UKC

Race to the Moon...Can we enter a team?

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 The Lemming 09 Apr 2014
Come on dudes, who wants to win $30,000,000 (£17.9m)?

All we have to do is get a robot to the moon and move it 500 meters. Surely there are enough among us to pull this off and gain some kudos for the site and climbers as a whole, especially if we beat some sciency dudes?

And even if we don't hit the moon, we can get boobie prizes of $1,000,000 (£0.6m)

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/private-moon-race-televised-aims-2015-lunar-landi...
 ByEek 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

One of my son's stories details a small bear who went to the moon in a cardboard box to eat sandwiches with an owl whilst his mother was running his bath. As you said - it can't be that hard!
 MikeTS 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

all you need is a stronger quad?
 nigel baker 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

The Moon ....at Stoney Middleton?...doesn't sound too hard!...count me in!!
 Choss 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

Us lot, work together and get a robot on the moon? We couldnt even agree on whether Grass is green

Lets get a Sav on the rock first, and Take it From there
 toad 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

I'm afraid using hot air for lift will only get us so far.
 Choss 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

Actually Lemming, with your Freemason contacts, and puppy the dog being in the Climbers club, we should have enough illuminati influence to get some of that Alien Space technology away From our Lizard overlords at area 51, and win us that phat cash
 balmybaldwin 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

Isn't this what China have just done and shouldn't they get the prize? or did they fail to get the 500m travelled before they broke down?
In reply to Choss:

> Lets get a Sav on the rock first, and Take it From there

We could ask him from advice; he tends to be on a different planet ;-p
 TomBaker 09 Apr 2014
In reply to toad:

But once we're there we could use it as propellant.
 George Fisher 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

I'll do the matching oak panelling for the inside of the rocket and control room. Can also bring cheese and jam sandwiches.
 butteredfrog 09 Apr 2014
In reply to George Fisher:

Big levers, Bakelite busbar switches and tesla coils.
In reply to George Fisher:

> Can also bring cheese and jam sandwiches.

What, on the same bread? thats a crazy idea if ever i heard one.
 George Fisher 09 Apr 2014
In reply to mh554:

Yeah!

What are you contributing to this?
 GraemeDiack 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

I've already looked into this, almost got my model rocket out and everything, but the entry deadline was in 2010!
I think it'd be awesome if some punter just went ahead and done it on a shoestring budget though
In reply to George Fisher:

I have airfix paint somewhere and a craft knife.
 sbc_10 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

Crikey...imagine the threads !!!

Moon Conditions Stardate 2015 : There is some solid vapour ice on the dark side of the crater walls. Walk-ins will be walk-downs.
Generally 'thin' conditions necessitates routes need to be completed within 14 days.
Earth-light will help early starts.
Re-tracing steps is quite easy on non-popular routes.
Sharp tools may not be advantageous and necessitate evacuation.
Clanking hexes are no longer irritating.

Grading :
Local gravity suggests Earth grade minus 5. (HVS becomes Diff)
Boulder problems start at about 12 metres in height.
No wildlife restrictions ( possibly!?)



OP The Lemming 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

Question for some of you proper sciency chaps, what would be needed and or required to get anything to land/crash on the moon?
In reply to The Lemming:

What we need is a launch slot on the government's space catapult https://sa.catapult.org.uk/

In reply to The Lemming:

> Question for some of you proper sciency chaps, what would be needed and or required to get anything to land/crash on the moon?

a rocket
 jkarran 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

> Question for some of you proper sciency chaps, what would be needed and or required to get anything to land/crash on the moon?

A s**tload of energy for starters.

Someone or a team who knew a lot about:

Biblical amounts of red-tape
Financing a money pit
Earth weather
Balloons/High altitude aircraft
Big rockets
Orbital mechanics
Temperature/Radiation/Vibration hardened electronics
Celestial/Inertial navigation techniques
Radio communications
Smaller rockets
Orbital mechanics
Radar
The moon
Witchcraft, magic and getting really lucky
Semi-autonomous ROVs

jk
 Choss 09 Apr 2014
In reply to jkarran:

Oh, well Looking at your List, ill have my amateur radio foundation Licence in a couple of weeks.

