The great lunar lander race

Adrian Willing, St. Augustine, Florida — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 05:24:11 GMT

Encouraging private venture capitalists to invest in the expanding space economic sphere is in the best interests of the nation and humanity in general; but investors, particularly American ones, need to see results, ie. profitable returns. NASA needs to educate the public at large on the massive potential economic rewards of fully funding space exploration - without doing so, the Vision For Space Exploration will eventually fizzle under the weight of other congressional spending priorities.

The great lunar lander race

Aaron Oesterle, Mason, Mi — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 08:44:25 GMT

Adrian - I'd argue that it's space colonization, and not exploration, that space enthusiasts (and not just nasa) needs to educate the public.

Alan - The other cool thing that was in the dispatch was a photo of the completed first module. Thats very cool IMHO, almost as cool as the flight of Pixel. Can't wait to see it fly as well

The great lunar lander race

steve smyth lynn ma — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:22:44 GMT

Congrats!...it's all good, eh? For another approach, click my name below. Excelsior!

The great lunar lander race

frank Lemmond — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:32:06 GMT

I remember the Apollo program during the 60s. In approximately 8 1/2 years after President Kennedy issued his challenge to put a man on the moon we did. It was a national effort that used acedemia, private industry and the NASA engineers and managers. By all of us working together, the landing on the moon isn't a difficult project. We have so much more capabilities now. We need to avoid the "fixed idea" error. Bright individuals working independently can work circles around a large ponderous private or government bureacratic organization. The large organization tend to be inefficient and inflexable.

The great lunar lander race

Loren, SF Bay Area, CA — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:45:36 GMT

Impressive video! I appreciated the high-speed refueling interlude, because it gave me a feel for the size and scale of the lander. Go Armadillo!

The great lunar lander race

Joel Watson — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:33:32 GMT

Isn't it comical that we are even investigating a way to "land on the moon"? Surely this was all figured out in the 60s, when we "supposedly" placed a man on the moon...

The great lunar lander race

Vishal Nangalia, London, UK — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:45:53 GMT

Go Widget... NewSpace Companies are finally prying open the doors to space for us all... : )

The great lunar lander race

Frank Glover — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:05:06 GMT

"Whittington says "everybody would win" that kind of space race. But in the past, lawmakers have been loath to expand NASA's Centennial Challenge program - perhaps because no one can predict exactly when the money would be paid out, and to whom."

Unfortunately, it's also because they can't then say at election time, that it necessairily created and/or supported jobs in their own districts/states, as opposed to the usual contracting system to aerospace companies, and their sub-contractors.

But it's still a start. As with the LLC, we would pay only for results. Not cost overruns.

The great lunar lander race

Ray — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:21:38 GMT

Great article ... I'm glad to see you'll be following the LLC in future articles. I agree that this year's challenge might be even more fun to follow than last year's.

Lately Unreasonable Rocket has also been posting a lot of information, pictures, and videos on their Lunar Lander Challenge efforts.

http://unreasonablerocket.blogspot.com/

Ray (Space Prizes blog)

The great lunar lander race

Frank Glover — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:54:37 GMT

Here's another forum discussing this particular topic:

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2007/06/
04/a-real-lunar-lander-challenge/#comments

...And Joel, there's no point in returning (yes, returning) to the moon, if it's going to be the same uneconomical (and therefore), unsustainable, mostly optimized to beat the Soviets manner that we did before.

This time, we want to make it stick. Re-doing Apollo (and we seem dangerously close to trying to do that) isn't the way. There's an engineering axion; 'Good, fast, cheap. Pick any two.' Apollo was time-limited (before the end of the 60's, *and* before the Russians), so 'good' and 'fast' were important. Now there's no hurry. Let's continue to encourage commercial aerospace, both established and new, to find ways to get us back 'good' and 'cheap.'

The great lunar lander race

Mike Maxwell, Laurel MD — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 03:36:41 GMT

Didn't someone suggest putting a rover (like the Mars rovers) on the moon and letting people pay for the privilege of driving it for a minute or two? I could imagine people paying quite a bit for that. With the Moon only a couple light-seconds away, remote driving would be more feasible than driving a rover on Mars. Of course, you'd probably have to shut down during the lunar night.

The great lunar lander race

F. Gesualdo — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 16:36:15 GMT

I doubt we have the courage or the will to sacrifice, to ever colonize any other planet. Space is a dangerous place and all it would take is one terminal accident for all missions to be scraped. With lawyers converging to sue and cries from compassionate cowards, all innovation would halt.

The great lunar lander race

Ryan — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:35:50 GMT

I think the prize should be raised to 50 million or more. Like they say "No bucks no Buck Rogers". I think the people of the internet should come together and try to raise money for civilian space travel.