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First 10 Teams in $30M Google Lunar X Prize Announced

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the go-for-the-green dept.

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.

3 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Much better challenge by HEbGb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Much better challenge by moderatorrater · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And the original X-prize wasn't enough to cover the budget for developing the tools for a private venture to get into space either. $30 million should be enough to get to the moon once you have the equipment, and it might even be enough to cover the equipment, but it sure won't cover the development of the equipment. Like the X-prize, this is more of a rebate so that companies can expect to get some money back on a venture that's going to earn them a lot of money from other sources.

      $30 million is also a good excuse for rich people to compete.

  2. maybe not by Quadraginta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.