Slashdot Log In
Private Company First to Take on Lunar X Challenge
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Dec 07, 2007 07:09 AM
from the to-the-moon-google dept.
from the to-the-moon-google dept.
explosivejared writes "A private company by the name of Odyssey Moon has become the first team to complete registration for Google's Lunar X Challenge. They will likely be competing with several heavyweights in the field, as Carnegie Mellon University, along with many others, has already expressed an interest in the competition."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Hey! (Score:2)
Moon 2.0 (Score:2)
Dilbert (Score:4, Funny)
For example:
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2007152781206.gif [comics.com]
Coincidence ?
Re: (Score:2)
I have long since stopped marveling at how apropos Dilbert can be at times.
Scott Adams has been able to consistently put out stuff for a long time that at any given time, a whole lot of geeks read and say "how the heck did he know that?".
It's eerie sometimes. Really, who among us hasn't come into work in the morning, fired up our daily Dilbert fix, and see our lives right in front of us?? At least three times in as many months, the latest daily describes
Productivity... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is following the exact path of civil aviation. I have high hopes of it developing in the same way.
Sorry, a bit of daydreaming is good for me... let the SciFi lover in me have a bit of fun.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, how did it happen the way it did the first time? (moon 1.0)
With computing power on par with an 86 Chevy Citation and slide rules, how did we send living breathing men to the moon, and bring them back, without a hitch?
I'm not saying we didn't, just that either it wasn't that hard, or there is more to the story as to how hard it really was, or some reason why it's "so hard" now. It's been almost 40 years, I'm just asking why it hasn't been done since. Is
Re:Productivity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, as long as there are no reasons to go into space, the Free Market is getting nowhere here. All these projects you see are funded on charity. People with too much money pay to do something mostly to keep the industry alive.
Space exploration is actually following the path of polar exploration. Many people got both private and government funding to go to the poles, and some of the succeeded. But very few things except for science came of it, and that was the government funded kind of science.
Sure, some fishermen had semi permanent settlements on the the south pole, but they have mostly been replaced by scientists now. It's possible we'll see mining or oil drilling on the poles, but this hasn't happened yet, partly for legal reasons but also actually for practical reasons. There is some tourism too, but its pretty insignificant, and it will be the same for space. Once the hype fades, interest will drop. After all, a private island in the pacific is nicer than orbit around space.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is exciting too, but don't get too optimistic. Comparing it to aviation doesn't make sense at all. There is no brave new world here, just barren wastelands. Obviously, one day it will become profitable to bring platinum and other really expensive metals back to earth, and at that point the free market will take over, but I'd say that's atleast 100 years away. Deep sea mining will happen long before that, for example.
Parent
Re:Productivity... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the fastest way from London to New York (or any other point on Earth) is a ballistic arc. And the ballistic arcs for any significant distances - meaning you'd consider using an airplane - go through space.
A ballistic arc from London to New York isn't far from LEO as far as speed and altitude goes. From New York to Tokyo would be even closer. And the hard, dangerous and expensive parts of space travel are precisely entering orbit and entering atmosphere.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now for next day or same day ship cargo this could be useful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If it meant that I could travel from Chicago to Beijing in under 3 hours? Or London to Syndey in less than 5 hours?
You had better believe that there would be demand for genuine ballistic arcs around the world. Indeed there is demand for sub-orbital flights right now.... if the equipment technology (read safety concerns) and the costs dropped to something a little cheaper than
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason Concorde could afford to fly was the two goverments involved wrote off the development costs and presented them to the respective airlines for free. (And, not incidentally, save face for the respective goverments and enlarge the size of the virtual national penises.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, its not following the path of aviation. See, aviation competed with trains and boats, and eventually won. The space industry isn't competing with any other industry. While there are many reasons to go from London to New York, there are few reasons to go from some pacific island to the moon, other than research or publicity.
Most of the business that airlines serve didn't exist when there were only boats and trains. I'd say most of the passenger traffic is short term business or tourism trips. Go somewhere else in the world by plane, stay a few days or weeks, and return. Airlines don't compete with anything else for that business. Same goes for cargo. Most of the cargo is probably urgent to some degree. In the absence of airlines, there is no "next day delivery" for example unless the destination happens to be near by. Also,
Re: (Score:2)
I second that (Score:2)
With some Canadian Content (Score:2)
ttyl
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, someone is apparently willing to do this, and that means the reward is good enough.
Missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need to recoup all the winner's costs. You just need to give the company a bit of a reward to help them get back out of the red more quickly.
Take the $10M prize, as an example. It is estimated that the winning team spent around $25M to win that $10M. But they now have a contract with Virgin Galactic to build many more vehicles, because they have the know-how and a workable basic design.
The goal is to stimulate, not to reimburse all costs.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It is like climbing a rather steep hill to reach a plateau. After the climb the long walk on the top is much easier. Now if you want to get from Earth to Moon quickly you may need to bring along more energy, thus even harder to get out of the gravity well, but that is choice.
I think
A drawing is worth a thousand words (Score:3, Insightful)
The energy budget to go from Low-Earth Orbit to the moon is half of the one to go from earth to LEO. So I would say that the reward is surprisingly on-spot. Of course this is not taking into consideration the fact that the weight of a spacecraft increase exponentially the closer it comes to escape velocity, and the fact that lunar landing, lunar-earth telecommunications, space travel are a different kind of challenge than in the Ans
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It gets even better when you consider the issue of thrust. To lift from the Earth you need a lot of thrust simply to raise from the ground. This translates directly into consuming a lot of energy and reaction mass, which rules out things like solar panels and forcing the spacecraft to carry all its energy within. This makes the spacecraft heavier, in
Re: (Score:3, Informative)