NASA Offering $2 Million Prize for Lunar Lander

coondoggie writes "If you build it, NASA will not only come, it'll give you $2 million dollars for your troubles. The space agency today said it will offer $2 million in prizes if competing teams can successfully build a lunar lander at the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge at Holloman Air Force Base, in Alamogordo, N.M. Oct. 27 and 28th. To win the prize, teams must demonstrate a rocket-propelled vehicle and payload that takes off vertically, climbs to a defined altitude, flies for a pre-determined amount of time, and then lands vertically on a target that is a fixed distance from the launch pad. After landing, the vehicle must take off again within a predetermined time, fly for a certain amount of time and then land back on its original launch pad."

Comments

Economics?

[mastershake_phd]

The thing I always wondered about these kinds of contests, like the x prize, is doesn't it cost more to build your craft than you win?

Re:Economics?

[Xeth]

For a full-scale thing? Probably. But this is a much easier challenge. From TFA:

There are two levels of difficulty, with awards for first and second place at each level. Level 1 requires a vehicle to take off vertically from a designated launch area, climb to an altitude of at least 150 feet , remain aloft for at least 90 seconds while traveling horizontally to a landing pad 300 feet away, then land vertically. Level 2, which is a more difficult course, requires a vehicle to take off from a designated launch area, ascend to an altitude of 150 feet, hover for 180 seconds, then land precisely on a simulated, rocky, lunar surface 300 feet away.

I think this is really geared toward groups of students, and clever entrepreneurs.

Re:Economics?

[RedWizzard]

The thing I always wondered about these kinds of contests, like the x prize, is doesn't it cost more to build your craft than you win? These sorts of prizes are not intended to be money making schemes for the competitors. They are intended to offset development costs for technology that has value in its own right. For example Scaled Composites did not spend $20M or whatever to win the X Prize in 2004, they were developing a commercial venture that happened to be close to the X Prize requirements. Similarly Armadillo Aerospace are not building rockets just to compete in the LLC, rather the LLC happens to be something they can compete in without radically altering the direction of the development they were already doing. Though if they won both levels they would recoup the majority of their costs.

kidding, kidding

[User 956]

The space agency today said it will offer $2 million in prizes if competing teams can successfully build a lunar lander

Do they give you a bonus for also constructing a sound stage that looks like a lunar surface?

CHA

[User 956]

Nevermind the lander... Given that Microsoft paid $240 million for 1% of facebook, how long until someone offers a milti-million dollar prize to build a laser that can carve their corporate logo into the surface of the moon?

Re:Significantly different?

[MightyYar]

Any rocket scientists out there have any idea what the real benefit of the challenge is? IINARS. But, I can think of why this would be beneficial. If you can meet the challenge here on Earth, and you can do it for round-bouts $2 million, then you have figured out how to do a complex task very cheaply. NASA won't be sending a slightly-modified version of your lander to the moon, but they may well come away with some cost-saving ideas.

And then there's the whole fun of it.

Re:Significantly different?

[peragrin]

ah but that is the point. without having to deal with air resistance, and only 1/6 the gravity if you can go 150 feet up on earth you can easily go 1000 feet away from the moon. You also need that increase in fuel as one would be trying to reach lunar orbit. which because of the amazing 1/6 gravity difference is a heck of a lot easier.

So any vessel that could survive in earth's atmosphere doing such tests would be already 75% done for lunar module.

Also the company that does it will most likely win the $2 billion dollar contract to build the lunar module for the government. or at least $100 million dollar help us get started fee.

Re:China and Japan are already there

[RedWizzard]

Will they let the chinese show up? Or maybe the Japanese? Those are orbiters, not landing modules, so no. Anyway the Lunar Lander Challenge has nothing to do with sending anything to the moon. Rather it requires the ability to fly a particular (VTOL) flight profile and quick turnaround times. It's aimed at getting private developers to develop technology that none of the world's governments seem to be working on (i.e. quick turnaround).

I'm so tired of my tax dollars being wasted on international dick-waving contests like this. I wish NASA et al would just whip out the rulers- it'd be cheaper. Then again, it wouldn't feed the defense contractors, now would it? I'm tired of people making uninformed comments about stories they clearly haven't even read and still getting modded up for it. We don't always get what we want.

That's so 1969...

[tinrobot]

It makes me sad that almost 40 years later, they have to reinvent the technology from scratch.

We should be competing for a Mars lander by now.

America is dying

[megaditto]

$2M for a working rocket spaceship
$2B for a half-assed video hosting site Youtube

I am the only one saddened by this?

Re:America is dying

[Plutonite]

No, you missed the big news:

15B for a "social-networking" website where people can "poke" each other and buy each other little gifts that are pictures of teddy bears and ducks.