prizes for second and third place? I wouldn't mind "cost-recovery" of up to $xxx for non-winners, but to actually award them a prize? There is no room for "good enough" in Space.

    --
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    1. Re:Consolation Prize by yincrash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      what if three different finalists all are successful, just some are better than others? just because there is one winner doesn't mean the runners up are failures.

    2. Re:Consolation Prize by Neurotoxic666 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      There is no room for "good enough" in Space.

      Nobody will end up in 2nd or 3rd place with a "good enough" idea either. It is going to be some pretting friggin good ideas, worthy of a prize. Even if some idea does not win the contest, it might very well inspire some genius elsewhere to come up with something better or it could also be improved, tested and used. You never know.

      --
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    3. Re:Consolation Prize by fishbowl · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >Do you understand the point to the X-Prize at all?

      I don't. It occurs to me that anyone capable of claiming such a prize should be doing it *anyway.*

      It would be more impressive if somebody did it without regard for the prize. Didn't even claim the prize, didn't even enter the contest, just fulfilled the requirements ahead of any of the contestants.

      That would be hilarious.

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    4. Re:Consolation Prize by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Are you kidding? Space is OFTEN about "good enough." Weight is at a premium.

      In the lunar lander for Apollo, you could puncture a hole clear through the hull by dropping your screwdriver. In some places it was as thin as several stacked sheets of aluminum foil. It held in the oxygen so it was "good enough."

      Looking at the shuttle, there are many places where they settled on "good enough." In fact, you could say the entire design was a "good enough" compromise from the SSTO concepts they had started out with. And frankly, in a lot of ways, the shuttle turned out not to have been good enough at all.

      --
      This space available.
  2. Cost control measures... by Silas+Palmer-Cannon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is probably a good way to gain technology while minimizing cost. How much would it cost for NASA to do this in house? 100 million? 200 million? Too expensive? Here's the solution. Offer college students 2.5 million as a prize for a "competition". Good work guys.

    1. Re:Cost control measures... by l2718 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Note that NASA would be spending the $100M to ensure that things will work, preiod. The private developers are willing to assume a greater level of risk -- which is the main reason for the cost saving.

    2. Re:Cost control measures... by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Interesting
      This is probably a good way to gain technology while minimizing cost. How much would it cost for NASA to do this in house? 100 million? 200 million? Too expensive? Here's the solution. Offer college students 2.5 million as a prize for a "competition". Good work guys.
      Historically such competitions and prizes tend to breed solutions optimized towards winning the prize or competition - not general technologies.

      Furthermore, I fail to see what 'technologies' NASA stands to gain here. Vehicle control algorithms of this nature are medium well explored and must be tailored to the individual vehicle, so this contest doesn't really much offer there. The fuels, engines, controls, guidance, tankage, and structure of a full scale lander will be radically different from a model lander as well. (Take guidance for example - the real thing will use inertial/radar with visual backup (from the cockpit). The models will almost certainly use GPS with visual backup - from the operators position.)

      The contest makes NASA look modern, using 'open source' and 'competition' and 'the marketplace' and all the other current buzzwords, but it's almost certain to yield little beyond good press.

    3. Re:Cost control measures... by JasonKChapman · · Score: 2, Informative
      Historically such competitions and prizes tend to breed solutions optimized towards winning the prize or competition - not general technologies.

      I guess that depends on how you define "historically." There have been some pretty major technological and societal changes brought about by such competitions. One of them is accurate clocks and, thus, accurate trans-oceanic navigation:

      The Board of Longitude was established in England in 1714 and offered 20,000 pounds (12 million dollars in today's currency) to whoever would come up with a method for determining longitude with in a distance of 30- nautical miles during a voyage from England to the West Indies.
      --
      Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
  3. "Bounty" based development by Null+Nihils · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder if we'll see an increase in "bounty" based development. It certainly seems likely. A large number of smaller F/OSS projects also offer a significant monetary prize or "bounty" for someone who can implement tech to solve a specified need, want or problem. The Google Summer of Code is also, in my mind, a similar deal.

    This stands in contrast to older, beaurocratic methods that are closed and contract-based.

    This new openness is, in my opinion, closer to the ideals of a free market than the latter mentioned system.

    1. Re:"Bounty" based development by supabeast! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "This stands in contrast to older, beaurocratic methods that are closed and contract-based."

