Prize Roundup - April 11, 2009

Ok, I'm back online. I'm going to make this a RoundUp post to cover the last few days.

Top teams set for final round of Team America Rocketry Challenge - Rocketry Planet (AIA press release) -

The top 100 student rocketry teams in the country are ready for the final round of competition of the Team America Rocketry Challenge next month after AIA announced the qualifiers for the fly-off on Friday.

Here are the finalists. Is a high school near you one of them?

Robert Richards and Odyssey Moon BOTH nominated for World Technology Awards! - Odyssey Moon (Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams site)

Robots: The Race to the Moon - Robots Podcast -

In this episode, we take-off for the moon with Prof. William "Red" Whittaker who is the director of the Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon University in the US.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! - SEDS INDIA blog -

Congratulations to SEDS VIT for winning "The Best Student Chapter Award" of VIT University, Vellore for the year 2008-09.

Spacehack now has an entry on the Regolith Excavation Challenge.

X PRIZE Foundation, WellPoint, to Announce Initial Design for Potential $10 Million X PRIZE to Revolutionize U.S. Health Care - X PRIZE Foundation

Prize4Life Interview with Makers of ALS Film Trapped - Prize4Life blog

RLV News has a number of prize posts, including several on the Space Access '09 conference:

Symantec contest awards ZERO-G & suborbital space flights Space Access'09 review - Space prizes and prize teams appear throughout the conference summary, links, and slide presentation.

Briefs: Space Adventures interview; Space border; SA'09 picts -The Space Access '09 pictures include a bunch of the Lunar Lander Challenge panel.

Briefs: Microlaunchers; Orphans of Apollo - A link to the Space Access '09 Microlaunchers N-Prize talk is included.

BonNova SA'09 presentation

Odyssey Moon at Next Generation Exploration Conference

Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides sends out an article in Wired Science about the Next Generation Exploration Conference as NASA Ames. One of the speakers is Bob Richards from Lunar X PRIZE team Odyssey Moon.

Valentine's Day Space Prize News Roundup

There are a lot of great things in the prize world to post about, and a lot of them deserve separate posts, but I hurt my back dealing with, of all things, some cat litter, so I skipped yesterday and am making it quick today. I'll by lying down more than sitting at the computer.

The Space Elevator Blog tells us about a surprise team in the 2008 Climber Competition: The National Space Society. The specifics are a surprise, but I've been expecting space advocate societies to get into the prize business on the team side for a while (I think I even posted about it - ?). Actually I thought it would have happened a long time ago. It's a great activity for societies or chapters to get involved with, and makes a great story in magazines or other society communication media. The SE Blog gives details on the team and their approach.

RLV News and the Space Elevator Blog post on the Kansas City Space Pirates' agreement with TRUMPF to us an industrial laser during the 2008 Climber competition, which helps with one part of the competition but presents some other engineering challenges.

RLV News also posts on a Space Fellowship interveiew of Google Lunar X PRIZE team FREDNET. It's an open source project, so ITAR is an issue that is discussed. The team's progress so far, what parts of the job are they going to do in-house vs. buying off-the-shelf systems, what is their schedule, and what their plans are after the prize.

The X PRIZE Foundation has the latest update from Odyssey Moon. Will we see "One small step for Isle of Man"? The post covers some of the bigger reasons to go back to the Moon, and they aren't about "the human spirit of exploration" or anything impractical-sounding like that.

One of the commenters at this RLV News post about UK space plans notes that prizes are mentioned in the 2008-2012 and beyond UK Civil Space Strategy. It states:

The NSTP will be a national programme to support the development of common space technologies and new services. It will identify emerging technologies and opportunities, and use R&D grants and prizes to enable technology development and knowledge exchange between commercial, Government and academic organisations.

One of the 5 parts of the NSTP is:

competitions and prizes to stimulate innovation and wider interest in the benefits of space.

Getting the Odyssey Moon Word Out

The Google Lunar X PRIZE site has the latest post from Odyssey Moon, this time from Loretta Whitesides. It's on different speaking events, past and future, with Bob Richards.

Odyssey Moon Contractor, Partners, and Customers

RLV News points to the latest Lunar X PRIZE post from Odyssey Moon. This one is by Loretta Whitesides. It sounds like they're overwhelmed with interest from the public on their GLXP activities. Here's an interesting part:

Meanwhile we have been busy with our own meetings with our prime contractor, other possible partners and even customers this month and have been enjoying the rush of doing something that has never been done before.

Of course this makes you wonder what additional partners they might be working with, and what customers they might get!

Odyssey Moon at Accelerating Space Conference

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Robert Richards from Google Lunar X PRIZE team Odyssey Moon would be at the Accelerating Space Conference; now RLV News has a summary by guest John Kavanagh of his presentation.

MDA, ATK, and Odyssey Moon

Christian Sallaberger discusses the MDA and ATK deal on the Odyssey Moon blog at the Google Lunar Challenge site.

