RLV News on Lunar Lander Challenge

RLV News has a number of interesting Lunar Lander Challenge links for you to check out.

X PRIZE Cup Videos from the Space.com X PRIZE Cup video site. That video archive site has a lot of X PRIZE Cup videos from the 2006 X PRIZE Cup, and it even says "Watch highlights of - and stories behind - Earth's Great Space Exposition of 2006!", but it's starting to get some 2007 content. RLV News points out the following:

The Pomerantz Report Lunar Log 1 - from William Pomerantz, Director, Space Projects, X PRIZE Foundation - with lots of clips of rocket tests showing what it takes to compete in the Lunar Lander Challenge. From the dialog it sounds like it must have been taken during the recent Team Summit.

Unreasonable Rocket Team Profile - Introducing the father-son team, explaining where the rocket name "Burning Splinters" came from, and mentioning a record-breaking test.

SpeedUp Team Profile - Introducing Bob Steinke, President of SpeedUp, showing how he got into the the personal rocketcraft business. He describes SpeedUp as the "Bad News Bears" of the Lunar Lander Challenge.

Masten Space Systems Team Profile - Introducing David Masten, President and Founder of Masten Space Systems. He's working in this field because he was born right before Apollo, and the time is past due for him to be going there, too. He explains where the Lunar Lander Challenge fits into the overall Masten vehicle development plan. The control of the vehicle is also covered.

A couple other 2007 video clips (I may have missed some) you might want to check out from the X PRIZE Cup video site (you'll have to go to the link above and select the appropriate thumbnail) include:

Holloman AFB: October 2007 - Introduces Capt. Keith Butler, Dr., Holloman Air & Space Expo, shows why the Air Force (which of course plays a major role in space) is interested in working with the X PRIZE Cup and the commercial space players, and why the base with its facilities, history, and major air show is a good place to hold the X PRIZE Cup.

2007 Teams: Lunar Lander Challenge - Introduces some of the teams and the 2007 Lunar Lander Challenge, and invites you to go to the X PRIZE Cup and cheer them on.

There are also lots of 2006 LLC videos in the archive.

RLV News also posts a link to Unreasonable Rocket's latest update showing vehicle progress.

There's also more about the Texel crash. I also wanted to post a link to an article from Gamer Node on the Texel crash, not so much for the content, but just to raise the possibility that there may be another audience (video gamers) with some members that might become interested in space through John Carmack's work in both fields.

Update: Showing that the Texel crash hasn't stopped them, RLV News reports that Armadillo has done two more 180-second tests using Pixel.