The Google Lunar X PRIZE, abbreviated GLXP, sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0,[2][3] is a space competition A space competition is an offer of a prize to be given to the first competitor who demonstrates a space vehicle, or a space exploration apparatus, which meets a set of pre-established criteria. It spurs pioneering development in private spaceflight organized by the X Prize Foundation The X Prize Foundation is a non-profit prize institute that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind, and sponsored by Google Google Inc. is a multinational public cloud computing, Internet search, and advertising technologies corporation. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the ". It was announced at the Wired Nextfest Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since March 1993, that reports on how technology affects culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is published in San Francisco, California on 13 September 2007.[4] The challenge calls for privately A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of holders who do not trade the stock publicly on the stock market. Less ambiguous terms for a privately held company are unquoted company and unlisted company -funded spaceflight Private spaceflight is flight above 100 km Earth altitude conducted by and paid for by an entity other than a government. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology augmented by collaboration with affiliated design bureaus in the USSR and private companies teams to compete in successfully launching, landing, and then traveling across the surface The lunar surface differs greatly from that of Earth. Different topography exists and soil composition and properties differ. Environmental factors affect the lunar surface.[citation needed] of the Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite[nb 4] and is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. It is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, a quarter the diameter of Earth and 1/81 its mass, and is the second densest satellite after Io. It is in synchronous rotation with Earth, always with a robot A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to lower cost and lower risk factors. In addition, some, while also sending back to Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet,[note 6] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 7] specified images Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a radiation-sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor. Photography uses foremost radiation in the UV, visible and near-IR spectrum. For common purposes the term light is used in stead of radiation. Light and other data.
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Competition summary
The Prize is to award US$20 million to the first team to land a robot on the Moon that successfully travels more than 500 metres (1,640 ft) and transmits back high definition images and video. There is a US$5 million second prize, as well as US$5 million in potential bonus prizes for extra features such as traveling long distances (greater than 5,000 metres (3 mi)), capturing images of man made objects on the moon, detecting ice on one of the Moon's craters, discovering the remains of Apollo program The Apollo program was the American spaceflight endeavor which landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and conducted by NASA, Apollo began in earnest after President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 special address to a joint session of Congress declaring a national goal of "landing a man hardware, or surviving a lunar night. The X Prize offers the US$20 million first-place prize until 31 December 2012, thereafter it offers US$15 million until 31 December 2014.[1]
Overview
Peter Diamandis Dr. Peter H. Diamandis of Greek immigrant parents, is considered a key figure in the development of the personal spaceflight industry, having created many space-related businesses or organizations. He is the Founder and Chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, an educational non-profit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs, the project founder, wrote on the official web page:
"It has been many decades since we explored the Moon from the lunar surface, and it could be another 6 - 8 years before any government returns. Even then, it will be at a large expense, and probably with little public involvement."[5]
The goal of the Google Lunar X Prize is similar to that of the Ansari X Prize The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight: to inspire a new generation of private investment in hopes of developing more cost-effective technologies and materials to overcome many limitations of space exploration that are currently taken for granted.
Origin of the prize
Similar to the way in which the Ansari X Prize was formed, the Google Lunar X Prize was created out of a former venture of Peter Diamandis to achieve a similar goal. Dr. Diamandis served as CEO of BlastOff! Corporation Blastoff! Corporation was a small aerospace company in Pasadena, California that operated from 1999 to early 2001. Blastoff! was one of dozens of Idealab's incubator companies, created to capitalize on the public interest in space travel and exploration, a commercial initiative to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon as a mix of entertainment, internet, and space. Although it was ultimately unsuccessful, the BlastOff! initiative paved the way for the Google Lunar X Prize.[6]
Initially, NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an Executive Branch agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006 NASA's self-described mission statement is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and was the planned sponsor and the prize purse was just US$20 million. As NASA is a federal agency of the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language government, and thus funded by US tax money, the prize would only have been available to teams from the United States. The original intention was to propose the idea to other national space agencies, including the European Space Agency The European Space Agency , established in 1975, is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, currently with 18 member states. Headquartered in Paris, ESA has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about €3.6 billion in 2009 and the Japanese space agency The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency , or JAXA, is Japan's national aerospace agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on October 1, 2003, as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of, in the hope that they would offer similar prize purses. However, budget setbacks stopped NASA from sponsoring the prize. Peter Diamandis then presented the idea to Larry Page Lawrence "Larry" Page is the American co-founder of Google Inc., along with Sergey Brin. They are often known together as the "Google Guys". According to Forbes he is currently the 24th richest person in the world with a personal wealth of US$17.5 billion in 2010 and Sergey Brin Sergey Brin is a Russian-American computer scientist, who, along with Larry Page, is best known as the co-founder of Google, Inc., the world’s largest Internet company , based on its search engine and online advertising technology. Together with Page, they are often referred to as the "Google Guys". According to Forbes he is currently, co-founders of Google Google Inc. is a multinational public cloud computing, Internet search, and advertising technologies corporation. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the ", at an X Prize Foundation The X Prize Foundation is a non-profit prize institute that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind board meeting. They agreed to sponsor it, and also to increase the prize purse to US$30 million, allowing for a second place prize, as well as bonus prizes.
Heritage bonus prize controversy
Some objections have been raised to the offering of a bonus "Heritage Prize" to the first group that successfully sends images back to Earth of the site of a previous lunar landing, such as Tranquility Base Tranquility Base was the name given by American astronaut Neil Armstrong to the landing site on the moon where the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle made the first moon landing. The lunar coordinates of Tranquility Base are 00°41′15″N, 23°26′00″E, which is located in the south-western corner of the lunar plain called the Sea of Tranquility.[7] It has been noted that such sites are archaeologically and culturally significant, and that a team attempting to win the heritage bonus might inadvertently damage or destroy such a site, either during the landing phase of the mission, or by piloting a rover around the site.
The X Prize Foundation has recognized the presence of historical "Sites of Interest" in its rulebook for competitors and states that all mission plans must be approved in order to avoid "unnecessary risk," but as of June 2009 it has not offered any specific guidelines or criteria to participating groups to assist in planning. As a result, archaeologists have called for the foundation to cancel the heritage bonus and to ban groups from targeting landing zones within 100 kilometers of previous sites.[8]
The foundation has responded to this criticism, in an interview dated 9 June 2009, posted on Scientific American's website.[9] The foundation's newly stated position—that it hopes to foster debate about how to visit previous lunar landing sites, but that it does not want to take on the role of deciding how those visits should happen—has also been criticized by one of the authors of the editorial that started the controversy.[10]
Competitors
As of November 2009, there are 21 officially registered Google Lunar X Prize teams:[11]
See also
Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:23:15 GMT+00:00
Asia Times Online Government space agencies are taking a closer look at the Google Lunar X Prize ( GLXP ) competition, an international competition to safely ...
Joel Raupe
Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:31:00 GM
Surface Mission Elements of the White Label Space . GLXP. Mission. "After many months of work we are finally ready to release our first major technical description of our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission. We call it the Mission Concept Summary ...
