Posted on 09/20/2005 7:30:22 PM PDT by KevinDavis
NASA announced Tuesday a $250,000 prize for the team that can win a lunar dirt-digging contest that will take place here on Earth.
The competition will pit robots to see which can excavate the most lunar regolith (a fancy word for soil) and deliver it to a collector. The challenge will be held in late 2006 or early 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
They can send some prototypes to my house and I'll test them in my litter trays.
Taking a page from X-Prize I see. Good move NASA.
Um, how can it be lunar regolith if it's here on earth?
If the prize is a quarter mil, no telling how much it's really worth to NASA.
I agree. I'm not the biggest fan of NASA.. I'm fan of space exploration and I prefer that we should get private industry involved.. However, they are doing it right...
Robotic spacecraft are not very romantic, but they also don't eat, sleep, breath, pee, crap, and generally do not need to be accomodated like humans do. If you take a sober look at the knowledge gained from the space program in the last 30 years, almost all of it came from unmanned craft. IMHO, the only thing the Space Shuttle taught us is that building and operating a reusable space plane is a whole lot harder than anyone thought.
Any substantial weight of lunar soil is worth well over 1/4 million.
A smart company would extract lunar soil and return it to the earth for their own profit, not let the government take credit for their work.
Humans are going to be in space and for the last time space is not about science only..
Additionally, "human work" in space is often limited to cumbersome, custom-designed tools that require months of training, very dedicated in purpose and utility.
A space tool is often a robot unto itself, making its human operator highly redundant. There are no such fine manipulations like tying a shoe -- more like threading a cable or bumping some array that got stuck; actions that could well be done with robots.
And I thought our tax dollars went to NASA so "they" could design these little robots?
Pretty sad when NASA has to have a contest to steal ideas they should be coming up with on their own.
That is very telling on what is going on inside that place.
I wonder who approved this type of spending of taxpayer money ....Congress?
Hey what about that NASA reads FR!
To: melt
Exactly!
As a matter of fact I think we should hold a National Telethon to raise Prize Money for the
Ralph Kramden Memorial
"Bang! Zoom! Straight to Da Moon!"
Trophy!
And just let the Guv pick up the tab for Katrina.
131 posted on 09/19/2005 11:12:31 PM EDT by Boiler Plate
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1487609/posts?page=131#131
Demorats win hands down. They are the best at digging up dirt.
>Except that regolith is not soil -- it doesn't have any organic matter. Science popularizers should try to not distort the information, while making it accessible.
I'm confused. Isn't that then the reason why they call it "reglolith" instead of "soil"?
Rather than a quarter million for the best robot that can dig here on earth, how about, say $50 million for 100# of the REAL stuff delivered BACK here to earth?
We all know, becasue private industry would do it, and FASTER, BETTER, CHEAPER, than NASA can dream of.
With NASA, it's FASTER, BETTER, CHEAPER, PICK ONE.
Private industry can do all three at once.
Exactly. I spoke with Sen Hutchinson's NASA coordinator and he said this "Prize" money can be offered by the NASA Administrator to foster commercial space activities! In this copycat is GOOD!
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