Love the Orbital Index. A weekly <i>Space</i> treat in my email inbox for sure!<p>Subscribe link: <a href="https://orbitalindex.com/subscribe/" rel="nofollow">https://orbitalindex.com/subscribe/</a>
Google's $20 million Lunar XPRIZE [1, 2] ended a few years too early in 2018. Would have been exciting had they kept until 2023 or 2025.<p>> In the case of the Google Lunar XPRIZE, the audacious competition ended without a $20 million grand prize winner. [3]<p>Seems like they got tired of waiting and redistributed the funds to other causes. They didn't realize how close we were.<p>Sure would have been incredible publicity for Google had they not canned it. We'd be talking about the prize every year and with every launch, and we'd hold Google in esteem for being pioneers in science and space exploration.<p>Pity.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.xprize.org/prizes/google-lunar" rel="nofollow">https://www.xprize.org/prizes/google-lunar</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.xprize.org/prizes/google-lunar/articles/a-new-era-the-post-prize-impact-of-the-google-lunar-xprize" rel="nofollow">https://www.xprize.org/prizes/google-lunar/articles/a-new-er...</a>
Will this ever be safe enough to use as a hazardous waste disposal system? Can we just send the worst of the worst into the sun without too much risk of just spreading it out through the atmosphere in case of an explosion.
One more to the list: GITAI is hoping to send a centaur-like rover with a robot torso in mid-2020[0]. Given that the current version is using some off the shelf sensor I have no idea how realistic is this timeline though.<p>[0] <a href="https://gitai.tech/en/2022/02/10/gitai-develops-lunar-robotic-rover-r1/" rel="nofollow">https://gitai.tech/en/2022/02/10/gitai-develops-lunar-roboti...</a>
Very excited about this mission for several reasons.<p>The variety of rovers (different companies, different processes, different energy and propulsion) are quite exciting. It'll be useful to compare their efficacy.<p>But also significant is the overall mission design. A rover swarm where every individual member is expendable has been bandied about at NASA for at least 18 years. It lets the mission take more risks: if you see an interesting rock over rough terrain or a cave or outcropping that might harbor water ice, you're not going to risk a whole <i>Perseverance</i> on checking it out. But it might be worth risking one Iris or a couple COLMENA.
My first reaction to this wondering how long before the face of the moon is deformed to an extent visible from earth. Did anyone else feel that way too?
Is “a bevy” the venereal term for a group of rovers? Because that would be pretty cool.<p><a href="https://infogalactic.com/info/List_of_English_terms_of_venery,_by_animal" rel="nofollow">https://infogalactic.com/info/List_of_English_terms_of_vener...</a>
"To illustrate this monumental change in capacity, Musk pointed out that in a single year, a Starship launching three times per week could put as much mass into orbit as has been launched by the entire world to date (~15,500 tons). "<p>While that sounds impressive, the whole 3 starships per week for a year part just makes this seem ridiculous. Is Musk personally going to pay the <$10million per launch? <$10m x 3 x 52 = $1.56billion. That's just the launch. Never mind the expense of the payload being lofted into orbit. Nor the amount of time required to produce all of that payload. 3x per week is just an insane amount of launches.
> a Starship launching three times per week could put as much mass into orbit as has been launched by the entire world to date (~15,500 tons).<p>Finding a free spot to place all those objects without too much risk of collisions might become quite a challenge. <a href="http://www.stuffin.space/" rel="nofollow">http://www.stuffin.space/</a>
For some reason, HN's link isn't going directly to the lunar rovers item, which is here: <a href="https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2022-02-16-Issue-156/#the-upcoming-bevy-of-lunar-rovers" rel="nofollow">https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2022-02-16-Issue-156/#the-u...</a><p>Thank you Jatan for his excellent contribution to today's issue of Orbital Index. Here's his longer form version as well: <a href="https://blog.jatan.space/p/lunar-rovers-launching-in-2020s" rel="nofollow">https://blog.jatan.space/p/lunar-rovers-launching-in-2020s</a>