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."

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?

Mining for video data

[Anonymous Coward]

Retrieving video data does not count as "mining".

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.

Re:Seems easy

[nedlohs]

You don't think the spec of a $20 million contract will be specific about just what that 500m of movement means?

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.

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 [wikipedia.org]

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: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.

LINK TO AUTOPLAY VIDEO

[david.given]

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

Re:It's the bonus that concerns me

[Anonymous Coward]

OP here. I'm afraid the distinction between leaving the site - or sites - alone and protecting them as historical monuments is lost on me. What struck me when I first read this story was that we have an unprecedented opportunity because, meteors aside, the Apollo site should look exactly the same as it does now in thousands of years without the need for preservation efforts. There's more than enough Moon up there to leave even the smallest bootprint from the Apollo landing untouched.