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Moon Mining Race Under Way

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-lot-of-cheese dept.

New submitter rujholla writes "The race to the moon is back! This time, though, it's through private enterprise. Google has offered a $20m grand prize to the first privately-funded company to land a robot on the moon and explore the surface (video) by moving at least 500 meters and sending high definition video back to Earth by 2015."

34 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. It's the bonus that concerns me by newcastlejon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A second-placed team stands to win $5m for completing the same mission, with bonus prizes for travelling more than 5km, finding water and discovering any traces of man's past on the moon, such as the Apollo site.

    Wouldn't it be best to leave the Apollo landing site - even the footprints - alone for posterity?

    --
    If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    1. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by Bearhouse · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, they don't have to roll over and obliterate them, do they?

      Would be nice to see some of those artifacts filmed in modern high-definition colour. Especially ones never seen before.

      Also, why do we need to 'discover' these sites - don't we already know where they are?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_the_Moon

    2. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      Well, they don't have to roll over and obliterate them, do they?

      Would be nice to see some of those artifacts filmed in modern high-definition colour.

      I wonder if it would shut up the moon hoax idiots.

      Nah.

      --
      No sig today...
    3. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      Wouldn't it be best to leave the Apollo landing site - even the footprints - alone for posterity?

      "Site"?

      Did you know there's more than one?

      Maybe they could leave Apollo 11 alone but Apollos 15-17? Can you even name the pilots...?

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by peragrin · · Score: 4, Funny

      My favorite scenario is we take all the leading moon landing hoax people to the apollo landing sites and ask them to remove their helmets.

      That will shut them up.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    5. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by DFurno2003 · · Score: 2

      Im not sure the footprints will be visible after all this time. The site itself should be left alone, but landing nearby and getting close enough to capture some video would (in my opinion) revive public interest in space.

    6. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      OP here. I'm afraid the distinction between leaving the site - or sites - alone and protecting them as historical monuments is lost on me. What struck me when I first read this story was that we have an unprecedented opportunity because, meteors aside, the Apollo site should look exactly the same as it does now in thousands of years without the need for preservation efforts. There's more than enough Moon up there to leave even the smallest bootprint from the Apollo landing untouched.

    7. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by SpzToid · · Score: 4, Informative

      The U.S. has already formally requested folks stay at least 75 meters (246 ft) from the site.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/science/space/a-push-for-historic-preservation-on-the-moon.html

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquility_Base

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
    8. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by Psychophrenes · · Score: 2

      New achievement: Travelled 5km on the Moon
      New achievement: Desecrated a historical site

    9. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by rioki · · Score: 2

      Except that once space travel becomes feasible for more people, people will want to see the site. Best is I think it to build a visitor center / museum around it and shield that actual site, which is just a few hundred square feet.

    10. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by WrecklessSandwich · · Score: 2

      (disclaimer for the obtuse, it was a joke, I wish no one harm)

      I do.

    11. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by lxs · · Score: 2

      There are too many historical monuments on Earth as it is. Let's not spoil the Moon as well with conservation mania.
      Instead of preserving the past in aspic let's look to the future for a change.

    12. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not quite. Thermal cycling of the top inch or two of regolith means that the footprints are likely to be lost in a century or three. Even 45 years is probably enough to soften the sharp outlines. The flag will be UV-bleached-white or radiation-black. The descent stage and other equipment will be peppered with micro-meteorite holes.

      Frankly, this is another reason to preserve the sites. As experiments which provide 6 points of reference to calibrate the fine erosion rate for lunar features.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    13. Re:It's the bonus that concerns me by CraftyJack · · Score: 2

      Who is going to stop them once they're up there anyway?

      The spacecraft is "up there". "They" are actually down here, well within the reach of Buzz Aldrin's fists.

  2. Mining for video data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Retrieving video data does not count as "mining".

    1. Re:Mining for video data by progician · · Score: 2

      Data mining?

  3. Seems easy by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I must see too much SF because this seems intuitively too easy.

    500m and HD video is an hdpro in a transparent sphere with springs. The landing itself will make it move more than 500m.

    I rationally know that sending a 300g mass to the moon isn't trivial, but it does look easy.

    Now that I think on it, GoPro (the company) should try shooting a couple thousand of their cameras to the moon just for PR reasons.

    1. Re:Seems easy by nedlohs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You don't think the spec of a $20 million contract will be specific about just what that 500m of movement means?

  4. For any who are too dim to work it out by dbIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anything that requires a rocket program costing a billion or so and hundreds of people is not "easy". It may be easier to piggyback from others, use their stuff and launch facilities and get that rocket program down in price, but it's still not going to be "easy" to get anything to escape velocity unless you ask somebody else to do all of the hard bits.

    1. Re:For any who are too dim to work it out by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Placing a satellite into orbit costs between 20 and 300 million.

      Placing a satellite in orbit can cost as little as $40k. That is what a Cubesat launch costs. Groups of university students have put satellites in orbit.

