Lunar lander teams throttle up for cash

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Lunar leg up?
Acuity Technologies is led by Robert Clark, who founded the company in 1992. The team, which has previously designed unpiloted aerial vehicles for the Department of Defense, hopes that the lightweight craft they have concocted will give them an advantage in the Challenge.

Armadillo Aerospace is powered by John Carmack, founder of id Software. They are the only team to fly a vehicle in last year's Challenge, arguably giving them a lunar leg up on the rocket rivalry. Additionally, they have backed that view by repeat flights throughout the year of hardware to shake out control procedures and the technology itself.

And while lunar vehicles are being prepped by their respective teams, pads for the competition are being installed at Holloman. All five pads for this year's contest were generously donated by Mesa Verde Enterprises, Inc. of Alamogordo, New Mexico, Pomerantz noted. "They took a lot pride in the lunar surface...which looks fantastic."

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Here comes the judging
Six judges — with more than 200 years of space experience between them — will oversee the competition, deciding a winner of the competition and other elements of the $2 million prize.

The judges are: Ed Bock, retiree and consultant to Lockheed Martin; Richard C. Dunne, consultant to Northrop Grumman Corporation; Bill Gaubatz, former head of the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) reusable rocket program; John Herrington, Vice President of Rocketplane and former shuttle astronaut; S. Pete Worden, Center Director for NASA's Ames Research Center; and Jeff Zweber of the Air Force Research Lab's Space Vehicles Directorate.

As chief judge, Gaubatz underscored the fact the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge is a key element of a great contest, "the race to open space for business and pleasure, as well as to sustain a long term science and exploration thrust that will expand the universe in which we live, work, and play."

Gaubatz feels that those involved in the competition are part of the worldwide band of entrepreneurs and innovators "that are validating the efficacy of the new private space sector to design, build, and operate safe, reliable, and cost effective systems that can open and sustain space based commerce." The evolution of commercial space operations, he added, will one day soon allow NASA to exploit that capability for carrying-out operations for the space agency's space science and exploration programs.

Eat, sleep and dream
"It has been an excellent competition. In fact, perhaps it has been the best competition that we've run ... in terms of having a very high-percentage of the teams doing substantive work," Pomerantz suggested.

Although each of the teams took on the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge differently, was there a common thread between the groups?

"Passion," Pomerantz responded.

"In talking with these eight teams, it's clear that they are all absolutely thrilled about what they are doing ... spending all night, every night and all weekend, every weekend working on this," Pomerantz said. "These people eat, sleep and dream this stuff. Their love for their projects absolutely shows and is certainly reflected in their work."

For the latest information regarding the October 27-28 Wirefly X Prize Cup and Holloman Air and Space Expo, go to the Internet web site: http://space.xprize.org/x-prize-cup/.

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