New Google Lunar X PRIZE Team: Moon Express! October 28, 2010
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Profile, Moon Express, Odyssey Moon , 5commentsMoon Express is now officially a Google Lunar X PRIZE team!
Revealed last week through NASA’s awarding of Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data contracts, Moon Express enters the competition with surprising thump right off the bat.
Based out of San Francisco, CA, the team is headed by former Odyssey Moon CEO Dr. Bob Richards. Richards had resigned from Odyssey Moon—the first Google Lunar X PRIZE team—in late August:
“However, as reported by Parabolic Arc today, I have departed as CEO of Odyssey Moon. After founding Odyssey Moon and taking it as far as I could as its chief executive, the rationale for investing my time and energy timed out and I have had to resign as CEO to pursue funded ventures.”- Dr. Bob Richards, “A Personal Odyssey” post on his ‘B-LOG‘
His reappearance on a new team—NASA funding in hand—just a month and a half later marks a fascinating twist in the GLXP story…
Odyssey Moon (as of today, 10/27/10) has never mentioned his departure on their official site, press release or otherwise. In that quote above from Dr. Richards’ blog, he states his reason for resigning Odyssey Moon is to pursue “funded ventures”. Clearly, his new venture is Moon Express…but is the “funded” part a contrast to Odyssey Moon?
Part of the relative funding question could be answered in the logo of Moon Express, as seen above: very, very American. Their website, as well, is very red, white, and blue. Why the clear U.S. emphasis?
NASA’s new ILDD contracts were only awarded to U.S.-based GLXP teams; Odyssey Moon, while in part American (as they asserted in the comments of my American GLXP Teams feature in February), are headquartered on The Isle of Man.
“The GLXP and NASA ILDD program are very exciting competitions that represent the knee in the curve of opportunity for the commercial lunar industry. The rising tide floats all boats.” -Dr. Bob Richards, “Moon Express” post on his ‘B-LOG‘
So, regardless of Odyssey Moon’s state of funding, Moon Express was able to catch that NASA ILDD funding tide…and Odyssey Moon, despite their previous standing at the forefront of the GLXP, was not. Was that due to their being HQ’ed outside the U.S.? Only time will tell if more details will come out about this shift.
A few more bits of note: The first Moon Express blog post, about their press release, is written by another (apparently) former Odyssey Moon employee [authorship of that post, at end]: Daven Maharaj. So, Dr. Richards has taken at least one Odyssey Mooner with him.
Also, on the official GLXP Teams listing, instead of being at the bottom of the chronological order (as new teams typically are), they are in at number 8. Number 9 is Advaeros, announced in 2008, so it appears Moon Express has potentially been an entity for a while now.
Is Moon Express, then, on the fast track to the forefront of the GLXP? It certainly appears so. They have serious experience, and serious NASA funding, already at their sails.
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With teams like this and Rocket City Space Pioneers coming in so late with so much muscle power, and things getting so unexpectedly shaken up…it’s anyone’s prize. The GLXP has become more than just an important technical prize, and more than just a human story; it’s also become a heck of a good yarn! Perhaps beyond anyone’s expectations.
And we’re just getting started…as if it wasn’t already, this race could be one for the ages.
Tons Of Water Ice Found at Lunar North Pole! March 1, 2010
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan, Chandrayaan-1, NASA, Odyssey Moon, Polar ice, water , 1 comment so far
NASA’s Mini-RF instrument on India’s Chandryaan-1 orbiter has revealed, like the LCROSS ‘moon bombing’ and NASA’s other Chandrayaan probe (the M3) before it, evidence of water on the moon.
This time, it’s at least 600 million metric tons (!!) of ice deposits in craters at the lunar north pole—an enormous number! By comparison, the LCROSS impact turned up about 100kg of water (~22 gallons). Essentially this means that like Cabeus in the South, the ‘40 or more‘ permanently-shadowed craters investigated at the lunar north pole harbor that kind of ice.
“The new discoveries show the moon is an even more interesting and attractive scientific, exploration and operational destination than people had previously thought.”- Paul Spudis, principal investigator of the Mini-SAR experiment at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (and chief lunar scientist of Google Lunar X PRIZE team Odyssey Moon); “Tons of Water Ice Found on the Moon’s North Pole”, Space.com
This should mean that the North Pole—and any permanently-shadowed crater—should have any lunar prospectors (human, robotic, or otherwise) salivating.
