Picture of the Week: A Mysterious Development...

This relatively unassuming rendering caught my eye when searching for something completely different (the International Lunar Network--features coming soon on that), and it was a small detail in the image that struck me, and sent me on a magical mystery tour of the web for more info:

Up on the carrier there, the label (in this NASA rendering) says:

Lunar Development Corporation.

As a 24-year-old with an Urban Planning degree, seeing such a particular phrase on a NASA rendering really got my attention. And what I've found has surprised me: this 'Lunar Development Corporation' could not only be a massive player in our colonization of the moon, but this reference on an official NASA image has proven to be highly mysterious.

A quick search on "lunar development corporation" dug up some gold (or helium-3, if you will):

• A detailed paper on public-private partnerships (PPP), including the concept of a singular Lunar Development Corporation (I'll provide a full analysis of this paper as a marquee feature within the next two weeks);
  
• A mildly dated (February 2007) article from Space.com on methods of solidifying public; investor; and other support for lunar plans, which it notes could (in part) be accomplished by instituting "a public-private lunar development corporation" (again, singular).

Among other things, mostly odds and ends.

This became extremely strange upon finding the original source of the image; I first encountered it via a mostly unrelated ThomasNet article. Then, after some digging based on the ThomasNet description, I found the image in the Wikipedia article on Moon Colonization.

Taking the hunt to NASA itself, a search for "lunar development corporation" on their main site turned up....nothing. Hmm. I then applied my method for finding that Wikipedia repeat of the image to NASA's new official images site, NASAImages.org, and found the image with a full (and revealing?) description.

The archived image's original source is this page, which has the same description alongside it.

That description is potentially very revealing, by just how unrevealing it is. Nowhere is the appearance of "Lunar Development Corporation" mentioned, as the brief text talks only about the rover and cargo lander.

A search on NASA's site for "lunar development corporation" turns up only a brief mention of "the new Houston-based Lunar Development Corporation" being listed as founded apparently by the Artemis Society's Gregory Bennett (a bio which does not mention this LDC in any form), and a Google or other search turns up no official site or mention of the entity in any form..

...yet it appears on the cargo lander on this official NASA image.

This may be explained by a small detail, from the end of the image's description:

"This image was produced for NASA by John Frassanito and Associates. Technical concepts from NASA's Planetary Projects Office (PPO), Johnson Space Center (JSC). "

Here's the website for John Frassanito and Associates, but a search for "Planetary Projects Office" and/or alongside "Johnson Space Center" turns up...nothing (except more concept images). NASA has a plethora of official sites for its various departments, but yet this Houston space center's "PPO" does, apparently, not.

A little more hunting at the Johnson Space Center site turns up a reference that the PPO became the "Planetary Missions and Materials Branch", a search for which, again, fails to turn up an official site. Searching the JSC's site brought up more odds and ends, including a newsletter (Lunar News issue number 62) from 1998, so it looks like "Planetary Mission and Materials Branch" may have been a name that was changed again, though to what, I'm not sure.

In fact, closer inspection of the original image's page confirms it is from 1994.

So after all that adventure, it may just be an old and outdated concept. Still, the prominence of the "Lunar Development Corporation" on the rendering (and others, it turns out), combined with the dual facts that the rendering is from "technical concepts, and the lack of mention of the Corporation in the image descriptions despite it being so readily apparent in them, suggest that "Lunar Development Corporation" was an element of the technical concepts not entirely intended to be released; e.g., an innocuous leak.

I'm going to do some further investigating, sending off some emails, and I'll post an update in the very near future about whether the Lunar Development Corporation could be something currently being worked on (as it is featured in concept images that are alongside much more current ones in the galleries). Stay tuned... :)

SpaceX Sucessfully Tests Falcon-9 Engines (News)

In a significant step for the private space boom, leading company SpaceX successfully test-fired their Falcon 9 craft's engines today:

While their current programs have their eye on low-earth orbit, long-term SpaceX is looking at trans-Lunar capabilities for their Falcon vehicle family, as is demonstrated in their Falcon Lunar Capability Guide (expect a detailed analysis of that report here at Luna C/I within the next week :) ).

SpaceX's crafts are designed to be much more cost effective and reliable than past, government rockets, "up to a factor of ten".