      How do you think those contracts are often won? The government has often, and still does, set up contests like this, where big defense contractors compete for a bounty which comes in the form of a contract to produce the final product. In aerospace the bureaucracy is not so much a problem in the contracting system -- even without corruption and bureaucrats there are still only a tiny handful of people and corporations capable of handling any large aerospace project -- as it is in the implementation and maintenance of projects, where the ongoing costs and wasted productivity weigh down the entire system.

      That said, I think that the bounty system is a gimmick that won't last too long. Smart executives seeing the success of bounties in the software world will be spurred to just start hiring F/OSS developers with some of the money F/OSS saves them in the first place, and the bounties will start fading away as their unnecessary - at least they will if Larry and Sergei at Google are setting an example.

  4. Just how strict are the rules anyway? by Jeremi · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can I win the contest using my parachute-based landing system?

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    1. Re:Just how strict are the rules anyway? by Davey+McDave · · Score: 2, Informative

      I doubt so, considering the moon has little to no atmosphere. No air resistance = parachutes next to useless.

      --
      I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
    2. Re:Just how strict are the rules anyway? by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Funny
      Can I win the contest using my parachute-based landing system?

      Only if you're willing to wear the Wile E Coyote outfit and release the video under creative commons.
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Just how strict are the rules anyway? by John+Newman · · Score: 2, Funny
      i dunno... what if the piece of junk shot particles at the parachute (like a solar sail concept?) would it still work?
      It'll work as well as a sailboat with a big fan behind the sails.

      See Newton's Laws.
  5. Armadillo for the win. by kraemer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Armadillo Aero has this one nailed. http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/

  6. Two top contenders by chroma · · Score: 3, Informative

    A couple of the top contenders, who have been working on this type of vehicle even before the prize was announced are: Masten Space Systems and John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace.

    --

    Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
  7. Obligatory by Life700MB · · Score: 2, Informative


    Obligatory images from the first prototype.


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    Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

  8. Gravity? by BaronSprite · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wouldn't the thrust systems need to be significantly different for a 180 second hop on earth when compared to the moon? Not to mention weight of fuel and what not...

    1. Re:Gravity? by TemujinKhan · · Score: 2, Informative

      uh.. yeah. better question is to ask what should the safety margin for over engineering a project of this scope should be. Gravity on the Moon is 1/6 that of Earth, so that implies if the system works here, then you have a built in 6x safety margin there. (never mind that the whole point of the competition is to develop a workable auto-pilot assisted takeoff/landing system)

      --
      ----- watch the monkey with the wrench
    2. Re:Gravity? by grozzie2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Figure out the impulse required to do a 3 minute hop at the bottom of a 9.81 m/s^2 gravity well. Now figure out the impulse required to go from a stable low orbit to a soft landing in a 1.635 m/s^2 gravity well. The numbers are going to be amazingly close. For the next step, figure out your stability problem for a 3 minute hop, vertical takeoff, lateral displacement, and then soft landing with a 3 minute flight time, including silly things like wind drift and possibly some random turbulence enroute. Refigure the problem for the orbit to lunar surface in vaccuum.

      Overall, not a bad deal. For 2.5 million, you get propulsion and stability that's on par with that needed for a lunar landing. Add some guidance, and you have the whole package. Of course, this doesn't really touch on the actual expensive part of the project, and that's the ride up to lunar orbit.

      Will have to wait till the final rules are published, but, there's a big ticket item missing from the discussion so far, and that's the subject of mass budget. If this is going to really represent a lunar landing package, there will be an all up mass budget for the lander, and, a specific amount of that mass needs to be reserved for payload.

      The problem for the Apollo program wasn't making a lunar lander, it was making a lunar lander that fit within the mass budget, and still had room left for 2 astronauts. That required compromises and risk management that wouldn't be acceptable in today's climate. If folks think a space shuttle is a 'scary contraption', then they should go take a look at the LEM used by the Apollo program. When the candles were lit for an Apollo mission, there was NOBODY trying to kid around that it was a 'safe' endeavour, and EVERYBODY understood, and accepted, the possibility of a mission ending in fatal failure. the LEM was probably the most fragile contraption ever lofted into space.

      The Apollo program had a 81% success rate, with 1 of the 11 attempts resulting in a fatal outcome even before it was launched. 10 of 11 attempted launches actually went off, and one of those failed it's primary mission, but thru hard work and some ingenuity, mixed in with a lot of good luck, the astronauts actually got home alive. Compared that to the shuttles 98% success rate, the Apollo success rate was atrocious. Shuttle has had 2 failures in well over 100 launches, Apollo had 2 failures in 11 attempts, and 10 launches.

