Space Video of the Day - 070914

In the 1920s, the Orteig prize was offered for the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, in an effort to increase research on aircraft. Won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927, the Orteig prize sparked innovation in the aircraft industry. Similarly, in 1999, the X-Prize (later the Ansari X-Prize) was a $10 million prize offered for the first team to send a craft capable of carrying passengers above 100 miles altitude twice in the span of two weeks. This was won in 2004 by Scaled Composites, and it sparked the beginnings of a suborbital launch industry that will be offering launches to paying customers before the end of the decade.

Yesterday Google and the X-Prize foundation announced the Google Lunar X Prize, the largest international prize in history, with $30 million in prizes up for grabs. The $20 million first prize is for the first team to soft-land a robot on the moon, travel at least 500 meters, and return panoramic images and video. The $5 million second prize goes to the second team to complete the task, and the remaining $5 million is for bonus prizes for such things as surviving the 14.5 day lunar night, for imaging an Apollo landing site, for travelling longer distances (ie 5 km) and/or for verifying the presence of water ice in the permanently-shaded crater bottoms on the lunar poles. The first prize is available until December 31, 2012, and the contest closes on December 31, 2014.

I am going to enter this competition (I didn't name this blog Robot Guy for no reason). Of course, I'm not going to do this all by myself, but the team I am on includes some very smart engineers, including the guy who invented the afterburner and the thrust tubes used on all supersonic aircraft today. I am very excited about this prize, and even if I don't win it will spark innovation in both the launch industry and in autonomous robotics.


Space Video of the Day Archive