Check out SpaceX's website--it is quite spiffy, being both very sharp graphically and stuffed full of great, accessible information; they really set a bar for space boom/base race web development. Also, check out the breathtaking Earth-to-orbit video of their historic Falcon 1 launch earlier this year, and their really, really crisp photos from that event.

Check back here later this week for that in-depth analysis of the SpaceX Falcon Lunar Capability Guide :)

Chandrayaan-1 Payload Feature #3: Moon Impact Probe (MIP)

Today is the third in a series of features on each of India's recently-launched Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads. The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA).

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). For this edition, we look at an Indian payload that made headlines with its recent success: the Moon Impact Probe (MIP).

Moon Impact Probe (MIP)

The 35kg MIP was designed to demonstrate, through its 25-minute flight to the lunar surface from the Chandrayaan orbiter, technologies for making both soft and hard landings (the MIP's descent was a hard landing, hitting the surface of the Moon at a solid 3,100 miles an hour). Arriving on the lunar surface at 20:06 on November 14th, 2008, the MIP delivered an Indian tricolor flag (on its hull) to Luna.

The MIP itself had three payloads of its own:

• Radar Altimeter – As the ISRO themselves put it: "for measurement of altitude of the Moon Impact Probe and for qualifying technologies for future landing missions. The operating frequency band is 4.3 GHz ± 100 MHz."
  
• Video Imaging System – Fairly self-explanatory, this took images as the probe approached the surface, including the two below:
  
  
• Mass Spectrometer – Measured the lunar atmosphere's composition, with a mass resolution of 0.5 amu and sensitivities to partial pressure of the order of 10-14 torr.

All in all, the MIP was a great success, making India one of the select few nations to have landed (hard or soft) a craft on the moon.

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Keep checking back here for more payload features, Chandrayaan-1 news, and a complete wealth of news and information about the private space boom and 'base race' :)

New Orion Craft Test: Abort Motor

You know a test went well when it shot flames 100 feet into the air.

Especially when there was video of it:

That is the second (the first being back in April) test of the Orion craft's abort motor; the Orion being the successor to the Space Shuttle, and the craft that will get NASA astronauts back to the Moon (with the Altair serving as the lander).

Despite the spectacularly dangerous-looking results, the abort motor is actually a safety feature: it would direct the Orion craft away from the Ares rockets in the event of a launch malfunction.

Waste of Space: A Look at Trash Drying and Water Extraction

There's an article from the Cornell Chronicle over at SpaceRef.com about a subject that I see potentially balooning into one of the most problematic and important subjects of moon colonization: dealing with waste. So, welcome to the first edition of a new semi-regular feature series you'll be seeing here: Waste of Space.

The Cornell article is a feature on a device that by drying, extracts all the water from the astronauts' trash, thereby both avoiding a lot of trashy problems (stink, trash expansion after rot, etc.) and generating one of the most precious resources in space (by way of a water purifier).

An About.com article puts it best regarding the importance of water recycling to missions:

"Would Columbus have reached the New World if his ships could not carry enough water for their crews? Would Lewis and Clark have made it to the Pacific if they had no fresh water along the way? "
-"NASA Advances Water Recycling for Space Travel and Earth Use", by Nick Greene, About.com

Water is expensive to shuttle back and forth from space stations, nevermind all the way to the Moon, so any conservation and recycling you can get is golden.

The other aspect, and the one I see becoming of particular interest as lunar colonies (and especially, lunar mining operations) become more and more numerous, is dealing with waste disposal (or lack thereof) and reducing its bulk.

"In space, waste can't simply be "thrown out." If astronauts place it outside the airlock, it will orbit alongside their spacecraft. If they eject it away from the spacecraft, they might encounter it again later."
-"What to do with rotten, smelly garbage when the nearest dumpster is 100 million miles away", by Melissa Rice, the Cornell Chronicle

As that above picture from the Int'l Space Station demonstrates, trash buildup can get pretty bad in human space habitats (sometimes with spectacularly disastrous results), so this drying technology (being developed by Cornell professor Jean Hunter and the Wisconsin-based Orbital Technologies Corp.) will obviously be invaluable.

I could go on for some length about the severe problems a lot of trash generation from lunar colonies could create, but for now, I'll leave that for future editions of Waste of Space.

