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Private Firm Plots Robotic Lunar Exploration
DeviceGuru writes "Astrobotic Technology has unveiled plans for a series of robotic expeditions to the Moon. The lunar rovers will explore high-interest areas of the Moon's surface and beam the data back to the Earth. The plan is to accumulate an extensive library of lunar data and sell it to governments and private corporations (PDF), much as Navteq's data forms the backbone of most terrestrial GPS services. Astrobotic's first goal is to win Google's $30 million Lunar X Prize, with a May, 2010 trip to the Apollo 11 landing site at Mare Tranquillitatis."
...are rightly over. America got to the Moon first and no-one can take that away from them. All future space exploration should be done by robots because it just isn't worth it to place a human being on another planet.
Squirrel!
I wonder how governments will attempt to regulate space once it becomes a truly commercial frontier (I mean aside from orbit). On the one hand, I'm against regulations on what is essentially just an un-owned patch of "space". On the other hand though...it'd be scary to have any company that can afford to send things to the moon or into space. I mean, that much equipment just floating around out there and something's bound to go catasrophically wrong.
With Red Whittaker as the CEO, I'm sure this company can do what it says. If you're not familar with Red, his robots have been doing great things for many years. For example, it was Red's robots that helped clean up Three Mile Island after the accident there, as well as Chernobyl. His team at Carnegie Mellen also won the Darpa Grand Challange for developing a vehicle that could navigate autonomously. (The previous year, he took 2nd and 3rd place in the same challenge.)
So... I guess after he achieves this, we'll have a "Red Moon" after all!
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
The problem with beaming data from the Earth to the Moon is that anyone with an antenna can listen to the signal. Unless Astrobotic has a unique way of obfuscating the data stream so that only they know what's being beamed back, what's to stop a government from simply erecting a few antennae and getting all the information for free?
And another question, if the cost of paying people to decode the obfuscated datastream is cheaper than the cost of buying the information directly from Astrobotic, how can the company realistically expect to have any customers?
Hmm... I'm just a little concerned about other (commercial) parties landing at Tranquility Base (the name for the Apollo 11 landing site) and desecrating (is that too strong a word?) it. I mean, if the Chinese got there and defaced the lander and removed the footprints there would be a lot of very angry Americans.
I assume that self-interest will keep any visitors from doing anything to egregious but are there any policies for keeping these sites pristine? Maybe someday they'll be preserved in a bubble just like on Futurama!
I agree that this is the right team. But what's just as delightful, and make no mistake, delight is an understated way to describe what I think of this news, is that they're clearly thinking of this not as a "mission" but as a task set to bootstrap a business able to pay its own way. I particularly like that they're not using the oh-so-annoying sop of "space tourism". Afaic, "space tourism" is pretty much like twenties barnstorming. Iow, "we've got this amazing technology that we aren't using seriously at the moment so while we get our act in gear we'll kill time, keep ourselves busy, and make beer money giving people rides on our cool vehicles".
Personally, I've been pushing the idea of private organizations exploring with clusters of small robotic missions for years now, I've even ranted at my friends about it, so how could I not be pleased?
I wonder how long it will take for the mainstream media and legislators to claim that they've backed this approach all along
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Seriously. I know that this is /., but try. You might enjoy it.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
it can't be called exploration.
Machines are used to investigate. Self aware beings explore.
The human race stopped exploring the moon in 1972. Mars has been investigated, which is good, but never explored, which is not.
The reason that people with european ancestors can be found on every continent is because those ancestors explored. Minute fragments of culture from Europe are still to be found all over the "New World". Whether those 2 facts are a good thing or not is a separate debate.
If human culture and DNA is to survive, we need to explore. Finding out what is elsewhere is only a small part of it.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Oops, my bad. ;) (But I did say "other" as in other future landings). So my question still stands, I assume there are no policies regarding future visitations? Are there any legal precedents like shipwrecks? (Removing artifacts from the Titanic, for example, I assume is legally "okay" because it is a shipwreck no? The Apollo landing site has not been "abandoned" I presume).
I have no idea about this arcane part of international law.
There are massive legal precedents. It's called 'salvage'. In easy terms, it's finders-keepers for property on non-territorial waters.
Wow! A robotic mission to the Moon? Gee whiz! And to think that we only had manned missions 30 years ago!
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Future historians anybody? or have we abandoned al hope of ever becoming a space faring race.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Lunkhod (or Lunakhod) 1 and 2 roved around on the Moon in the 1970's, with the second rover covering over 40 km (more than the current Mars Rovers combined).
Here are some pictures from the mission.
Lunkhod 2 has a laser retroreflector package that is used for laser laser ranging (LLR) along with 3 Apollo LLR retroreflector packages; these 4 sites together determine the Moon's orbit to the order of centimeters and are thus crucial in a number of scientific investigations ranging from pure physics to Lunar dynamics.
