Poll Will Google Lunar X Prize garner results?

[anemazoso]

So what does the community think? I personally don't think it will happen.

 

[SiberianTiger]

A little language help, if you please: what does 'to garner' mean here?

 

[Viper1]

A little language help, if you please: what does 'to garner' mean here?

garner = to collect; to gather; to accumulate; to store; to place in reserve

I take it to mean, will there be additional benefits gathered from the competition as in possible new technology or new ideas born of the competition. Similar to Spaceship One.

 

[anemazoso]

What I meant was will someone actually win the prize. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[SiberianTiger]

What I meant was will someone actually win the prize. Sorry for the confusion.

Damn, and I thought of the opposite meaning. Please count my voice 'yes' instead of 'nope'. Dzis-Voynarovsky is confident in Selenokhod and I'm confident in Dzis-Voynarovsky.

 

[Unstung]

I don't see how it would help in private space flights anytime soon, but the idea should work. This is a robot, not a person.

 

[N_Molson]

The key is to land a light payload. Probably that some radioelectric buggy car with a mini-cam on could do it, for probably less than 1kg. The batteries would have to be good, however ! The lander would include a transmitter that would relay the video feed to the Earth.

Today the surface of the Moon is fully mapped in high-res, and we even have precise elevation data. It should be possible to find a 500 meters long stripe of flat and not too rocky terrain.

 

[eveningsky339]

If we landed humans on the moon using now 40-year-old technology, we can land a little robot on the moon using current methods.

 

[River Crab]

If we landed humans on the moon using now 40-year-old technology, we can land a little robot on the moon using current methods.

That's probably what Bush Jr. said. It's not that simple. There's no Cold War going on, nothing to prove, and we haven't the money to prove that nothing.

Edit: not to troll, I really hope so, but I don't want to expect anything. The first place I hear it will be here, though.

 

[Izack]

Is 20M$ even enough to fund such a project?

EDIT: Hahah, mega-dollars... :lol:

 

[SiberianTiger]

Is 20M$ even enough to fund such a project?

EDIT: Hahah, mega-dollars... :lol:

Nope, that's not enough.

 

[RisingFury]

Yea, the reward is pretty small. You'd have to go for some of the bonuses and even then it's small.

I think it's possible, once you have a rover, to drive 5 km and take pictures or man made objects, but that would still get you only 40 million. Much less then you'd spend on the mission =/

 

[Unstung]

Didn't SpaceShipOne cost more than its reward? (Ansari X Prize)

 

[Solar424]

Didn't SpaceShipOne cost more than its reward? (Ansari X Prize)

Yes, but that was paid for entirely by Paul Allen, Co-Founder of Microsoft.

 

[anemazoso]

Didn't SpaceShipOne cost more than its reward? (Ansari X Prize)

And there was a potential market for what they developed. This on the other hand is a dead end. I think originaly the intention was to spark a virtual tourism type market but it's a little early for that.

If someone could build a lander and the rover within the payload capacity of the Falcon 1e maybe it could happen but what I've seen from the teams doesn't look like they will do that.