Slashdot Mirror
First 10 Teams in $30M Google Lunar X Prize Announced
coondoggie writes to mention that the first ten teams racing for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize have been announced. The competitors will try to be the first team to land a privately funded robotic spacecraft on the moon capable of traveling at least 1,600 feet and returning video, images, and data. The teams include Romanian-based ARCA, Italy-based Team Italia, and several different teams from around the US, many of which competed in the Ansari X Prize.
This is a much better challenge than the X-prize, which didn't even include orbit. It was amusing to watch, but really not a huge deal imo.
I fear, however, that $30m isn't nearly enough to cover the budget for a lunar mission, even if someone does end up winning the prize.
The X Prize and this competition differ from competitions early in the aviation era, to which they're routinely compared, in that they aren't for doing something no one's ever done before. Suborbital flight was achieved in the 1960s, both by NASA and by the Air Force with the X-15 program. Landing on the Moon and sending back photos was achieved by the Soviets and Americans in the mid 1960s.
What presumably is the point to these new prizes is not the achievement per se, which merely duplicates something done forty years ago, but the goal of doing so much more cheaply, and with the ability to do it much more routinely. Those are reasonable goals: after all, the principal failure of the Space Shuttle is that it can't be launched nearly as often and easily as it was supposed to be. If it had eventually been able to fly 20 times a year to LEO on a routine basis, which was what was promised in the 80s, and which would've brought its per-flight cost down to an extremely modest $60-100 million, we would be now hailing its unqualified success.
So I think the virtue of the X Prize was not its goal of suborbital flight per se, but the goal of suborbital flight with the same craft twice in a short period (a week, as I recall). Doing it rapidly is at least proof of concept evidence that you've found a way to do it cheaply and routinely. And I'm disappointed that this new competition doesn't seem to have that element. I'm not sure how it could. Maybe they would have been better off going for a similar X Prize competition for actual orbital flight, e.g. can you fly to orbit twice in the same week. That would be a real achievement.
I fear, however, that $30m isn't nearly enough to cover the budget for a lunar mission
It's a totally token amount. Merely launching a geostationary satellite on an Ariane 5 rocket costs over $100 million. Presumably if you compete seriously you're in it for the glory.
Back then we had a good chuck of our nation/economy solely dedicated to developing a space program, now we have nothing but bloat and underfunding.
It really is piss poor what Bush has done to science. Bushs' vision of mars is nothing but a political tool to get temporary ratings approval in the polls. Fact is, his vision is severely underfunded, uninspired, and uneducated. Nasa has done some great things with the tools they have. But when you compare Bushs' failed war in iraq and afghanistan and the funds it took to fight them, compared to the Nasa budget it is pitiful.
Imagine if we took that trillion dollar surplus and some real inspiration and dedicated 400 billion to the space program instead of way. A good president would cut out the bureaucracy (with still keeping quality assurance) and size down Nasa's management, and their space vehicles (last time i checked we are using 30+ year old shuttle technology, what exactly is going to happen again when the shuttle retires? There is no clear cut plan, also sad).
Is this the first step to building Google's moon base?
While this is a funny comment, it's not a horrible idea.
First, you know the topology of the area, which I would imagine would be helpful in designing the rover and lander. You know you won't have to deal with going up big hills or anything like that.
Second, and more mercurial, I'd imagine pictures and video of the Apollo 11 landing site would fetch a pretty penny. You could probably sell exclusive broadcast rights and such for a few extra million.