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Google's $30,000,000 Lunar X PRIZE
chroma writes "It's been a long time since anyone has explored the surface of the moon. But now Google has teamed up with the X PRIZE Foundation to offer a $30,000,000 bounty to the first privately funded organization to land a robotic rover on the moon. Google, of course, has offered the free Google Moon mapping service for a few years now. Looks like the other search engines have some catching up to do in the space exploration department."
Traditionally, prizes have encouraged people to invest a wide range of resources. Lindbergh was one of few to spend less than the prize amount during the Orteig prize--others, like Admiral Byrd, spent nearly $100,000, or four times the $25,000 prize value. It has been reported that Mojave Aerospace Ventures spent significantly more than the $10 million purse to win the Ansari X PRIZE. Teams are willing to spend more than the prize value, as they get to keep their intellectual property and capitalize on it. In the case of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, we expect some teams to be willing to spend more than the value of the prize. Other teams may be able to complete the mission at or below the value of the Grand Prize purse. I don't think comparing the prize reward from a 1919 prize award of flying from Paris to NYC is accurate. I mean, people had already been flying. How many people put things into orbit, much less on the moon?
Just to put this into perspective, the pair of Mars rovers cost NASA $820 million. Granted you're only expected to send one and it's only to the moon, NASA does already have the infrastructure & experienced personel to do this. Even an 1/8 of that cost is 3 times the prize money.
Add the requirements of a 500 meter 'rove' and hi def 'Mooncast' and I think you're looking at too much risk for any person--possibly any company.
Frankly, I don't think $30 million is enough. I know it may sound ridiculous but I personally think $300 million would start to entice competition. What intellectual property would you have in the end? You would have patents on specifically design tools for getting a piece of machinery to the moon only capable of Mooncasts & 500 meters of roving. I'm not so sure any company would try to enter this competition as it is a major investment and a major risk with very little gain.
My work here is dung.
Actually, this may be a matter of cost, not technology - a cost that may be easily regained by the winnings. Someone may just need the incentive to do it. Putting a man on the moon is hard...putting a robot...eh, not so much. We launch something out of orbit every few years now, so the tech is there. Heck, the expense may be designing the robot, not the delivery system.
It costs billions to put those guys on Mars.
Heck, it costs NASA billions to put them on the moon.
The point is to have private industry be able to do it for millions, or less.
Its not "Its been done before", its to make it possible to do it again, and again, and again.
Do it without putting the whole country into a deficit.
Make that possible, and then maybe the impossible that costs trillions can use the same technology.
A hand-made car, only a few can afford.
Mass-produced cars, we all can afford.
Get the space technology to that level, and finally we'll be able to really explore outside our planet.
Prizes work great on the low-budget front, but not so great on the high budget front. On the low-budget front, you have a far wider pool of idealistic individuals who can individually or collectively afford it, plus a lot of businesses which see it as a way to buy publicity. When you get to the sort of budgets that lunar missions require, both of these sources of money essentially disappear. Instead, you're subject to the government and Wall Street. The government, by the nature of the prize, is automatically ruled out. Wall Street doesn't like to throw money on projects that promises a small chance of getting only a portion of your invested costs paid back.
In short, this isn't going anywhere, and Google knows it. Sure, it doesn't hurt to offer the prize. It's essentially free publicity for Google.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
As a percentage of our national budget, NASA's $16-17B per year is pretty trivial. Then factor in that they do a lot of research for the military, and another chunk is much more general research, often materials science, biology, and aircraft-related (remember, it's the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). The big eye catching projects like the shuttle are just a fraction of what NASA does with what is just a tiny fraction of the US's 3 trillion dollar annual budget.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.