Santa (as reported by Apollo 8) better like company… :)
Google Lunar X Prize Roundup #2 November 30, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Google Lunar X Prize Roundup, Odyssey Moon , add a commentIt’s time for the second installment of my weekly Google Lunar X PRIZE roundups!
- NASA is taking suggestions for their own new space prize until December 7th!
- Odyssey Moon’s site has undergone a dramatic (and spiffy) makeover—and they’re looking for potential payloads! They also now have six current customers (companies) listed…including an effort to place a Swedish cottage on the Moon (seriously! :) ).
- Team ARCA posted a cool Q+A about their recent test flight of the Helen rocket and their interesting methods, including a nugget about elbow room problems with Romanian launches…
- Team White Label Space announced a new partner—Spanish electronics systems firm Emxys!
- Team FREDNET now has a live streaming video show every week (with chat, etc.), Tuesdays at 11am EST
- You can now help name team SYNERGY MOON’s lander! (If you donate, and the donations add up to their goal…)
- White Label Space also solved their Steve Allen double-agent mystery! ;)
- The official blog, The Launch Pad, posted an interesting breakdown of the NASA contracts awarded last week, alongside other goodies.
- Will Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes for the GLXP and active community emissary, will be speaking at the Imagine 09 Conference in Houston, TX this week.
And that’s it for this week’s wrapup—come back next Monday for more, and click here for all roundups :)
Robots in the Garden: Odyssey Moon Partnering With Paragon To Put Greenhouses On the Moon March 23, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : lunar plantlife, Odyssey Moon, Paragon , 3comments
Leonard David (a space reporting vet who often has insider tidbits at various locales), over at the Coalition for Space Exploration‘s blog, reports that leading Google Lunar X Prize contender Odyssey Moon and space development corporation Paragon will announce this week that they have teamed up for one giant leap for plantkind: delivering a biological greenhouse to the Moon’s surface.
“Growing the first plant on another world has enormous symbolic importance as well as important scientific research value for creating self-contained lunar outposts and eventual settlements, notes Odyssey Moon founder, Bob Richards.” -”Moon Partnership: Green Thumbs Up“, Leonard David, Spacecoalition.com
Paragon is a company with a long list of projects, many thermal and biological, for NASA; SpaceX‘s groundbreaking Dragon capsule; and others.
This is one of the first Odyssey Moon missions to become public besides their Google Lunar X PRIZE effort, “MoonOne“; “MoonTwo”, a mission delivering an International Lunar Observatory to the moon, was announced last July.
The Artemis Project has a solid essay on the subject of lunar greenhouses. Being able to generate oxygen and food on the Moon will be a big boon; the concept seems like an inevitable one as part of lunar development, and to get started now makes a lot of sense. A greenhouse could be cared for robotically, and getting a headstart will help the technology be ready by the time colonists arrive around 2020-2024.
Robots growing plants on a world with no humans… now there’s an interesting existential concept for ya.
One-Year Anniversary of the first Google Lunar X Prize Team Announcement (Odyssey Moon) December 6, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Odyssey Moon, Youtube , add a commentToday is the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the first Google Lunar X PRIZE team, Odyssey Moon (with the Google Lunar X PRIZE itself having been announced in August of last year).
It’s also the 25th anniversary of my birth (haha), possibly a large part of why I remember the date ;)
Check out the Google Lunar X PRIZE’s excellent and increasingly active Youtube channel here, as well as their excellent Launch Pad blog.
Picture of the Week: MoonOne, A Space Odyssey November 17, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, lander, NASA, Odyssey Moon, Picture of the Week , add a comment
Odyssey Moon Announces NASA Partnership (News) October 31, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Current News, Google Lunar X Prize, NASA, Odyssey Moon, private sector , add a commentRight on the heels of Astrobotic‘s big announcement of the details of their commerical missions, there’s big news out of Odyssey Moon, Ltd., another Google Lunar X Prize competitor and major private lunar venture.
Odyssey Moon put forth a media release announcing a deal between them and NASA, with Odyssey Moon paying NASA for technical support on their MoonOne (M-1) Google Lunar X Prize mission. This agreement was reached through a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement, signed at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. As that above link notes, the difference between a ‘reimbursable’ and a ‘non-reimbursable’ Space Act Agreement is whether or not there is a transfer of funds from the private entity (here, Odyssey Moon) to NASA, with NASA providing “data, facilities and services to the paying entity.”
