2007_12_09_archive

Lunar X PRIZE Race and Unreasonable Glow Wire Copter

RLV News has the links to keep you up to date on Unreasonable Rocket

progress (Unreasonable Rocket rules the night by helicopter, and does

some difficult programming too) and the Lunar X PRIZE (the Lunar X

PRIZE Moon looks ok to a Mars supporter).

Posted by Ray at 11:12 PM

Labels: Google Lunar X PRIZE, Lunar Lander Challenge, Unreasonable

Rocket

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.

Posted by Ray at 11:07 PM

Labels: Google Lunar X PRIZE, Odyssey Moon, Planetary Society, space

interest societies

ACME Robotics to the 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge

From I-Newswire comes a press release apparently from a new (at least

new to me) Regolith Excavation Challenge team, ACME Robotics. Even

though they didn't appear in the 2007 Challenge, they may be in good

shape because they were trying in 2007 with a design that may be

suitable for the 2008 Challenge:

The first event was held in May of 2007 (no winner) and competition

was fierce between the four participating teams. However, Mr. Dhabolt

wasn't there, "I entered the competition. My prototype was nearly

complete, but I had to drop out early." Lack of funding and

sponsorship were the main reasons for the early withdrawal, he said.

The event highlighted quite an array of designs, but each machine was

strictly a "stand and dig" machine - all were autonomous but none had

locomotion. ACME Robotics read between the lines and designed a

mobile, autonomous excavator. "I guess we have a head start for the

2008 competition," Mr. Dhabolt said.

There are already a bunch of posts on their blog detailing some of the

testing they've done, as well as general information about the

contest. Of course they're looking for sponsors and merchandise sales.

Posted by Ray at 10:49 PM

Labels: regolith challenge

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