      Sending something to the Moon would cost more, but can probably be done for far less than $20 million. I know some people working on the Google Lunar X Prize, and their robot is about the size of a carton of cigarettes, and weighs less than a kg. Their plan is to put it in LEO, and then use an ion thruster to slowly build up to escape velocity. The biggest challenge is slowing down as they approach the Moon, but that requires far less energy that leaving the Earth.

  5. And you call it "mining"? by aglider · · Score: 4, Insightful

    to land a robot on the moon and explore the surface by moving at least 500 meters and send high definition video back to Earth by 2015

    I would call it simply "sending a robot that moves on the moon".
    This "minig race" sounds more like a financial buzzword more than real technology breakthrough.

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:And you call it "mining"? by Teancum · · Score: 5, Informative

      This was just a silly reporter from the BBC that was somehow impressed with the idea but otherwise clueless about the whole thing. If you want to read something much more authoritative on the topic, read this:

      http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

      The goal here is to make a low-cost vehicle that can do surface exploration of the Moon. Mining isn't even really a goal, although the technology to get it done would ultimately be useful to engage in mining activities eventually. It is not a sample return mission through.

  6. Doesn't seem realistic by Hentes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Surveyor program cost about $500m. A mere $20m prize won't make this profitable. Also, 2015 is far too close for a program like this, I don't think Google wants to pay that money.

    1. Re:Doesn't seem realistic by N1AK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The idea of offering a $20m prize isn't that it will completely cover the cost of doing it but that it will change the balance of risk and reward enough. Producing a cost effective way of putting a vehicle on the moon will be worth money in sponsorship, IP rights and sales of technology, and the future business opportunities that come from being able to do it.

      Is $20m enough? I don't know as it isn't something I know enough about but it could make a considerable difference to a company that was considering doing it anyway.

    2. Re:Doesn't seem realistic by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Informative

      The contest (Google Lunar X Prize) has actually being underway since 2007... and nobody is particularly close.

  7. They're part of the way there... by Bearhouse · · Score: 2

    Bolt an Android 'phone...

    http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/03/07/1438237/android-in-space-strand-1-satellite-to-activate-nexus-one

    To this..

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms_NXT_2.0

    Then find large rocket...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

    Job done! I claim my 10% consulting fee!

    More seriously, looks like the Indians are going to get there pretty soon, (2015), but this is not a private venture.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2

  8. LINK TO AUTOPLAY VIDEO by david.given · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please, please don't post links to these without at least warning people...

  9. Old, old, old news by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Informative

    The contest is called the Google Lunar X Prize - and was announced back in 2007.

  10. Re:Earth Mass by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

    Not from the moon -- we orbit the sun as an Earth-moon system, so the net mass doesn't change.

    Hundreds of tons of space dust hit the Earth every day, IIRC.

    Asteroids miles in diameter wouldn't be noticeable, though scientists could probably detect it (soft landing). In any case, you would have to change the speed of the Earth to change its orbit. As the Earth is about 7 heptillion tons, that's a tall order for the forseeable future. All asteroids hitting Earth would kill us, but not much orbit-wise.

    Finally, whatever hit the Earth knocking a chunk off to form the moon (it has no iron magnetic core, so they know it is surface material from something else and didn't form as a planet-like body on its own) probably didn't change the orbit much either.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  11. Shareholders by schneidafunk · · Score: 2

    Google is a public company. How do they justify spending $20 million for this project to share holders?

    --
    Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
    1. Re:Shareholders by mbone · · Score: 2

      Any way they want to - probably as marketing. That business about having a fiducial responsibility to focus only on profits is only trotted out to confuse simple-minded people when a company does something unpopular.

  12. LLR by mbone · · Score: 2

    Three Apollo site (11,14 and 15) , and the 2 Lunakhod sites, are still in use - they host Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) retroreflectors, which are crucial to our knowledge of Lunar dynamics.

    The Apollo 11 LLR is protected by NASA regulations, but the other sites are not. I (and numerous others) have made the point to NASA that having a rover come within meters of a retroreflector could cause problems, but I am not sure it has percolated into the contest teams.

    1. Re:LLR by DerekLyons · · Score: 2

      The Apollo 11 LLR is protected by NASA regulations, but the other sites are not.

      All Apollo sites are protected by NASA regulations.
       

      I (and numerous others) have made the point to NASA that having a rover come within meters of a retroreflector could cause problems, but I am not sure it has percolated into the contest teams.

      The contest organizers long ago disavowed the goal of visiting a lunar landing site.

  13. Re:Science Fiction by painandgreed · · Score: 2

    The mining to be done will be done for use in space. Since getting stuff off the moon and into space is cheaper than getting stuff off the earth, at a certain point, mining the moon is economically feasible. Water for fuel will be the first thing mined and the moon is probably better for it than asteroids. Surveying and mining asteroids in itself is probably a much more time consuming and costly feat than doing the same on the moon, especially for metals. All our current refining and fabrications technology assumes a gravitational field. Converting this to the airless moon will probably be easier than researching similar airless and weightless tech for mining asteroids.