Today, I close out with a golden quote by Jean Hunter, from the Cornell article:

"When people think about garbage in space, they remember the trash compactor scene from "Star Wars" -- and believe it or not, there's some truth to that scene," Hunter said. "Trash in space is like you saw in the movie: big, wet, nasty and varied".

:)

Picture of the Week: MoonOne, A Space Odyssey

That (by way of the Google Lunar X Prize site) is a new rendering of Odyssey Moon's competing lander, MoonOne.

Most details about MoonOne have been under wraps; recently, Odyssey Moon scored a partnership with NASA itself for technical support in the development of the craft.

Check out this neat MSNBC gallery for renderings of many of the other teams' crafts :)

India's Chandrayaan Flags the Moon

I've been flagging "Chandrayaan" on a lot of my moon posts as of late, but now the Chandrayaan-1 has done me one better, flagging something itself: the Moon.

The craft's Moon Impact Probe, carrying the Indian Tricolour (pictured above) on its side, landed on the Moon on Friday, making India the fifth (or fourth; videos seems to state fourth, but that linked article from the India Times states fifth) world entity (after the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the 17-nation ESA) to reach the surface of the Moon.

That is a picture the Moon Impact Probe took before impact (from the India Times); the prode landed just 32km from the all-important Shackleton Crater near the South Pole, a very likely location for a future full-fledged colony or colonies (due to its rim being a Peak of Eternal Light, a.k.a. eternal solar power and other benefits). So its likely that future colonists (robotic or otherwise) will come across, or at least take field trips to, this Indian tricolor in the future :)

Below is a great video from CCTV on the Probe's landing, which rather interestingly, also confirms the active Indian interest in helium-3 (something not mentioned in the official ISRO Moon Impact Probe page):

Chandrayaan-1 Payload Feature #2: Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA)

Today is the second in a series of features on each of India's recently-launched Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads.

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). Today is the first look at one of the foriegn payloads: the Swedish Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA).

Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA)

SARA is a device mainly to study the magnetosphere (or in the case of the Moon, the lack thereof) and solar wind interactions with the lunar surface.

Developed through the ESA in collaboration with the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and the Indian ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, the payload itself is of Swedish development while the data processing unit is Indian.

Solar wind experiments were peformed on the lunar surface during many of the Apollo missions (11, 12, 14, 15, and 16); they analyzed the chemical components of lunar surface in relation to the solar wind, and found that the lunar surface had been enriched with atomic nuclei, including helium-3, a major motivator behind this current base race.

While details on the SARA's mission are vague, the impression that I get is that the SARA's additional solar wind analysis, going by the above connection between solar wind and the all-important helium-3, could yield interesting information regarding the chemical composition of the moon, possibly for mining purposes (helium and otherwise). So, perhaps, the result of this seemingly unassuming device could end up being commercially significant.

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Check back within the next couple of days for the next feature, on another of the Indian payloads, as well as for any other updates on the moon mission's progress that may come along :). You can find the first payload feature (and all the features as they'll be posted) here.

Twilight Embers: Phoenix Mars Mission Ends

Months after it was originally anticipated to fall silent, and after discovering both ice and falling snow on Mars, the Phoenix lander has lost contact, and the mission has been declared completed.

Lasting five months, the lander was originally expected to last just 90 sols (martian days), until September 30th; the last communciation was on November 2nd.

A Martian sunrise in late August, marking the oncoming of the winter that eventually doomed the lander. [Photo from UniverseToday.com by way of NASA/JLP/UA)

The unexpected durability of the lander could be promising for the efforts of future landers and rovers, including lunar ones.

Check out the official NASA media page on Phoenix for videos recapping the mission.

A related note: The Mars explroation rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still kickin', after nearly five years (more than seventeen times longer than expected).

Considering how much longer 'than expected' both the Phoenix and the twin rovers have lasted, could it also happen that completion of lunar bases (being built by, of course, robots) will come much faster 'than expected' (with their construction workers potentially proving much hardier and productive workers than predicted)?

Picture of the Week: Hail CESAR

That is a picture of the CESAR rover, which won last week's ESA Lunar Robotics Challenge. Built by a student team from the Bremen University, the rover completed the task of descending down the steep slopes of a 15-meter deep crater, grab a soil sample, and return it (all in darkness).

