No Winner In NASA's Moon-Dirt Digging Competition

Engadget is reporting that NASA's recent moon-dirt digging competition has concluded without a winner being named. "The excavator built by Technology Ranch was able to notch first place by relocating just over 143-pounds in 30 minutes, but fell quite short on picking up any award monies. So for those of you who weren't exactly ready to go mano-a-mano with these guys and gals this time around, next year you've all got $750,000 on the line."

Success for the program

[gurps_npc (621217)]

If not for the participants.

Re:

[madprogrammer (214633)]

They could have been more successful (participants *and* program) if they had been better organized and provided better information to the competitors about how the competition would be run.

I was working with a team that was going to compete, and as of last August they still hadn't been told the rules, or even what material would be used to simulate lunar soil.

Better Link

[eldavojohn (898314)]

A better link [newscientist.com] with no subscription required.

It should be noted that this is the sixth of seven Centennial Challenges to go unawarded since 2005 by NASA. They have strict contests because they actually intend to implement the winner's idea. 150 kgs on 30 Watts? Good luck, nobody should be ashamed not to hit that mark!

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[jandrese (485)]

It was 30Kw IIRC, still no mean feat given the weight constraints.

No, it is 30 W.

[WindBourne (631190)]

This came up on the other posting and if you go back to the .pdf on it (check the original story), you will see that it is 30 watts. Pretty wicked.

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[jandrese (485)]

Ouch, 30W is downright paltry for something moving that much rock.

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[WindBourne (631190)]

yeah. Worse, that is on earth. The good news is that the money will encourage SOMEBODY to build one that works.

Re:Better Link

[by Anonymous Coward]

It was 30Kw IIRC

According to the competition page [california...hority.org], it is 30 Watts, not 30 Kilowatts:

• Each team's excavation system must be fully autonomous
• Systems will perform in a square sandbox filled with compressed lunar regolith simulant.
• Mass of the system cannot exceed 40 kilograms.
• 30 Watts of DC power will be provided to the system.
• Each system will have 30 minutes to excavate as much regolith as possible and deliver it to a fixed collector adjacent to the sandbox.
• The total purse of $250,000 will go to the winning teams excavating the most regolith above 150 kilograms.

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[mpe (36238)]

It was 30Kw IIRC, still no mean feat given the weight constraints.

No it was 30W, which is actually quite a bit of power for something intended to be soft landed on the Moon. Where your only practical power source is however many photovoltaic cells the thing can carry with it.

Re:Better Luck

[IhuntCIA (1099827)]

150 kgs on 30 Watts ... on Earth. On the Moon should be more than enough. However low gravity on the Moon might make the scooping inefective if not dificult at least. ... why this competition anyway? Surface of the Earth is diferent than that of the Moon. On the Moon it might be more eficient to throw packed regolith in to the container, and use recoil momentum to power the scoop. Regolith is not the sand and dust only, it contains irregular shaped grains that may vary in size. If the competition is to ma

Re:Better Link

[LurkerXXX (667952)]

The time limit to move the 150kg was 30 minutes. You already knew about the 30 watt limit. Calculate away.

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[jeffmeden (135043)]

Units of time... You mean like when they said 'Within 30 minutes'? You can calculate watts, joules, etc but you are still comparing it to a variable rate of efficiency, since there is no claim of genuine *work* being done. If they had said 'Use 30 watts to move 150kg of soil into a bucket whose opening is 5m up from the surface' you would have been able to start crunching. Don't forget to adjust for lunar gravity!

Re:Better Link

[Mr. Sketch (111112)]

If they listed some kind of time constraint, as well as what type of distance the dirt was being moved...

The articles seem to make it sound like there is a 30 minute time limit. As for the distance, it looks like the machines only lift it out of the ground into a collection bin close by (you can probably assume a meter or two).

If we assume a 30 minute time limit, we could move 150kg on the moon (with gravity of 1.6m/s^2), a max of 225m high, on earth it would be a max of 36.7m high. Of course, that is with 100% efficiency. This could obviously be moved a lot further horizontally and the numbers will probably have to be cut in half since we would only be carrying a load for half the time (the other half would be going back to dig).

In any event, the 30W limitation is quite reasonable, assuming the 30 minute time limit and that it doesn't have to be moved too far.

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[khallow (566160)]

Can't find the rules page at the moment, but it was a two meter or so sandbox filled with lunar regolith simulant with the destination box right next to it.

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[srn_test (27835)]

1 Watt == 1 Joule per second

That also is 1 Amp at 1 Volt per second, but that's not the primary way you talk about a Watt.

A Watt is a unit of work, i.e. Energy per Time.

