Google backs private Moon landing

[Chairboy]

The $30 million is nice, but y'all are forgetting the purpose.  The idea isn't to just pay for someone to put something on the moon, it's to spur progress and development to get private industry more involved in space.  

Scaled Composite & Paul Allen spent more than the $10 million prize to develop SpaceShipOne, but they did it happily anyways because the return on investment isn't the prize itself, it's the business that comes afterwards.  Scaled is making beaucoup bux building SpaceShipTwos for Virgin, for instance, because they proved the technology.  A company that can soft-land a rover and do things for semi-cheap will get other business too.  If it becomes practical to put a robots on the moon, then it might be practical to put an H3 refinery on, or better.

Can you get something to the moon for $30?  Sure, just buy a surplus Soyuz booster for 15-20 million and spend the rest developing a lander.  Armadilo Aerospace has done a lot of that for a fraction of that, for insance.  But there's a difference between doing it on paper and doing it for real, and that's where the new industries will come from.

[moot]

Those were made by who?  You don't need an overengineered rube goldberg gizmo, and you've got 5+ years to get it done.  Google wouldn't have done this without finding at least a few feasible paths to success.
I don't think it's such a great contest setup myself, but it's definitely worthwhile, definitely not a waste of time nor an unsurmountable challenge.
15 or 20 years ago, how many people would've correctly predicted the recent surge in the private space industry?

"Easily possible" doesn't mean easily accomplished.. Admitedly the purse value is a bit underweight but we nonetheless must push the boundaries of our territory further.  It's imperative, and these sorts of pushes are better than nothing.  Like I said I don't think this prize is that great, but it's certainly not bad at all.

edit- What Chairboy said..  The difference between small efforts like Armadillo and government elephants like NASA is the same as between this Lunar prize being ludicrous and a challenge worth every bit of effort.
The expedition project in Bill Stone's TED presentation is another great example.

[indy007]

Originally posted by moot
"Easily possible" doesn't mean easily accomplished..

Easy = relative term. It's not like they're building a go-kart or something, BUT, people have put things on planets quite a bit further away than the moon. Once you strip all of the beauracracy away, it gets much, much cheaper to do it too.

[moot]

Yep.. I guess I mistakenly read your previous post as sarcasm.
Bigelow has sent a few much larger constructs to earth orbit for less than 100M.  IIRC lunar orbit payload for a same launch vehicle is 1/2 the mass of that of earth orbit.  So 30M sounds about right.

[soda72]

I'm still waiting for someone to bring back the Orion Project.... ..

Revisiting Project Orion

“this is the first time in modern history that a major expansion of
human technology has been suppressed for political reasons.”

[Engine]

Originally posted by Neubob
... with pockets as deep as google's the least they could do is offer to recoup at least a sizable chunk of the R & D costs for whoever pulls it off.

I think the idea is to encourage small organizations to do the same thing NASA is capable of, at a fraction of the cost. Limited the reward is one way to do that.

[MotorOil1]

Wonder how many days it would take Google to make back it's reward from the website they will be hosting upon a successful run?  Risk involved to Google - 0%.  That's some great marketing.  Some one will try for it.


I'm surprised they only offered 20 mill.

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Neubob
They're giving a $30m prize for something that will take billions to accomplish?

That's brilliant!

I see it as an incentive for people to figure out a way to do it for under $30 million.

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by soda72
I'm still waiting for someone to bring back the Orion Project.... ..

Revisiting Project Orion

Here's a video of the conventional explosive concept test. Kinda cool.

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~tuvas/orion.avi

-Sik

[Sikboy]

Originally posted by Thrawn
"well the crap soft eating the ghost out from my box" - minus

I love you Thrawn.

-Sik

[Tac]

Please dont use NASA's price tags to compare the costs. NASA is a hugely bloated beurocratic agency and in no way does it have the incentive to get things done cheaper or profitable.


Sending a robot to the Moon may not be that much difficult for a private enterprise (if there was any real profit in it).

With 20 million, the Rutan gang sends a MAN into orbit. I'd bet that with much less than this they can easily send a remote probe into orbit on a one-way mission. Getting from the Earth to the Moon is the easiest part really, its all orbital mechanics.

Heck most of the satellites up there are for the past couple of decades are able to make subtle changes to their orbits by remote... its not really a question of if its hard to get a probe to the Moon but just how long it will take to consume the least amount of fuel. You could have that probe landing on the moon in 5 months if you want or in a couple of days if you really spend the money on the propulsion.

Google should put up a bigger prize imo, for whoever can send that probe, pick up a moon rock and bring it back.

[AquaShrimp]

Rutan didn't send anyone into orbit.  They made it into space, but they were nowhere near high enough to orbit.

[Tac]

same crap. add more propellant, lose the pilot..

[texasmom]

coming soon to your top toolbar: googlemoon

[crockett]

Originally posted by Neubob
They're giving a $30m prize for something that will take billions to accomplish?

That's brilliant!

I am not offering a stick of gum for anyone who successfully cures cancer!

It's nice to see private entities backing this sort of thing, but with pockets as deep as google's the least they could do is offer to recoup at least a sizable chunk of the R & D costs for whoever pulls it off.

The type of people who would try it, wouldn't be too worried about the prize money. The X prize was only 1 million if I remember right and the winning team spent several million. Remember that winning team would likely make a hell of a lot more than 30 mil from contract work.

The 30 million is just an incentive to try to push more private intrest into space. IMO if mankind are to go to the moon and beyond in any large numbers it will have to be the private sector that takes us there.

A govt can't justify spending money to send average Joe's into space. A govt can't justify mining operations on the moon or else where. In regards to manned missions to other planets or even unmanned, govt can only justify it for science and research.

The private sector is the only chance in normal people ever seeing any sort of space flight or exploration.