I would Like to Apply for UKC moon robot Lander Project radio communications post
 peebles boy 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

I've got some left over New Year fireworks and a box of out of date flares I can add to the cause. Also some experience of financing a money pit having tried getting a 13year old Transit through an MOT last winter.
In reply to jkarran:

> A s**tload of energy for starters.

All the robot needs to do is move 500m and send video back. So the key to the challenge will be to have a really small and light robot. Maybe something like a model car or a ball that spins and bounces and with no attempt to engineer it to function on the moon more than an hour or so.

Maybe it can be got most of the way out of the earths atmosphere on a balloon rather than with an expensive rocket. Or it could be the first customer for the Technology Strategy Board's space catapult.



 jkarran 09 Apr 2014
In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

> All the robot needs to do is move 500m and send video back. So the key to the challenge will be to have a really small and light robot. Maybe something like a model car or a ball that spins and bounces and with no attempt to engineer it to function on the moon more than an hour or so.

Assuming you're serious pretty much anything off the shelf will either melt or freeze. The electronics likely won't work either so you'd have no way of proving anything even arrived.

> Maybe it can be got most of the way out of the earths atmosphere on a balloon rather than with an expensive rocket. Or it could be the first customer for the Technology Strategy Board's space catapult.

You still need to accelerate the payload and engine to over 5000m/s. That's the payload, engine and most of its acceleration fuel load and its deceleration fuel load then decelerate it and most of its deceleration fuel load back to 0m/s upon arrival. The payload and structure are only ever a tiny fraction of the total launch mass. High altitude release would help but not much.

jk
 Choss 09 Apr 2014
In reply to jkarran:

> Assuming you're serious pretty much anything off the shelf will either melt or freeze. The electronics likely won't work either so you'd have no way of proving anything even arrived.

> You still need to accelerate the payload and engine to over 5000m/s. That's the payload, engine and most of its acceleration fuel load and its deceleration fuel load then decelerate it and most of its deceleration fuel load back to 0m/s upon arrival. The payload and structure are only ever a tiny fraction of the total launch mass. High altitude release would help but not much.

> jk

But im still good to do the radio coms, right?


 robert-hutton 09 Apr 2014
In reply to nigel baker:
Starts at the playing fields (mid may) along the footpath to the moon, then goes up the hill past the mast and down the dale back to the field, does have a team prize and tea and cakes some years all for around £3.00.

On a summers evening must be better than some dusty piece of rock



 jkarran 09 Apr 2014
In reply to Choss:
Roger.
Post edited at 18:52
 Choss 09 Apr 2014
In reply to jkarran:

phew, thats alright then.

we'll run on the 2m waveLength, uplink at 145.200Mhz, Step up to 145.800Mhz downlink. Packet data on 145.825Mhz.

I will need a high up base station where i wont get walked all over by stronger signals.
 Yanis Nayu 09 Apr 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

> Question for some of you proper sciency chaps, what would be needed and or required to get anything to land/crash on the moon?

A film studio. Worked in 1969 - just need to get the shadows and the flag rippling right.
OP The Lemming 09 Apr 2014
In reply to Submit to Gravity:

Bit like this documentary?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077294/
In reply to jkarran:

> Assuming you're serious pretty much anything off the shelf will either melt or freeze. The electronics likely won't work either so you'd have no way of proving anything even arrived.

Not totally serious. I mostly wanted to make a joke about the UK government calling their space centre the 'Space Catapult'.

Anyway: pretty obviously a real toy car won't work but I think the idea will be to make something with COTS components, simple and light and minimally functional that survives just long enough to move 500m and transmit a burst of video. As soon as you try and harden it to survive longer or do more it will get heavy and you'll never get it done for the $1M reward for having a go. A bit like the Cubesat idea only much less robust.


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