Check out the CESAR site for details from the team on their rover (and their experience), and below is a Youtube clip of the victorious little guy conquering a hill in practice:



The lunar surface is a challenging environment, and it'll be a lot of fun to see the variety of designs for rovers that come along, and to see them in action there within the next few years :)

Chandrayaan-1 Payload Spotlight #1: Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC)

Today is the first in a series of features on each of India's recently-launched Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads.

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter (which just Saturday reached lunar orbit) has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). Japan and China launched similar missions last year, but not with foreign instruments onboard.

This chart below, from the ISRO, shows what types of 'coverage' the payloads as a unit have:

As I cover each of the eleven payloads in individual posts over the next few weeks, I'm going to alternate between the Indian and foreign payloads.

Without further ado, here's your spotlight on the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC).

Terrain Mapping Camera

An Indian instrument, the first payload being featured here was also the first one to be tested.

It's mostly as it sounds: a high-resolution camera that can take black and white photographs of the lunar surface (with a 5m spatial resolution--"the ability to distinguish between two closely spaced objects on an image"--in 20km swaths[PDF] ), with the intent to map the entire topography of the moon (including the dark side and the poles) at that 5m resolution; creating the most high-resolution, detailed map of the lunar surface to date. Such maps exist of Mars, but not of the Moon.

NASA's Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission set for next year will have similar, if more powerful, camera and mapping systems. These kinds of maps will clearly be useful for the planning stages of the eventual lunar colonies and for other efforts.

The power of the TMC could well be enough to finally settle one thing for NASA ahead of time, though: it could photograph the Apollo and other NASA craft on the Moon's surface, hopefully putting all those conspiracy theories to rest. :)

Here's a picture from the ISRO of the TMC itself:

And, last but not least, one of the test images the camera took of Earth (high resolution here):

For every technical detail you ever wanted to know about the TMC, see this PDF.

Check back within the next couple of days for the next feature, on one of the Chandrayaan-1's foreign payloads, as well as for any other updates on the moon mission's progress that may come along :)

What President Obama Means for Moon Colonization and Private Space Policy (Immediate Action?)

A few months back I did an in-depth analysis of Barack Obama's detailed space plan, but now that he is officially the President-Elect of the United States (and therefore, given the timing of his term, one of the most important figures ever in mankind's integration and colonization of the moon; it is within his first four-year term that the Google Lunar X Prize should be won, and that Astrobotic alone has 6 lunar surface missions planned), it's time to take a look at what change he might bring on early on in his administration.

One thing Obama's space plan detailed that we could see forming perhaps even before he takes office, is the return of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (here's an obviously in-progress Wiki article on it's previous incarnations, which were from 1953-1973 and 1989-1993; beyond that, online background is lacking).

"There is currently no organizational authority in the Federal government with a sufficiently broad mandate to oversee a comprehensive and integrated strategy and policy dealing with all aspects of the government's space- related programs, including those being managed by NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Commerce Department, the Transportation Department, and other federal agencies."
-Barack Obama's Space Plan

The Council was a White House entity to help coordinate these sorts of agenices, something that is arguably needed more now than it was in the Space Race era, with the booming private space sector (from Armadillo and Astrobotic to Odyssey Moon and Virgin Galactic, with numerous inbetween) being around, as Obama puts it, to "amplify NASA's reach":

"In achieving this vision, Obama will reach out to include international partners and to engage the private sector to amplify NASA's reach. Obama believes that a revitalized NASA can help America maintain its innovation edge and contribute to American economic growth."
-Paragraph 3 of the Obama Space Plan

As has been much discussed, economic growth is something America could use right about now, and so having a council that strengthens coordination of private and government space efforts (something already underway, an example being the agreement between Odyssey Moon and NASA announced just last week) could in turn, strengthen the role in a recovering American economy of a thriving space sector. The council would greatly amplify the 'amplification of NASA's reach'.

"And that's a major debate I'm going to want to convene when I'm president of the United States. What direction do we take the space program in?"
-Barack Obama, on a couple of occasions on the campaign trail

An interesting blog post from an Obama supporter on the official Obama site talked about the idea of a new National Space Council from a political and practical perspective:

"A National Space Council could be critical to advancing such interagency issues on climate change, space communications, technical innovation, and the commercial uses of space. ...We are missing opportunities because no agency is charged with helping space industries in the way that the Federal government helped the infant aviation industry before World War II."
-Blog post by Gary Oleson on the official Obama campaign site

His post also notes that historically, the National Space Council was chaired by the Vice President; Vice President-Elect Joe Biden was as recently as October involved directly in Obama's space policy, as the sponsor of a waiver to allow the U.S. to buy Soyuz craft from Russia until the Orion craft is ready, something Obama spoke in favor of and then became involved with. Biden also was outspoken as a space advocate in the last days of campaign (though I'm sure Florida had something do to with that).