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[Plutonite (999141)]

Hello

What does 1 Volt per second mean? And whatever happened to P = IV (power = current*voltage)?? My memory can't be that bad.

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[Plutonite (999141)]

For the sake of correctness:

1 Volt is the potential difference between 2 points between which a current of 1 Ampere flows while dissipating 1 Joule per second.

So I might have misunderstood the parent. Apologies.

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[srn_test (27835)]

Teach me for posting too early in the morning.

1 Watt is 1 amp at 1 volt potential; an Amp is a Coulomb per second, which is where the time dimension comes from.

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[CastrTroy (595695)]

Actually, it's both [wikipedia.org]. When your computer power supply is rate for 300 W, that means that it doesn't use more than 300 J of energy every second. Watts is a measurement that requires time. Even if you define it Amps times volts, you would notice that an Amp (ampere) is 1 coulomb per second.

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[jgoemat (565882)]

As long as you, your three friends and the equipment all weigh less than 40 kg total, that is probably ok. Also if strapping 30 watts of DC power to your testicles will make you work :)

What you can't move with 30 Watts...

[Notquitecajun (1073646)]

I can move with 3 pounds of dynamite....or c-4 if you want something actually --stable-- you weenies. Explosives have worked well at moving dirt for a good while.

Oh, sorry, you wanted it moved from here to there, not just "moved."

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[mikelieman (35628)]

We really just need to send people and supplies, and let them do their jobs.

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[rts008 (812749)]

"Until you forget to add that pesky oxygen gas to the equation. Blast! Another folly!"

What do you mean? Most if not all explosives used for excavation/mining produce their own O2 (that's why you can 'fish' with dynomyte- those sticks don't have gills!).

Now trying to use Fuel Air Explosives on the moon would make your comment relevant, but that would be sill as FAE's need a lot of volume to be effective...not anything an intellegent person would try to use for excavation/mining.

Maybe you want to try coffee

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[rts008 (812749)]

Note to self: USE PREVIEW!

That should read Chemistry 101 instead of Physics 101, my bad.

I figure...

[Mockylock (1087585)]

If you could stop at your local day-worker site with some space suits, I bet those fuckers could move some moon dirt in wholesale fashion. We're talking 1000 kilos in 30 minutes, for $50 a head. Saves you lots of money in R&D and I guarantee you can fit 40 of them in one capsule.

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[commodoresloat (172735)]

Just don't ask them to write their essays about it.

oblignignokt

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

The entrants all made the mistake of constructing the means to move dirt in Earth's three puny dimensions.

On the moon, they have five.

Thousand.
Yes, five thousand. Don't question it.

Conveyor belt

[markov_chain (202465)]

It looks like Slashdot's resident armchair engineers made a pretty good call. That's what the top entrant used.

Not good enough?

[Normal Dan (1053064)]

It seems odd NASA would need to move so much in such a short time. Although I have no problem with there being no winners in a competition where the guidelines are set, however, once on the moon, I would imagine time is not of a great significance. The cost of getting there is far more important than the cost of the time it take to move dirt. I would be more interested in who could build the lightest machine to move rock.

Then again, as I think about it, 140 lbs is not a whole lot of rock. Doing some quick calculations if might take several months to excavate a useful cavern at that rate. Hrmm... *goes back to his calculations*

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[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

140 lbs is not a whole lot of rock.

In doing your calculations, you might want to note that the contest calls for 150kg of rock/dirt (~330 lbs) in 30 minutes.

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[zero_offset (200586)]

The lbs/kg comments aside, you do make a good point. Why is the 30 minute rule so important? Clearly some time constraint is reasonable, but with the very low power requirement, it seems reasonable that they could ease up the time restriction a little and greatly increase their chances of success.

Could it be related to the amount of soil they expect to need over a given timeframe to generate adequate oxygen or other resources for consumption or usage by humans?

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[SlayerofGods (682938)]

A)It's kilograms
B)That's earth weight.
On the moon that's close to a ton of rock every 30 mins.

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[earthbound kid (859282)]

Kilograms are a measure of mass not weight, so your mass in kilos is the same on the moon (well, minus the fairly miniscule relativistic effects of changing your frame of reference), even though your weigh in pounds will go down. The SI unit of weight is the Newton.

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[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

I think this is for moving loose rock & sand, not excavating through solid material.

Who needs to move dirt?

[Nom du Keyboard (633989)]

Who needs to move dirt. How about who can dispose of the greatest number of AOL CD's in 30 minutes?

Re:What?

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

We can put a man on the moon but...

Stop right there. We can't.

Re:What?

[drinkypoo (153816)]

If we were highly motivated we could go back sooner than you think - unless you're one of those "the moon landings were faked" bozos. Then "we" doesn't include you. Because when they can identify them before they plan the kidnapping, they don't allow psychotics to join the space program.

