Lunar Lander Challenge. Take off with a rocket, hover, land 100 meters away. Come back. Do this and you could win a total of $2.5 million.
Well hey, this is easy. NASA has done this.
That is the problem. Done is past tense. LEM is history, it's a dead parrot. More, the people who designed and built LEM are long retired. Some of the senior guys are dead. The people they trained are nearing retirement. We delayed, we dwaddled, we put off roofing the house and now, what could have been done in 1975 for cheap, in 1985 for a bit more is now going to be costly beyond belief. We know we can do it - but so did Grumman in 1963. The skills, the hard-won knowledge, the habits of thought that got it done - gone as if they never existed.
So, the XPrize LLC. We know how to build Son of LEM the expensive way - we'll get a chance to see if it can be done for a bit less.
Well hey, this is easy. NASA has done this.
That is the problem. Done is past tense. LEM is history, it's a dead parrot. More, the people who designed and built LEM are long retired. Some of the senior guys are dead. The people they trained are nearing retirement. We delayed, we dwaddled, we put off roofing the house and now, what could have been done in 1975 for cheap, in 1985 for a bit more is now going to be costly beyond belief. We know we can do it - but so did Grumman in 1963. The skills, the hard-won knowledge, the habits of thought that got it done - gone as if they never existed.
So, the XPrize LLC. We know how to build Son of LEM the expensive way - we'll get a chance to see if it can be done for a bit less.