An important element of the agreement is that Odyssey Moon will then “share its technical data from its engineering tests and actual lunar missions with NASA”, as the release puts it. So in exchange for getting initial support from NASA, Odyssey Moon’s operational (and efficiency, a crutch of the value of the private space sector) knowledge will be utilized by NASA it it’s own colonization efforts.
Leonard David over at LiveScience.com had the inside scoop on the agreement; check out his blog post for neat insider tidbits from his own experiences at Ames and from elsewhere.
Former Director of Kennedy Space Center Joins Odyssey Moon (News) September 24, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Astrobotic, Current News, economy, Google Lunar X Prize, NASA, Obama, Odyssey Moon, private sector , add a commentOdyssey Moon, Ltd. (a high-profile ‘private commercial lunar enterprise’, and the first official team that was announced for the Google Lunar X Prize) has announced through a media release that Jay Honeycutt, former Director of the Kennedy Space Center, has joined their team as their director of U.S. operations.
“I believe the private sector has an important role to play in a permanent lunar program and Odyssey Moon has put together some pretty impressive people and plans to help make this happen. We look forward to working with NASA and other space agencies as both partners and customers in this effort.”
-Jay Honeycutt
That quote from the media release reminds me of what Barack Obama suggested in his space plan– ‘amplifying NASA’s reach’ with the private sector. Mr. Honeycutt there is speaking along much the same lines.
Other lunar enterprise companies, such as Astrobotic (also a Google Lunar X Prize contestant), express serving as a partner for government (as opposed to, say, strictly commercial) as part of their goals and general gameplan. It should be interesting to watch as NASA and the private sector mix and mingle further, and to see to what extent NASA ends up partnering with the private sector (and what positive impacts that could have, especially in an era of a lagging economy and potentially squeezed government budgets).
CNN Article/Video Interviews with Odyssey Moon Ltd.'s Bob Richards August 5, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Integration, Odyssey Moon, private sector , add a commentAs part of their ongoing “Just Imagine” feature, CNN put up a written interview and a couple of video features on Bob Richards, CEO of Odyssey Moon Ltd., and both his company and the Google Lunar X Prize it’s competing for in general. (Mr. Richards actually posted a comment on this very blog last month, which [to be honest] thoroughly surprised me at the time, haha.)
All three pieces give an interesting (and more intimate than is typical) view into the commercial venture aspect of colonization, which falls under what one could call the integration of the moon into our societies. The private sector reaching the moon may well become more significant that the actual governmental colonization efforts, as far as the Moon’s presence and influence in our daily lives; and it’s happening a lot sooner.
“In 2020 the moon is going to be part of our human society, of our economic sphere. Human beings will be there. I think the private sector will outpace governments for a while, but the governments will be working in concert and we will be establishing a moon base, prospecting for resources, we’ll be trying to understand how we can utilize the moon for the benefit of life on Earth.”
-Bob Richards, from a CNN interview
Check out all three pieces as linked above, especially the three-and-a-half minute “The Reality of Space” feature. It’s some of the highest-quality material I’ve come across, and is a great preview of what I’m sure will be a flood of constant coverage over the next twenty years and beyond, as well as an interesting (albieit brief) portrait of an important figure in the integration process.
Picture of the Week: Fetch, Rover July 3, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Google Lunar X Prize, Integration, Mooncast, MoonPop, Odyssey Moon, Picture of the Week, private sector , 1 comment so far
In a little toss to WALL-E‘s opening this past week, the Picture of the Week is a mock-up of what a Google Lunar X Prize rover might end up looking like (EDIT: See comments for the full skinny, but the good folks at Odyssey Moon Ltd. note this is an actual prototype, with the photo being from their media conference about being named the first Lunar X prize team. Thank you Mr. Richards for the comment and the further details :) ). Such a rover would have to be capable of completing a ‘Mooncast‘, consisting of 360º photos, both HD and near-real time video, and transmission of specific data in order for the competing group to earn the $20 million prize. Additional $5 million prizes can be earned by coming in second and/or completing additional challenges, such as roving certain distances and surviving a frigid lunar night.
I personally find the giant model of the moon there to left of it almost as exciting as anything else. Put me in the same room as that thing, and I’d be all over it.