With Obama already starting to put his Cabinet together, we could see movement on the new National Space Council's creation within the next few weeks and months. The space program certainly is something hopeful and inspiring that Obama could mix in with all the grim challenges, which would be politically invaluable, especially if there's a lot of emphasis on the possibilities of lunar policy (with the Moon, of course, visible to every American on a regular basis as an impromptu symbol of hope).

Keep an eye here for frequent updates as Obama's presidential space policy begins to take even further shape, and check out my original analysis of his space plan for more details on that.

Video: India's Chandrayaan-1 Moon Orbiter

Below is a neat video from the ESA (European Space Agency) on India's recently launched moon mission, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.

The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) itself has a 30-minute video online about the Chandrayaan-1, as well, so there's plenty of video to go around to get caught up on India's hip moon mission :)

Chandrayaan-1 Update: Terrain Mapping Tested

Click that image above for the whopping full-size image of Earth that the recently launched Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 took with one of its 11 payloads, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC).

Check out the press release for the official take, as well as these neat articles. This was a test of the TMC, which is one of five Indian payloads on the Chandrayaan-1 (the other six being international, including two through NASA).

I'm going to be doing a series of individual spotlights on all eleven payloads as the Chandrayaan-1 makes its way out of its current Earth orbit and towards the Moon, so keep an eye here for the first installment of that very soon :)

Odyssey Moon Announces NASA Partnership (News)

Right 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.

Astrobotic Technology Announces Details Galore on Series of Commercial Moon Missions (News)

Today, Astrobotic Technology (a leading contender for the Google Lunar X Prize) announced a new series of missions as part of their commercial efforts.

"Astrobotic will robotically explore the Moon’s high-interest areas on a commercial basis, collecting information required to design future outposts and to answer scientific questions about the Moon and Earth."
-David Gump, President of Astrobotic, from their announcement

As part of the announcement, Astrobotic released a White Paper (a 'white paper' being an a report or guide that addresses problems and how to solve them, typically seen in business and politics) detailing their program and goals.

In addition to their initial effort for the $20 million Lunar X Prize, TranquilityTrek (which, as David Gump told Space.com for their article today, was "very clear" that it was "going to cost more to win the prize than the prize itself"), Astrobotic will follow with five more missions:

• Three polar rovers;
• A lunar lander; and
• A lunar dozer (see below).

Rovers and landers are pretty commonplace ideas, but the 'dozer' was a new one to me. With some digging (excuse the pun), I found an example: NASA's Lunar Chariot prototype, which could build roads, dig trenches, or even mine minerals. There's even some video of it in action, kicking ass and taking names on Earth:

The White Paper has oodles of details on their exact mission plans, particularly the diagram on page 3.

With the X Prize TranquilityTrek slated for Q2 2010, they've got their South pole scout (headed for the rim of Shackleton Crater, long considered a prime location for a moon colony) shooting for Q3 2011, with two more missions (a North Pole scout and a 'Moon Quake 1" seismic and weather collection mission at Shackleton) set for 2012 and an Ice Surveyor mission going deep into Shackleton itself, followed by the Lunar Dozer mission also at Shackleton Rim, both being conducted in 2013.

So, for Astrobotic alone, that's 6 total lunar missions in the next four years. Exciting times. And this, of course (and as the White Paper notes), is just the initial slate. Most or all of the rovers will include HD video broadcasting, it sounds like, so we'll all have a front row seat, to boot.

The general goal of the missions is to build a data library to facilitate other organizations' (e.g., NASA; Barack Obama, in his space plan, talked of "amplifying NASA's reach" with the private space sector) and companies' missions with information for sale, such as detailed terrain maps, allowing future colonial efforts to simply buy the information from Astrobotic at a lower cost that it would take for the efforts to collect the data themselves.