      Here on /. folks like to comment 'well if we could go to the moon 50 years ago, why not today'. Frankly, 'we' didn't go to the moon 50 years ago, it was our parents and grandparent generation that did that. They were willing to accept risk as a fact of life, analyze it, deal with it, and accept the results. The society of america today could not possibly put a man back on the moon, the public doesn't have the tolerance for the cost, either financially, or in human costs. They want a system that's guaranteed to work, and guaranteed to not break on the way. Well folks, with rocket technology, it ain't gonna happen. You have to either accept the risk, or, go develop some new breakthru propulsion system that doesn't rely on strapping people on top of a huge bomb, then doing a controlled explosion to send it into orbit.

      If the shuttle system is being scrapped because it's not 'safe enough', then stop looking to the moon and beyond for rockets. Shuttle is just a baby, meant to go to low orbit. The big boys that are needed to go farther can make big bangs substantially larger than a space shuttle is capable of. If you are going to strap the quantities of lox and h2 together in tanks light enough to carry on up to orbit and beyond, once in a while the whole mess is going to go boom. Accept it, deal with it, or forget it. That's what your grandparents did, and thats how they got to the moon, and they did it using slide rules and will power.

  9. This is the Government... by Ruff_ilb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    $2.5M is NOTHING to them. Nothing.

    I hate to play this card, but by the end of 2006, we will have spent a (conservative) estimate of $315 billion in Iraq.

    Heck, compare this to non-government entities. If ol' Bill could get college students to write him a completely new OS for 2.5M, he'd probably jump at the chance.

    --
    http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
    1. Re:This is the Government... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 4, Funny

      If ol' Bill could get college students to write him a completely new OS for 2.5M, he'd probably jump at the chance.

      Why, since they already did it for free?

  10. Re:Good use of NASA $$$ by mikesd81 · · Score: 2

    This is good sue of NASA money if any of the projects get implemented or even if some ideas from the projects get implemented.

    It's good that NASA is looking outside their walls for ideas too. Their are lots of brilliant people out there. It's time we tap into that. Space travel is obviously dangerous and tricky business. Anything that makes it safer and and easier, even if it's just one thing, is worth them money. Spend the 2.5 mil and get some ideas for a new ship? Doesn't sound bad.

    --
    That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
  11. something isn't quite right about this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    $350,000.00 for first flight? I don't think so. A decent aerospace engineer must cost a business around 120 grand or so for a year of work, and then there are all the materials, construction, infrastructure.

    This sounds more like a bonus add-on to the existing x-prize than the "new prize" it's being touted as. Or maybe it's another cookie to try and get a guy like Paul Allen to dump far more into it then he'll ever get back...except it is a nice thing for him to do...give back.

    Don't get me wrong...I'm all for moving the pork away the government and back to the citizenry...my quibble is with the portrayal.

    If I'm right, this has a stink to it...media hype. Just be honest about what it is...a little extra cash to the current X-prize competitors to move in a different direction for awhile.

    it would be great to see one or more small, agile aerospace companies emerge from this. The entrenched players (raytheon, lockmart, boeing) are pretty fucking pork laden, massive management overhead, shareholder burdens, lobbying payola. Not bin laden, pork laden.

    1. Re:something isn't quite right about this. by carambola5 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The labor is definitely at issue, but you make one flaw in your argument.

      Aerospace engineers in smaller businesses do not make 120 big ones in a year. That is preposterously high. The cost adds up when you add more engineers to the equation. At a minimum, you need a jack-of-all-trades aerospace engineer (ie: theory, design, drafting, and analysis... a fairly rare combination seeing as drafting is usually "below" an aerospace engineer), an electrical engineer, a software engineer, maybe a propulsion engineer, and a project manager. That's 4-5 salaries at the absolute minimum. Generally, you want at least two of each type of engineer (the second need not be full time on the project) to bounce ideas back and forth. Quality and safety engineers are also nice to have, though they would split time amongst a company's projects.

      Now add your materials, construction, and infrastructure: custom one-off fabrication is NOT CHEAP, especially with the typical requirements put forth by NASA (generally NASA's GIDEP requirements involve extremely high quality, and expensive, commercial off-the-shelf compoents)... though it will probably only add up to $100k, depending. Construction is more labor... a few techs working on it, albeit at lower salaries than the engineers. And in an ideal world, infrastructure doesn't matter much if you have enough projects amongst which to split the costs.

