Regolith Excavation Challenge pits area engineers against a lunar task

Santa María Times (California) ^ | May 13th, 2007 | Luis Ernesto Gomez

[Shuttle Shucker]

"A seemingly simple challenge stumped four teams of engineers competing Saturday to be the first to build an autonomous robot capable of collecting 330 pounds of lunar soil in less than 30 minutes...[in order to win a $250,000 NASA prize].  The strict parameters - machines also could use only 30 watts of power and had to weigh less than 88 pounds as they excavated the simulated moon dirt - defeated the competitors. Two other teams dropped out before even landing at the competition... “No matter how efficient your machine is, the criteria of the challenge makes it almost impossible,” contestant Jim Greenshaw said." 

[Shuttle Shucker]

>>>The court decision reinforces the intent of the Treaty and removed any doubt as to its interpretation<<<

Are you referring to the one involving Nemitz?

[Old Professer]

11 pounds per minute; one horsepower is 33,000 pounds per minute; 11/330=.0302HP; one horsepower is also equal to 746 watts; 30/746=.0402; sounds barely plausible to just move it, let alone collect it.

[RightWhale]

No, Lunar Embassy

[Shuttle Shucker]

That’s a potentially very helpful analysis for showing that these prizes warrant funding by an entity OTHER THAN NASA. Here’s a group that has actively lobbied on the Hill for precisely that:

http://www.prospace.org

I don’t endorse that organization, and they don’t endorse me, but their independent entity administering space prizes idea seems increasingly compelling in light of your analysis. I bet the CATO Institute might know of an entity that would be interested in publishing an analysis of yours if you’re interested...

[Shuttle Shucker]

When was the case conducted against the Lunar Embassy, and in what country & at what level? Regardless, I agree with you that we need to clarify private property rights’ favorable status in space.

And for others, I reiterate how I previously mentioned that Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty of the United Nations (ratified by around 100 member countries) states that:

“Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

Where does it say that private appropriation is banned, though?

[RightWhale]

That is not explicit. However, any firm registered to do business in a signatory country would be bound by the Treaty.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t be funding some way to get ourselves into space and off this God-forsaken rock has their head firmly implanted in their rectum.”

How do really feel on the subject?!

I agree with you, people bitch and moan way to much. We wouldn’t have gone to the moon in the 60’s without NASA, the private sector wouldn’t have done it.
There are somethings the government should be doing and this is one. NASA does seem to have gotten ossified however and maybe the private sector is a better choice for some of the projects in this age.
It’s depressing to think what NASA did from the early 1960’s to the late 60’s; and then to think about the last 25 years.

[AntiKev]

One horsepower is 33000 foot-pounds per minute. Your units are off and throws your first calculation off. The challenge is doable, but you have to be clever.

[Shuttle Shucker]

You and I agree that the past few decades at NASA have been very disappointing. And during the 1960’s, they had around 5% of U.S. GDP to work with as their annual budget, didn’t they?

How about these pro-entrepreneurial reforms then:

http://www.spaceprojects.com/reforms

[RightWhale]

the private sector wouldn’t have done it.

There is still no business that would make money on the moon. However, other enterprises elsewhere in outer space could make money if done right. However again, it is illegal because of the Treaty.

[Shuttle Shucker]

In what court case, from which jurisdiction, did the Treaty get interpreted unfavorably where the Lunar Embassy is concerned?

[RightWhale]

China. That decision applies to all signatories of the Treaty. The Pres began his drop in popularity wnhen he announced the return to the moon. Since then he has allowed the Treaty to remain even though his Report explicitly lists the problems due to the Treaty; he has the authority by himself to withdraw the USA from the Treaty and open a Land Office.

I would vote for any Pres candidate who will Repeal the Treaty, but so far there has been little to no debate.

[Psycho_Bunny]

It’s depressing to think what NASA did from the early 1960’s to the late 60’s; and then to think about the last 25 years.

Is that an emotional reaction you have from growing up then and seeing history made?  Because if I had to choose, I'd take the last 25 years.  

Sure, the shuttle's a bit of a let down but the satellites and landers....I mean, wow.  I wouldn't give up Hubble, Cassinni, WMAP, Pathfinder and etc. for a lunar landing or two.

