Moon Mining Race Under Way

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."

Comments

It's the bonus that concerns me

[newcastlejon]

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?

Re:It's the bonus that concerns me

[Bearhouse]

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

Re:It's the bonus that concerns me

[peragrin]

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.

Re:It's the bonus that concerns me

[SpzToid]

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

Re:It's the bonus that concerns me

[FatLittleMonkey]

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.

Seems easy

[Thanshin]

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.

For any who are too dim to work it out

[dbIII]

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.

And you call it "mining"?

[aglider]

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.

Re:And you call it "mining"?

[Teancum]

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.

Doesn't seem realistic

[Hentes]

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.

Re:Doesn't seem realistic

[N1AK]

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.

Re:Doesn't seem realistic

[DerekLyons]

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

LINK TO AUTOPLAY VIDEO

[david.given]

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

Old, old, old news

[DerekLyons]

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