A Half-Gigabyte View of the Moon

[neoadorable]

maybe you should go to the moon yourself to make doubly sure that all that gear is really up there.

[DocM]

SpaceX recently booked a privately funded lunar flight where the payload is a rover built by Astrobotics & Carnegie-Mellon University, along with partners including International Rectifier, Caterpillar and ANSYS.

One of its proposed landing sites is very close to Tranquility Base, Apollo 11's landing site. Law forbids a close approach as it's been deemed a historical site, but it would be able to approach close enough to get good pictures and send back HD video (it is so equipped.)

Launch is no earlier than (NET in NASA-speak) December 2013, but is more likely in mid-2014. If Tranquility Base is on the itinerary this tiresome debate can be settled.

[neoadorable]

thanks as always for the update Doc, can't wait for that video. which law is it that forbids going back to the landing sites? and why the hell not go back there? what's to disturb? if anything, it's the first place i'd go back to for PR purposes. sometimes you just have to wonder if the people running the space program worldwide have any marketing sense.

[DocM]

Tranquility Base is a US protected historical site under provisions allowed by the Outer Space Treaty, and so is protected like any such site. The artifacts there are also still US Govt. property, so any disturbance is a no-no.

There is also a big move to have it covered under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention as a Worlx Heritage Site. California's heritage outfit already has it on their list because of the ties it has to aerospace (JPL etc.)

[WA7ER]

Don't set this as your background :rolleyes:

[neoadorable]

ok, if the outer space treaty covers it that's fine. but still, i think we should go back there. not much to disturb anyway. turn it into a museum for when people inevitably live on the moon permanently.

[DocM]

Update on the Astrobotics lunar mission....

And I would add that since the first post Falcon 9's mass to Earth orbit has been upped from 10.4 metric tons to 16+ metric tons due to a major Merlin engine upgrade. This should give it a helluva margin for this lunar mission.

Astrobotic moon mission on track, still raising money

Within two weeks, all the parts of Astrobotic Technology Inc.?s lunar rover and lander should be machined and in the planetary robotics bay at Carnegie Mellon University, and, in two months, the vehicle should be in California undergoing structural integrity testing. It?s all part of the start-up's mission to the moon.

The company, one of the competitors in the Google Lunar X Prize and a spin-out of CMU, is also on a fundraising mission looking to investors for roughly $5 million in series A funds.

CEO and legendary CMU roboticist Red Whittaker, and company president David Gump gave an update on the company Monday night at the inaugural Investing in Innovation presentation by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law?s Innovation Practice Institute. The Planetary Robotics Lab ? a large garage bay that looks like you would expect, clean, shiny and full of complicated-looking equipment ? played host.

The company has so far received $11.5 million in contracts with NASA, as well as cash and in-kind support of $4.2 million from project partners such as Alcoa, ANSYS, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Investors are needed, Gump said, to bridge some of the timing challenges between payment milestones that are attached to the federal contracts.

For those that don?t remember, Astrobotic was created to not only go after the Google Lunar X Prize, but also to lead the way to the commercialization of space travel. The company has already booked a spot on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and the launch could be as soon as December 2013. It all depends on customers ? who are paying Astrobotic to carry payloads ? and when they can get those loads ready to fly.

?The Falcon 9 kicks us to the moon, after this lets go, we either hit the moon or go flying out into space,? joked Chief Engineer John Thornton, and then, striking a more serious note, he said ?we intend to land.?

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[neoadorable]

it's about time we had some more machinery traipsing on the moon, been too long.