[Shuttle Shucker]

I heard that one of the Lunar Embassy’s ambassadors (in China) got into some hot water, legally speaking. But are you sure that so adversely affects U.S. companies potentially setting up shop on the Moon? Even in the USA, different federal jurisdictions are often in disagreement, and that leads the Supreme Court to step in when an appeal is filed. A Communist country (which refused to sign onto the socialist Moon Treaty, significantly enough) has spoken out against property rights. What provision in the OST makes that legally binding on U.S. companies? I’ve not read over the OST in years, so I’m not denying that you could be right. I appreciate your insights and dedication to the important property rights cause in fact.

[Shuttle Shucker]

You don’t think genuinely private industry could accomplish far more if the federal government simply purchased data or offered prizes for it? Instead, our tax dollars support NASA pork:

http://www.spaceprojects.com/pork2000

[Shuttle Shucker]

Talk about old media: The NASA sponsor-backed and NASA newsleak-supported Houston Comical now belittles the accomplishments of the contestants, while calling their machines “strange” and posting the information in its “News of the Bizarre” section:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bizarre/4799844.html

Is it not odd how Houston, site of NASA’s largest center (getting over $5 billion annually the last time I checked) has yet to produce a single NASA prizes contestant? Thanks to the Houston Comical for reinforcing such lethargy.

[Names Ash Housewares]

"What breakthroughs does NASA offer us for its $16 billion dollar annual budget?"

Short answer?

The civilizations that lead on the frontier, end up dictating the course of human history.

Long answer?.....

I have posted most of this before. Time to do it again.

Lil ol NASA is way way down there on where our money gets spent. Entitlements is what you should be upset about. This chart shows how small NASA spending is...........

NASA enables astronauts to bring back the visions of space, they bring back what its like to see our earth as an outsider. They bring back what its like to be a child of earth. To see our world as it truly is, an oasis in a vast black expanse.

They take human presence beyond our world. They teach us that the sky is not the limit, that there ARE no limits.

They keep an American/western world presence in space. If we dont. Someone else will most certainly take the lead. China is seeking the high ground now.

There are reasons why this nation is where it is today. Reasons why any of us are here at all. Brave people took the risks and went beyond the horizon. They did so on ships they knew may not return and on imperfect wings.

"A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for." -John A. Shedd

The oceans are littered with vessels of discovery.

Astronaut Story Musgrave.....

"We have been a frontier culture. We were born out of exploration, we were born out of adventure. We were born out of the plains and the mountains. We've been a very physical kind of culture. And so, if you look at adventure, if you look at exploration, if you look at immersion in nature, a physical culture, and all those things, you can see directly how space flight relates to the way America has been born and how it evolved."

"You have to keep pushing the frontier not just because it's there, but because that's how we find things that end up changing humanity," -Paul Hill, Mission Control

Why Space, Why Explore? Astronaut Story Musgrave...........

We have no choice, Sir. It is the Nature of Humanity, it is the Nature of Life

The Globe was created and Life Evolved, and you look at every single cubic millimeter on this Earth, You can go 30,000 feet down below the Earth surface, You can go 40,000 feet up in the air and Life is There. When you look at the globe down there, you see Teeming Life Everywhere

It is the Power of Life, And maybe I am not just a Human up here, you know. Now Life is Leaping off the Planet. It is heading to other parts of the Solar System, other parts of the Universe

There are those kinds of Pressures. It isn't simply politics, it is not simply technology, it is really not just the essence of humanity, but it is sort of also, you could look at it as maybe the Essence of Life. I think Teilhard de Chardin, in Phenomenon of Man, I believe he put that incredibly well. So those kind of Forces are at Work. It is the nature of humans to be exploratory and to Push On

Yes, it costs resources and it does cost a lot, and there is a risk, there is a penalty, there is a down side, but Exploration and Pioneering, I think those are the critical things, it is the Essence of what Human Beings are, and that is to try to understand their Universe and to try to participate in the entire Universe and not just their little Neighborhood -Story Musgrave

One of my most convincing arguments for space exploration is the analogy that Earth itself is a spacecraft. Everything we learn about how to function and live in space applies directly to our spacehip Earth. How to recycle air, water, how to generate and use power efficiently, how to grow food in closed ecosystems. All of it is important. All of this can benefit mankind in a world with a fast growing population. Understanding other worlds is how we understand OUR world better, to understand how it formed and where it is going. Its our only home for now.

"We must not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began, and to know it for the first time." T.S. Eliot

Gallup survey.....