      No, aerospace engineering is not an inexpensive enterprise. But removing NASA's interaction (and obscenely high "support staff" for your project) is a wonderful step.

      I think the first line of my sig should explain where I'm coming from.

      --
      IWARS.
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    2. Re:something isn't quite right about this. by Iron+Condor · · Score: 2, Informative
      A decent aerospace engineer must cost a business around 120 grand or so for a year of work,

      It's a little dangerous to post concrete numbers in a field that you don't actually know anything about. I consider myself "a decent aerospace egineer" and I cost my employer something like 1/4 million per yer. And I have single-digit years of seniority - there's much more expensive folks out there. There's also cheaper people, of course. But when you include things like benefits, $120k p.a. is barely going to buy you an entry level technician.

      ...to try and get a guy like Paul Allen to dump far more into it then he'll ever get back.

      You're making the mistake of underestimating a good businessman. With all the paid lectures and tours and broadcasting rights, Paul Allen definitely made his money back. The couple million X-prize were just the icing -- on the day of the flight and the days right after, a couple seconds of footage commanded six figures. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but it is an open secret in the aerospace community that Allen definitely didn't lose any money in the operation...

      --
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      If you die in debt, you're ahead.
  12. Re:Moon Tether by anagama · · Score: 2, Funny

    You better lay off smoking that rope for a spell.

    --
    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  13. Re:Hammer, Feather, Freefall on the Moon: Revisite by woolio · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The hammer is first to hit the ground.

    That may be, but the time difference between the hammer hitting the ground and the feather hitting the ground probably won't be observable to us....

  14. Re:Back in the day. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    No. It could stand it's own weight, and they did test it, both the concept on Earth (Lunar Landing Research Vehicle) as well as the actual vehicle in space on Apollo 9.

  15. Re:Moon Tether by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you mean like a synchronous skyhook (aka "beanstalk", aka "space elevator"), it won't work. Whereas synchronous orbit of the earth is at the awkwardly high altitute of 22K miles, the equivalent for the moon is roughly 10X as high (as a result of the slower rotation of the moon about its axis).

    Plus there's this big planet that happens to be EXACTLY at the required altitude, so until it can be demolished (to make way for a hyperspace bypass) you're going to have a really hard time with this!

  16. they had a test vehicle (picture on wikipedia) by r00t · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check this out:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Researc h_Vehicle

    There was a jet engine that lifts 5/6 of the weight, leaving lunar-like gravity effects (though not inertial effects) for the rocket engines to deal with.

  17. Hey, NASA can do cheap, too... by jpellino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's a story in "Chariots for Apollo" about the potential problem of hitting the descent stage engine bell on a uncharted rock. They had to consider that landing on a rock could damage the bell, push the bell into the ascent stage, etc... But they had neither the time nor the money to design and execute a test + spare LM to see what would happen. One day as they were moving the LM on a crane, the rig slipped, and the whole thing landed, engine bell down, on a pile of crates. No significant damage. One of the managers turned to the team and said someting like "You just got your million dollar test for free."

    --
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    1. Re:Hey, NASA can do cheap, too... by fm6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Jeez, they spent 30 billion 1969 dollars (about $160 billion in today's money), and they still had to cut corners?

  18. Bigger prize by Council · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Am I the only one who sort of wants them to say, "Hey! Anyone who goes and builds a moon colony gets all our money."

    Enough with this baby-step stuff.

    --
    xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
  19. Armidillo Aerospace by iendedi · · Score: 2, Informative
    Seems that Carmack and company like the bounty idea. I hope they are right, I would really like to see these guys bag one and get a win. From Armidillo's website:

    The lunar lander centennial challenge is our top priority this year unless something else pops up. We had a commercial opportunity that was exciting, but it seems to have fallen through. I'm not thrilled about landing on inclined, boulder strewn fields, but the payload and delta-V requirement are easier than we expected. Having two levels and consolation prizes is a good thing.

    As soon as we can show that the new engines can make two 90 second burns, the current vehicle should have level one in the bag. We will need software changes and a remote video system, but no other significant modifications. To take the big level two prize we will need a completely different landing gear arrangement, and the total performance may be pushing it a bit. If our new engine Isp is as good as it briefly looked, we may be able to modify this vehicle for level two, but we are expecting to have to use the upcoming 65" diameter vehicle, which will have a better mass ratio.

    It is unfortunate that the prizes can only be claimed at the X-Prize Cup, because that will encourage us to sit on the vehicles after they have been proven out, rather than flying them hard and potentially crashing them.
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