Carnegie Mellon To Compete In Google Lunar X-Prize

An anonymous reader writes "Google's Lunar X-Prize already has a prominent entry. William Whittaker, a researcher from Carnegie Mellon University said that he will be assembling a team to develope a robot that will be be competing for the $20 million grand prize. According to a TG Daily story, Whittaker has some unfair advantages, as he previously developed a lunar rover for NASA that 'can find concentrations of hydrogen, possibly water and other volatile chemicals on the moon that could be mined to produce fuel, water and air that are essential for supporting lunar outposts.' The Lunar X-Prize runs until the end of 2012 and Carnegie Mellon's announcement could be a first indication that researchers are taking this challenge very seriously."

Can the slashdot team compete?

[LiquidCoooled]

How difficult would it be to build a lunar module large enough to accomodate ummmm lets say one Darl Mcbride?

Re:Why is this an unfair advantage?

[raehl]

There are quite a few talented rocket scientists out there. Why not utilize them as a resource?

Just make sure you give them the metric units conversion test first.