"More than three-fourths (77%) of the American public say they support a newplan for space exploration that would include a stepping-stone approach to returnthe space shuttle to flight, complete assembly of the space station, build areplacement for the shuttle, go back to the Moon and then on to Mars and beyond"

Q: Why should America send astronauts to Mars?

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin ........

A: I can give you a bunch of different answers that matter to me. But why did Spain bankroll Magellan to leave port with five ships and head out around the world, two of which never made it past the Canary Islands and two more of which were lost on the way? They got one ship back three years later with something like 20 or so people out of an initial crew of 122 across all the ships. Why'd they do that? It is in the nature of humans to find, to define, to explore and to push back the frontier. And in our time, the frontier is space and will be for a very long time.

Give me a counter example to the statement I'm about to make. When the history books are written, the nations that are preeminent in their time are those nations that dominate the frontiers of their time. The failed societies are the ones that pull back from the frontier. I want our society, America, western society, to be preeminent in the world of the future and I want us not to be a failed society. And the way to do that, universally so, is to push the frontier.

Now we don't do that with every dollar we've got. Obviously, most of our money has to be spent on today's concerns. But we're talking about something here that uses six tenths of a percent of the federal budget. This is not exactly spending money like a drunken sailor. This is an investment for our grandchildren's grandchildren.

I could make a very good argument on the basis of economics, that the European investment in the New World didn't pay off, really, for Europeans for 400 years. I could make an argument for you that the biggest payoff of European investment in the New World was the existence of America to bail them out of World War 2. Europe would have sunk into a dark age in the 20th century with the set of political activities and behaviors that led to World War 1 and then World War 2, which followed from that. Without the investment in the New World, there would not have been another society elsewhere on the planet to prevent Europe from falling back into a second dark age. And I could make an argument that European investment in the New World was a net loss for hundreds of years and finally was worth the effort.

These kinds of activities, as I say, they're not large in the grand scheme of things, although it looks large when you write down the budget numbers, and they don't pay off today. They pay off for our grandchildren's grandchildren. And I care about that and I think everyone else should, too. -NASA Administrator Mike Griffin

A note was found from the Challenger commander in his breifcase after the accident... Excerpted from Silver Linings : Triumph of the Challenger 7. by June Scobee Rodgers and June Scobee Rogers.

"We have whole planets to explore, we have new worlds to build. We have a solar system to roam in. And if only a tiny fraction of the human race reaches out toward space, the work they do there will totally change the lives of all the billions of humans who remain on earth, just as the strivings of a handful of colonists in the new world totally changed the lives of everyone in Europe, Asia & Africa."

Had Dick left the note in his briefcase for us to find if something happened? Did he write it on scratch paper to use to quote in a speech? All we'll ever know is that when we most needed a message, it was there. He left for us his dream for the world, his vision for space exploration."

The civilizations that lead on the frontier, end up dictating the course of human history.

And that work continues. New designs are being worked on and tests are beginning now. This... is what is next for NASA.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vZ8RIcmWAk

Lunar helium 3 may end up powering fusion reactors on earth someday. You never know what is going to matter and change the world.

We learned of lunar helium 3 because of our exploration efforts there.

We must push forward, challenge and improve and yes sometimes manage risk. Always.

Even as individuals. And we all know what it means when we do not do these efforts. It is no different as a nation or a species.

Please consider the above. Consider the grand picture. America, as a nation, and yes THROUGH our government just as our militarys are, must engage in exploration. It is as strategic and endeavour as they come.

[MistrX]

It may well be impossible, as the machines are restricted to 30 watts of power, which is quite low.

[RightWhale]

The court decision was done under the Treaty. The only way private business will ever get into space development now is if one of the signatories withdraws from the Treaty and recognizes private property and claims in outer space.

It will be very difficult to get investment funding without having title to the resources. If you have your own private funding, fine, but neither Bigelow nor Musk are in that league.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Why is so little power allowed for a lunar excavation endeavor? How abundant is solar power on the Moon? Nights are long but cloud cover isn’t a factor.

I would think that batteries could someday be recharged from a distance, too, using technology that NASA is developing through its (still non-won Beam Power Challenge which involves a similarly inadequate prize). Is the low wattage requirement in the regolith excavation challenge therefore little more than NASA’s way of protecting its niche and not having to offer larger prizes?