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[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

I don't think you're trolling, but if you think that (even given the budget and the will) that we could do it in less than 8 years, I think you're dreaming.

Re:What?

[drinkypoo (153816)]

I'm glad you don't think I'm trolling, because I don't do that. But I do think that given the budget and the will - both of which are conspicuously absent - we could get to the moon in less than eight years. Besides the general subject of advances in science since the last moon landing, there's also the fact that there's simply many more firms in aerospace today. I think that the only missing ingredient is the will, really, but it's definitely absent.

This does (once again) raise an interesting point, however. I've still never gotten a reasonable answer as to why we don't have all the documentation from all the prior NASA missions. How is it possible for blueprints to go missing? Whose idea was it to not update the blueprints as parts were changed on the vehicles? What is the source of the gross incompetence that has NASA engineers studying NASA designs in museums to find out what we have forgotten? And how quickly can we get a mission together to land them on the sun?

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[cheater512 (783349)]

The rocket scientists dont look after the blueprints. The janitors do.

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[drinkypoo (153816)]

The rocket scientists dont look after the blueprints. The janitors do.

In some of the more competent places I've worked, the janitorial staff would not touch anything on the floor outside the trash can. If that meant they couldn't vacuum completely, so be it. If you even wanted a box in the hall picked up you had to put an orange TRASH/BASURA sticker on it.

There is no excuse for not having a comprehensive policy for data retention, especially when the taxpayer is footing the bill for those documents.

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[susano_otter (123650)]

The taxpayer isn't footing the bill for the documents. The taxpayer is footing the bill for the finished product, of which the documents are a necessary precursor and side effect.

And they do have a comprehensive policy for data retention: retain what you need, for as long as you can afford to, within the limits of the funds you've been given.

The complaint most people seem to have about this policy is that their idea of what is really needed, for how long, and at what cost, is far beyond what the actual rock

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[Rakishi (759894)]

Blueprints wouldn't do much good, things have changed so much and old parts no longer are produced that it'd take a massive effort to update to modern parts the spaceships. A lot of things simply aren't on blueprints that would matter in such a case. You don't care if part X is there, you care why part X was put there and if part Y can be used instead. More importantly you care about what effects part Y would have. Experience cannot be distilled into writing and NASA's experience in this area has retired or

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[Rakishi (759894)]

No, the people who designed the original version of the shuttle weren't idiots. The people who ok-ed the final version and forced the inane air force requirements onto it were idiots. There is no next iteration of the space shuttle, it took 30 years to realize that the original small people carrying ship is actually what is needed. Untold billions have been wasted in the Shuttle, every launch costs 5 times more than it should. In some ways we've wasted 30 years worth of time and effort on projects which if

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[Rakishi (759894)]

The Soyuz lost only one crew, 30 years ago or so due to a bad valve. Their bodies came down intact but they died of decompression but they simply couldn't close a valve fast enough once they noticed a problem.

Now including a failure that happened 30+ years ago in a much older version of a vehicle to that of a much newer vehicle is beyond arsine. Since the time the shuttle started flying there have been 0 deaths on Soyuz craft. Even if we include it we see that:

There have been 96 Soyuz flights with 1 loss, a

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[lexarius (560925)]

This would be much easier if rocket scientists properly commented their projects. When I open a panel on my lunar lander module, the first thing I want to see is a Post-It Note that helpfully says:

// ok, I tried all the components in box m56, and this one seems like it fits right.
// it should probably work. If not, the thingy under panel 245 looks
// like it should fit. Either way, it makes the lights blink.

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[beckerist (985855)]

Often times people are only satisfied with mystery, conspiracies and a sense of paranoia that stems from a general mistrust of authority. It's impossible to logically argue with those people that give credence to the conspiracy theories, simply because they base their "logic" on fallacy to begin with.

Back on topic, I am really not surprised by the outcome of this contest. I can't for the life of me find the original link (why the heck do you link to a blog, and not even the contest page?!) but if I recall

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[Rakishi (759894)]

No, we can't get there all that quickly. We can't use the old Apollo system as we have no heavy load rockets and the Shuttle can't lift the payload in one piece (it may not even be able to lift some of the pieces period). I doubt we could even recreate the Saturn V or even Apollo systems right now with less effort than building a new system from scratch. So you'd need a new rocket and a new lander, unless you want to shove some overcomplicated beast into 5+ shuttle loads.

The Russians probably have a better

Re:

[element-o.p. (939033)]

mano-a-mano => man to man mono-a-mono => ??? (Although I get your drift)

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[PezJunkie42 (837065)]

As pointed out in one of the other posts, "mano" is hand.
"Mono" is spanish for monkey. =)