Penn State students reaching for the Moon. Literally.

[Savannahmann]

Google's XPRIZE is $5 million for reaching the moon with a robotic lander. Several private concerns are striving for that goal, and one underfunded group of college kids.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-lunar-xprizes-only-university-110000073.html

Led by NASA NIAC Fellow and space industry veteran, Michael Paul, the Lunar Lion team has a clear lead in the Google-sponsored race to the Moon. Comprised of more than 80 students across eight of Penn State's university disciplines, the team has outlined the technology milestones and timelines required by the XPRIZE Foundation to win the competition. Using at least 90% private funding, the Lunar Lion will land on the Moon, transmit video and images back to Earth, move 500 meters to another spot on the Moon and repeat the video/image transmission, all by the end of 2015.

They have launched a crowdsource funding campaign, but that aside, consider the audacity. Other groups have aeronautical engineers who have years of experience working on the problem. Penn State has Aeronautical Engineering students who are trying to tackle one of the hardest things imaginable. The others have corporate sponsors, and Penn State has the free time of the students and faculty.

NASA worked for years, with huge funding and computer simulation time available, to send the Rovers to Mars. NASA spent hundreds of millions of dollars to send Apollo 8 around the moon, never mind the moon landing itself. Years of research, testing, and thought went into that program. Now, kids in College are trying to do it in an impossibly short time, by designing, building, testing, and launching a robotic craft that will be in essence uncontrollable from earth. The time lag would make remote piloting useless.

I thought some of you would find the story interesting. Here's the link to their audacious effort. http://www.lunarlion.psu.edu/

[gordianot]

1. That beats molesting children maybe they have some left over money from their pro team.

[MineralMan]

3. What? It was that school's football coaching staff that

was implicated in sexual abuse of youngsters, not the student body, and not the engineering students, in particular.

Your slam on an entire university is uncalled-for and simply ignorant.

Please don't do that. I suggest you self-delete your ugly post.

[gordianot]

5. I remember the early student support and Administration attempts to cover up not just coaching

They are still paying compensation to victims. Hoping they move on. Get a mirror.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Cheap shot.

And lame.

Blame the people responsible. This has less than nothing to do with that.

[WinkyDink]

7. Oh, har-de-har-har.

[puddy2131]

2. It didnt take long for the first dumb reply to reference molestion.

Right on cue the idiots come out and associate an entire university with pedophilia. What a great job these students and faculty are doing and they deserve a ton of praise for this great accomplishment!

[gopiscrap]

6. Welcome to DU

[SidDithers]

4. NASA and the Russians did it with 1950's computers...

These students have smart phones with more computing power than what was used to reach the moon in the late 50's and early 60's. And, they've got all the trial and error of previous moon landings to factor into what they're doing.

Still, it will be a very impressive achievement if they're successful.



Sid

[Warren DeMontague]

9. I agree, but the math isn't really the tough nut of the problem, I think.

Crunching the numbers- which is what the US and Soviet programs did with those computers- isn't that thorny an issue, or one that requires more than a glorified calculator. Which is why it was doable back then, even with that equipment.

The engineering difficulties around getting something to the moon and safely landing it there are much greater than just computing power.

[Egnever]

10. Have to agree

While it will be impressive if they pull it off. The comparison to NASA is ridiculous. The mars rover landing was one of the most incredible feats of engineering I Have ever witnessed.

[Savannahmann]

11. I agree the Mars Rover, all of them, were incredible

But remember that NASA had millions of dollars to design, model, test, and incredible assets in communications to track and follow the Mars Rover.

Penn State is hoping to raise $400k. Not $400,000,000 dollars. $400,000 dollars to fund the project. The testing of the terrain following radar and the lowering of the rover for NASA spent that much, and probably more.

Considering the skill level of students, even the Graduate Student level, and the paucity of funding and available people, the Penn State Lunar mission is no less audacious. For the cost of a Rolls Royce, they're trying to land a craft on the moon, have it lift off and fly away some five hundred yards, land again, and re-establish contact with earth.

Curiosity is a triumph of technology, planning, engineering, and computer hardware and software. That advanced tech and engineering wasn't cheap, $2.5 Billion for the project. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/11/mars-price-new-world-curiosity-rover-lake

I'm impressed with the Penn State team. I'm sorry you felt the comparison was out of order.