No Winner In NASA's Moon-Dirt Digging Competition

Engadget is reporting that NASA's recent moon-dirt digging competition has concluded without a winner being named. "The excavator built by Technology Ranch was able to notch first place by relocating just over 143-pounds in 30 minutes, but fell quite short on picking up any award monies. So for those of you who weren't exactly ready to go mano-a-mano with these guys and gals this time around, next year you've all got $750,000 on the line."

Comments

Better Link

[eldavojohn]

A better link with no subscription required.

It should be noted that this is the sixth of seven Centennial Challenges to go unawarded since 2005 by NASA. They have strict contests because they actually intend to implement the winner's idea. 150 kgs on 30 Watts? Good luck, nobody should be ashamed not to hit that mark!

Re:Better Link

[LurkerXXX]

The time limit to move the 150kg was 30 minutes. You already knew about the 30 watt limit. Calculate away.

Re:Better Link

[Anonymous Coward]

It was 30Kw IIRC

According to the competition page, it is 30 Watts, not 30 Kilowatts:

• Each team's excavation system must be fully autonomous
• Systems will perform in a square sandbox filled with compressed lunar regolith simulant.
• Mass of the system cannot exceed 40 kilograms.
• 30 Watts of DC power will be provided to the system.
• Each system will have 30 minutes to excavate as much regolith as possible and deliver it to a fixed collector adjacent to the sandbox.
• The total purse of $250,000 will go to the winning teams excavating the most regolith above 150 kilograms.

Re:Better Link

[Mr. Sketch]

If they listed some kind of time constraint, as well as what type of distance the dirt was being moved... The articles seem to make it sound like there is a 30 minute time limit. As for the distance, it looks like the machines only lift it out of the ground into a collection bin close by (you can probably assume a meter or two).

If we assume a 30 minute time limit, we could move 150kg on the moon (with gravity of 1.6m/s^2), a max of 225m high, on earth it would be a max of 36.7m high. Of course, that is with 100% efficiency. This could obviously be moved a lot further horizontally and the numbers will probably have to be cut in half since we would only be carrying a load for half the time (the other half would be going back to dig).

In any event, the 30W limitation is quite reasonable, assuming the 30 minute time limit and that it doesn't have to be moved too far.

Re:Better Link

[CastrTroy]

Actually, it's both. When your computer power supply is rate for 300 W, that means that it doesn't use more than 300 J of energy every second. Watts is a measurement that requires time. Even if you define it Amps times volts, you would notice that an Amp (ampere) is 1 coulomb per second.

Re:Not good enough?

[morgan_greywolf]

140 lbs is not a whole lot of rock.

In doing your calculations, you might want to note that the contest calls for 150kg of rock/dirt (~330 lbs) in 30 minutes.

Re:Mano-a-mano?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mono a mono means monkey on monkey. You were thinking 'mano a mano' :P

Re:Mano-a-mano?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mano = hand, so it's "hand-to-hand," as in combat.

Re:Mano-a-mano?

[Anonymous Coward]

mono = monkey
mano = hand
uno = one

"mano-a-mano" or "uno-a-uno" is the same.
"mono-a-mono" it's a different story.

Re:Mano-a-mano?

[PezJunkie42]

As pointed out in one of the other posts, "mano" is hand.
"Mono" is spanish for monkey. =)

Re:Success for the program

[madprogrammer]

They could have been more successful (participants *and* program) if they had been better organized and provided better information to the competitors about how the competition would be run.

I was working with a team that was going to compete, and as of last August they still hadn't been told the rules, or even what material would be used to simulate lunar soil.

Re:What you can't move with 30 Watts...

[rts008]

"Until you forget to add that pesky oxygen gas to the equation. Blast! Another folly!"

What do you mean? Most if not all explosives used for excavation/mining produce their own O2 (that's why you can 'fish' with dynomyte- those sticks don't have gills!).

Now trying to use Fuel Air Explosives on the moon would make your comment relevant, but that would be sill as FAE's need a lot of volume to be effective...not anything an intellegent person would try to use for excavation/mining.

Maybe you want to try coffee or Mountain Dew BEFORE Physics 101 instead of after you wake up at the end of class.