Science Forums 2

[TheBigDog]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

And who exactly is funding this effort for us?

Believe it or not, I think funding is the least of our concerns. It is probably the most established of the engineering challenges in the project.

I suggest that we work backward from a perspective of pure Newtonian mechanics. We design a rover that can achieve the goals for a landed vehicle. We design the method of landing it safely on the moon. We calculate the boost requirements for getting the landing mechanism and lander to the moon. We then design the booster to fill that requirement.

The rover will end up being just a couple of Kilos. Because it will be sending pictures of itself back to earth that will be come historic the value of advertising space on the rover and the lander is extraordinary. That is where the funding come from, for letting corporations pay to associate themselves with the dream. Most of the lander should be built from off the shelf parts, but in the form of corporate sponsorships to help pay for it. But I don't want to go off on a tangent of sponsorships. First we need to tackle the basic engineering.

1. We need a capable rover
2. We need a way of soft landing it on the moon

Once we have those numbers we can begin engineering how we get it to the moon. Nothing that we do will be in secret. The whole project will be run on these pages. All members are welcome to participate.

Who would like to be on the lander design team? Here is what has been published so far about the lander requirements...

Originally Posted by The Google Lunar X Prize Rules

A $20 million Grand Prize will be awarded to the team that can soft land a craft on the Moon that roams for at least 500 meters and transmits a Mooncast back to Earth. The Grand Prize is $20M until December 31st 2012

. . .

The Mooncast consists of digital data that must be collected and transmitted to the Earth composed of the following:
• High resolution 360º panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the Moon;
• Self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon;
• Near-real time videos showing the craft’s journey along the lunar surface;
• High Definition (HD) video;
• Transmission of a cached set of data, loaded on the craft before launch (e.g. first email from the Moon).
Teams will be required to send a Mooncast detailing their arrival on the lunar surface, and a second Mooncast that provides imagery and video of their journey roaming the lunar surface. All told, the Mooncasts will represent approximately a Gigabyte of stunning content returned to the Earth.

. . .

An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days).

Worst case is we have a compelling hobby until the end of 2012. So, who is in with me?

Bill