The Importance of Blogging Earnestly

William Pomerantz posts on early challenges met by Peter Diamandis, Bob Richards, and Todd Hawley, as well as on taking notes or blogging or similar measures when involved with such challenges.

One of the things he mentions in the post is a requirement of all Google Lunar X PRIZE registrants to blog. Odyssey Moon, the first team to register, has already started, with 3 posts in the last couple weeks, pictures of the team rollout, and video coming soon. First, Loretta Whitesides kicks off the first of the New Years' posts. Then, Robert Richards gives an overview of the company. Finally, Chairman Ramin Khadem explains the business reasons why they're doing it. Here's part of the reason:

... we are not competing with Space Agencies. On the contrary, we see ourselves working with them and being responsive to their requests should they have small payloads they wish ejected onto the lunar surface. We also believe if you are clever, nimble, of the right size and right ambition you can do what major space agencies cannot achieve. This we believe constitutes the sweet spot of private enterprise.

Will also posts on the Google Lunar X PRIZE forum. Here's an interesting discussion that explains why the prize includes a requirement for a small payload and self-imaging.

First Google Lunar X PRIZE Compilation of the Year

In the spirit of compilations (and quickly catching up on posting after my time off), here are some collected updates on the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

• Is this rover going to the Moon? (From Hacked Gadgets DIY Blog).
• Popular Mechanics has 9 questions on robotics for Matthew Mason, robotics expert from CMU. The Lunar X PRIZE is only mentioned briefly (as is the DARPA Urban Challenge), but it gives some perspective on how CMU, and perhaps therefore the Red Whittaker Lunar X PRIZE team, sees robotics.
• The Space Fellowship has an interview with Interplanetary Ventures. (link from RLV News)
• The Space Show has an interview with Odyssey Moon's Robert Richards.

Optech, Robert Richards, and the Lunar X PRIZE

Earlier Space.com mentioned that Odyssey Moon founder Robert Richards is Director of Optech Incorporated's Space division, and the caption in an image on the right mentioned that Pptech is a member of the Odyssey Moon team. There may have been more news about it that I missed or don't remember, but a press release at GIS Cafe clarifies what Optech's role in the effort is:

Optech Incorporated is a privately owned Canadian high technology company that leads worldwide markets in advanced laser-based imaging and survey systems. Optech’s lidar (laser radar) technology was the first of its kind in orbit and is currently on the way toward Mars aboard the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander. Lidar based technologies for safe landing and rover navigation are expected to play an essential role in robotic and human lunar missions.

Optech’s technology was featured at the roll out of Odyssey Moon in a demonstration of a lunar rover prototype, the K-10, developed in collaboration with the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group. Optech’s ILRIS-3D sensor is used by the rover to provide 3D terrain visualization for navigation and science. The rover system was successfully demonstrated this past summer during field trials at Haughton Crater in the Canadian Arctic.

In other news, Robert Richards, representing Optech and Odyssey Moon, will be the Keynote Speaker at the Accelerating Space conference.

Meanwhile, Atomic Razor is skeptical of the Cringely Lunar X PRIZE team.

Isle of Odyssey Moon

How do you start off a post about the Google Lunar X PRIZE with a picture of a USPS stamp of Frank Sinatra? It'll become obvious when you check Really Rocket Science. Also check out the link in that post on the Isle of Man where Odyssey Moon is based. There's a bunch of space activity there.

Pomerantz Report on Odyssey Moon

RLV News posts on, among other interesting topics, the latest X PRIZE Foundation Pomerantz Report blog post. This one is on the Odyssey Moon announcement for the Lunar X PRIZE, and compares the results from teams that let the public know the details about their progress to the ones that keep quite.

Also check the Teams button at the Google Lunar X PRIZE site. There's a page or two
for Odyssey Moon, and also a forum, similar to the Automotive X PRIZE forum. The forum is a good communication tool to allow teams to communicate with preferred partners, find suppliers, find team members, discuss the fine points of the rules, and so on. W. Pomerantz has started a lot of the discussions with a post that clarifies what each category is meant to cover. If you look through the discussions, you'll see (already, and presumably more in the future) a lot of interesting information from teams, prospective teams, and the X PRIZE Foundation folks. For example, from Moderator William Pomerantz on a question on a 2008 Conference/Summit/Event:

We are working on finalizing those details, and hope to be able to distribute them in the near future. However, I can tell you that we will indeed be hosting a "Team Summit" event in the May/June timeframe. It will be held in Europe. The event will be a forum for people to ask questions about the rules and for leading thinkers to talk about important issues related to the prize (such as how does one respectfully visit a historical site on the Moon), and will also be a great venue for potential teams to meet each other, find partners and suppliers, et cetera. Please stay tuned for more info!

Look around the forum for a lot more interesting Lunar X PRIZE information.

Planetary Society and Odyssey Moon

Follow the link and you'll find a fairly detailed article on Odyssey Moon and the role of the Planetary Society in their project.

Not only that, but pretty soon I'll not only know how to spell Odyssey without thinking about it, but I'll even be able to type it.