Check out that 4-page White Paper and Astrobotic's site for the full skinny on their efforts, and keep an eye here for frequent updates and analysis as they (and other similar companies, such as fellow Google Lunar X Prize competitor Odyssey Moon, Ltd.) progress rapidly towards their mission slate :)

Picture of the Week: Finally Got a Plasma

That is an image from the Korea Times (by way of Gizmodo) of the first plasma generated by South Korea 's KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Reactor) fusion reactor.

The experiment back in June produced 2 1/2 times more plasma than anticipated, which was good news for the project and for other, similar projects, like the high-profile ~$7-14 billion ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) reactor being built in France.

Fusion power is considered a leading motivation for moon colonization, as a primary fuel for it (helium-3) is rare on Earth, but plentiful on the Moon. Seen as an ultimate power source, fusion power could be a solution to certain problems that may crop up in the next 50 years.

Last year, South Korea announced plans to launch a lunar orbiter in 2020 (similar to the craft just launched by India), so they could be getting ahead of the game with their early development of the fusion side of things.

Lunar Lander Challenge Wrap-Up

Day 2 of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge turned out to be uneventful. The official X Prize Foundation video recap explains what happened on the only attempt of the day:



Still, it was an exciting event and a great first day, with Armadillo Aerospace taking home the $350,000 prize with a successful flight and TrueZer0 getting a launch off (which, as you'll see in the video below from the actual craft, didn't end as well as it started:)



Keep an eye here at Luna C/I for future event coverage as the private space boom and Base Race continue to take shape :)

NASA Test Driving New Small Pressurized Rover in Arizona (News)

That is a NASA image (from their EDGE blog) of their Black Point, Arizona test driving yesterday of their lunar Small Pressurized Rover concept.

In a lava-field area with many geologic similarities to the lunar surface, the new rover roared into action at speeds up to 6 mph, designed with leather seats and bunks with the ability for astronauts to take the vehicle on two-week trips. The vehicle includes "suitports" (see at right, image also from NASA's EDGE blog), allowing the astronauts to enter and exit the rover without having to bring the suits (and the potentially dangerous dust clinging to them) in.

"Dust is the No. 1 environmental problem on the moon."
-Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut (Wired.com dust article)

This is where the name "Small Pressurized Rover" comes in--the cabin being pressurized is what allows the astronauts to not have to wear the suits inside.

The testing has been going on for a week with day-long rides (sounds like fun), with the big test coming up in a three-day jaunt, largely to test the comfort of the vehicle (sorry, no wet bar).

Check out NASA's official page for their trademark really huge pictures and more details (including some great informational PDFs with even more images, and a short video, embedded below via Youtube:)

Lunar Lander Challenge: Day 1 Recap

Day 1 of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is complete, and there's some great success out of it to recap for ya. (A location note: the event, orginally scheduled to be at Holloman Air Force Base, was recently moved to a different venue, the Las Cruces Airport).

Of the nine teams to enter the contest, two managed to make it to the point of actually getting flights in at the Challenge: Armadillo Aerospace and TrueZer0 (check out my previous post for short profiles on each).

A congrats to Armadillo Aerospace as, third time being the charm this year (after competing the last two years), they won the $350,000 prize with a successful flight (check out that Space.com/MSNBC article for a full skinny on their frustrations, including a lot of clock problems, many due to the aforementioned venue change to Las Cruces airport).

"Color me quite frustrated on several counts."
-John Carmack, Armadillo Aerospace founder/lead engineer, and co-founder of iD software (makers of Doom, Quake), to Space.com

TrueZer0 gets something of an underdog prize, though, despite not qualifying for a prize with their Level One flight: they were already only the fourth competitor ever to get their craft off the ground (and that's ever, including in test flights), and they had entered the competition very late. Bad news, though, in that their craft (while making it into the air) crashed and burned after 18 seconds, being lost completely.

There's a completely awesome recap from the X Prize Foundation of Day 1 up on Youtube today, embedded below for your enjoyment:



For Day 2 coverage, there's a live blog by Leonard David at LiveScience chronicling the events as they happen, and of course there's the live webcast with chat and much narration by Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation (which as you see with the video above, is itself really interesting, to see such a wealth of dialogue from an important figure in the private space boom). As TrueZer0 was only entering Level One competition, it's all the Armadillo show today as they go for the big one, the Level Two prize (landing on difficult lunar surface-like terrain).

Check back for more link-a-riffic coverage here as the weekend rolls on... :)