As a PS, I would strongly urge any exploration of the Apollo 11 site to stay well away from its LLR retroreflectors, as moving them by even a mm could cause problems interpreting that data.
when they find the moon landing was a hoax and they're the first ones there.
Of course, maybe they're in bed with NASA, who'll let them use the same sound stage where they filmed the apollo landing, and it'll be a double hoax!
Do you have ESP?
much as Navteq's data forms the backbone of most terrestrial GPS services
Define "most." I think that the people who run the International GNSS Service (IGS) would disagree with you.
Anyone else a little disturbed that a private corporation wants to litter and upset the almost untouched lunar surface for private gain?
"The plan is to accumulate an extensive library of lunar data and sell it to governments and private corporations"
If not, where do you draw the line? Launch bases? Or what if in there data they find something of 'value' and decide to strip mine the surface. Or at extreme length McDonalds decides to paint a big yellow M for everyone to enjoy.
The Outer Space Treaty which is the first basic attempt to regulate space is pretty much like the concept behind International Waters. The gist of Articles 6 and 7 are that governments are responsible for their citizens and corporate entities operation in outer space. If you need an analogy, this is sort of like how your parents are legally responsible for your actions when you are a child.
As for the equipment just floating around and something going catestrophically wrong, well, just look at the junk floating around earth's orbit, you don't have to imagine it, it's already real. In many respects it's no different than the great pacific garbage patch.
These happenings are perhaps one of the best illustrations of the Tragedy of the Commons effect. There are many sides to this argument about the commons. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves ;^)
International space treaties make the launching nation continuously and forever responsible for any spacecraft, wrt danger to the public at launch and reentry. It's not clear, therefore, that any of the US or Soviet spacecraft on the Moon are "abandoned" -- Astrobotic is proceeding on the assumption that they are still the property of the governments that launched them.
To launch, we will need a license from the FAA, and so the public policy issues involved in a return to Apollo 11 will be decided by the US government during the review of the launch license application.
Astrobotic will have a telephoto lens and will stay well away from the descent stage. (The robot has no arm, and so can't touch or take anything.) Boot prints will be programmed into the hazard avoidance software as very big hazards to stay away from. And we'll have three-person driving teams replaced every two hours to ensure we are careful and alert in the vicinity of Apollo 11.
Umm, not quite.
For the record, IANALBIAANA (I am not a lawyer, but I am a nautical archaeologist)
The laws of salvage only apply when a ship, etc. is formally abandoned (usually for insurance purposes). For things like military vessels, governments tend not to formally abandon title and zealously guard it against salvage attempts. Considering that the lunar modules and other equipment are U.S. government property, I highly doubt that they have been legally abandoned.
Of course, this is all a moot point, since admiralty law does not apply to space, so no precedents actually exist.
There have been discussions at the U.N. and various historical preservation associations about how to legally handle protection for lunar and other historic sites sites in outer space. The problem is that current UNESCO world heritage rules stipulate that the country in possession of an historic site must first designate said site under their own historic sites laws. However, for the U.S. to do so, it would have to necessarily make a territorial claim on a portion of the moon's surface, which it can't legally do as a signatory of the Moon Treaty.
..and if they crash land ON the Eagle, there's gonna be a lot of pissed of Americans.
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
Forgive me for not RTFA, but why would they target such a historically sensitive location? I can imagine that lunar mapping isn't yet pixel perfect, and it is a known site that is suitable for landing, but why there?
Does anyone know any good reasons why this must be their target (other than perhaps marketing)?
I would guess that they're counting on the protection of law that, even now, does still apply for rich organizations with rich friends. After all, it's not like somebody else can go out, use the footage, and just claim that they generated their own the day before down at the beach.
Frankly, it looks to me like you're all arguing about a problem that would only seem like a problem to you. The revenue from this isn't going to come from pirate radio or modern equivalent, especially since it will be HD content anyway. It will be from selling that content for data and through licensing systems like Corbis for things like television shows, movies, and other folks who couldn't care less about being able to "steal" the data since possession of a physical copy doesn't help them at all to make money from it themselves.
In short, I very much doubt that they need to focus on technological security. They need to focus on paying for the right law firm, giving the right contributions to legislators, and having a good contractor searching for copyright violators.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Anyone know what launch vehicle they're planning to lob it to the moon with? SpaceX Falcon? OSC Pegasus?
I value politeness. If you extend it to me, I'll extend it to you.
Exploring is when someone goes somewhere and , ideally, comes back.
Colonising is when you go somewhere else and make your home there.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
And certainly not the first to announce plans.
www.openluna.org is on a similar time scale, and will end in a much more ambitious human outpost while they are still sending robots.
see www.openluna.org/wiki to help