VerySpatial on Odyssey Moon

VerySpatial is a blog on geography and geospatial technologies. This is an area I find interesting, and in fact my paper the semester before my "Space Prizes" paper was on Google Earth as it applied to commercial space.

The linked post is on Odyssey Moon going for the Lunar X PRIZE. It's a brief post without much new if you've already followed the earlier Lunar X PRIZE posts, but it's a nice excuse to point out how vibrant the intersection of space and geography is.

This particular blog has well-populated tags for various interesting and space-friendly categories, such as space (not spatial!), remote sensing, navigation (i.e. GPS), virtual globes like Google Earth and Virtual Earth, virtual environments, and (nicely for the prizes part of Space Prizes) geography contests.

Rounding Up More Google Lunar X PRIZE Team News

Aero-News has an "Aero-Cast" on the Odyssey Moon team that's going to try to win the Lunar X PRIZE. They have a quite detailed podcast interview of Dr. Robert Richards, one of the team's founders. I like these Aero-News interviews; they tend to get into a lot more interesting detail than many general news sources, and the interview questions are usually pretty good.

SiliconValley.com has an article about the Space Investment Summit. The article is about investing in space businesses, including the new Lunar X PRIZE businesses. They emphasize businesses with space applications where the primary business is on Earth; the space part of these businesses is "the icing on the cake".

Update (Dec 9): Here's more (text this time, with a few pictures, instead of sound) on Odyssey Moon from Aero-News. If you have the time, I'd still go to the radio interview linked above first if you want more details about Odyssey Moon.

Odyssey Moon and CMU Moon Team Rollout

Continuing the news from my earlier post, here's more on the rollout of 2 Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors. (The links I gave earlier are a good place to start, though).

The Odyssey Moon site is now up and running. It's time to go surfing around there and find out all the details about the project. The Google Lunar X PRIZE site has a full page of such details. The Planetary Society has announced a role on the project, as does big-time aerospace firm MDA.

Apparently Odyssey Moon was in the works before the Lunar X PRIZE announcement, but the prize has brought focus to their efforts. Space.com notes that the Google Lunar X Prize was a catalyst to their plans – but the group had been shaping a lunar business strategy and a pathfinder mission to the Moon for over a year.

Space.com also gives insight into their business plan:

Richards said that science, exploration and technology validation will be the Moon market needs of government enterprises. "There are ways that the private sector can play a role in helping them do that."

Moreover, there are ancillary markets that also constitute lunar dealing, Richards added, be it for entertainment, education, or novelty ideas. "But those are not driving what we see as our business plan. We are an exploration company for lunar commerce."

According to the Planetary Society link, the Odyssey Moon lander is designed to deliver scientific, exploration and commercial payloads to the surface of the Moon.

Meanwhile, Space Pragmatism has a press release on the CMU Moon Prize Team, which is using the experience of Raytheon. The Moon Prize team has formed AstroBotic to go after the prize. The business clearly also intends to go after more markets than the prize itself:

Astrobotic Technology, Inc. is the commercial organization through which Dr. Whittaker plans to carry out the lunar mission as well as engage in potential commercial orbital transfer services and potential cis-lunar services that may be best enabled by leading-edge robotics.

Both teams are making their announcements at the Space Investment Summit 3.

Not to be a Grinch, but it would be good to hear some healthy skepticism about the teams' plans along with the promotion. I'd like to see no more and no less skepticism than what's needed to make the teams think seriously, if they haven't already, about their business plans. I suppose these 2 teams have considered their business, but have all ~340 teams? The Space Cynics, at least 1 of which is supposed to be at the Investment Summit, should be able to do the job.

In addition to all of these links, RLV News has another post on the announcement with several prominent links I haven't included above.

Odyssey Moon Announcement Countdown

I already posted a couple of times (here and here) about the upcoming Odyssey Moon announcement of the first Google Lunar X PRIZE team registered. Their web site is still veiled in secrecy, ticking down the last few hours before the announcement (possibly not the best timing if the Shuttle launches with Columbus, an event that large parts of the space community has been anticipating for many years). The site now lets you sign up for alerts and news.

So ... will the suspense be ended with some kind of surprise? Will the team involve some household name ... some rich entrepreneur or company ... or at least a household name in the houses of space advocates? Or ... is it a new team we don't know now but will come to know in the years ahead?

Update (morning of Dec 6): Cosmic Log has a lot more details well worth reading, and also describes some of the CMU Moon Team plans. Also see RLV News.

More on Odyssey Moon, First Registered Lunar X PRIZE Team

I posted links to the news about the first Google Lunar X PRIZE team registration a few days ago. Now I'm just noting that Spaceref has a post on it. The Spaceeref post is linked by the X PRIZE Foundation site, and it also contains a link to the Odyssey Moon site. Right now the site is kind of like the curtains before the show starts; presumably the curtains at the site will be lifted soon.

It currently (a tiny bit dramatically I suppose, but why not?) says "History Restarts 2007.12.06".