A quick summary of the GLXP Team Summit

Once per year, representatives of the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams and the X PRIZE Foundation meet in person to discuss the competition. The GLXP has teams (and teammembers) heralding from across the globe -- now in more than 70 different countries -- so the annual team summit is a fantastic opportunity to build up the competitive spirit and camaraderie that is generated by teams involved in large, incentivized competitions such as the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

The setting for the 4th GLXP Team Summit was the Isle of Man -- not only the home of Manx cats, but also a country that has invested in the space industry and was recently ranked as the 5th nation most likely to land the next person on the Moon (ranked behind the U.S., China, Russia, and India). The Isle of Man was extremely welcoming and accommodating for the event, and we cannot thank them enough for their generosity in hosting this Team Summit.

Day 0 of the summit included a welcome reception for the 13 teams in attendance, which was a wonderful opportunity to say hello to old friends and greet new ones (we have several new teams since the last summit). Welcome gifts from the Isle of Man included stuffed Manx cats and Lego spacemen, much to the delight and humor (humour?) of most teams.

After a quick welcome, many retreated to their hotels to rest before the action-packed Day 1 of the summit...

 

Day 1 began with a warm welcome from Will Pomerantz, Tim Craine, and Chris Stott (the latter two both of the Isle of Man). Then without further ado, the teams and the X PRIZE began to discuss the Master Team Agreement, which will ultimately become the binding rules of the competition that each team must sign and agree to. The creation of the rule set has been open to feedback from the teams throughout the process; therefore, this discussion is held at every Team Summit (although the rules will be finalized before the next Team Summit occurs).

After the MTA discussions, lunch was served as we heard from Michael Simpson of the International Space University, and Chris Boshuizen of NASA Ames Research Center, who is creating a Droid "PhoneSat". After finishing lunch, team members hopped on a bus to a local high school to share the Google Lunar X PRIZE story with students. The youth were inspired and excited by the prize and the teams, and some now even have ambitions to join!

The remainder of the afternoon was reserved for presentations from each team -- a new element of the Team Summit that was added by popular request from the teams themselves. This was a fascinating session where teams discussed everything from media strategy to rover mobility to launch providers. A few points from the talks were posted with the hashtag #GLXPsummit on Twitter.

After the session concluded, we hopped on a double-decker bus and spent the (rainy) evening at the lovely Castle Rushen.

The weather spoiled plans for a star party on the roof, but the castle was very still very impressive and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Some of us were slightly disturbed by the odd wood figures scattered throughout the castle ;)

Day 2 started early with technical tours to ManSat, Manx Telecom, and an optics lab. Post-tour, experts in banking, insurance, public relations, & marketing presented to the teams. We concluded with a discussion of online media and an open discussion with the teams about marketing themselves and the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition.

It was a very busy two days, but also very productive and useful. Face-to-face interaction between the X PRIZE, Google, and the team members is essential in creating a competition that runs smoothly and works favorably for the teams, no matter where they are based in the world. Plus, it's just really great to spend time with the entrepreneurial minds that make up each team (I should also mention that I met the person that runs beefjerky.com, but that's a story for another time). Overall, the Summit was a great success and we look forward to the next time that we all meet again!

A Day of Exploration in the Isle of Man- October 4, 2010

Did you know that World Space Week is celebrated in fifty nations by students across the world? In support of World Space Week, the Google Lunar XPRIZE Education Program kick started the week with supporting “A Day of Exploration” with Isle of Man students. Approximately 200 students from four different high schools were educated about all of the great successes that have happened on October 4th: Sputnik 1 and the Ansari X PRIZE.

The Isle of Man Department of Education and Children, and Conrad Foundation partnered with the Google Lunar X PRIZE to give these students and their teachers the opportunity to learn about topics in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and how incentivized competition can revolutionize the world. Youth got an opportunity to talk about their ideas and asked many questions about competitions. The Conrad Foundation’s Spirit of Innovation Awards and the MoonBots Competition were introduced to these students.




In addition to these discussions, real life Google Lunar X PRIZE team members were able to visit with the students as part of their education outreach for their Team Summit. Team members spoke about their personal interests, as well as energized the youth about space exploration. The following questions were asked by the students:

How much will it cost to send a robot to the Moon?
What did team members study in school?
Why do members want to visit space?
Do families and friends support team members’ passions?



During the Q&A, there were many laughs thanks to the wittiness of our team members, but more importantly our teams let it be known that dreams do come true. It is the hope of all of the partners that participated at today’s event that these youth will become our future space exploration ambassadors.








A special thanks goes to Ballakermeen High School for hosting the event.

Google Lunar X PRIZE kicks off annual Team Summit at Isle of Man; ARCA launches

Today is October 4th -- a day infamous in space history books which marks the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite of Earth. To celebrate this important event, the anniversary of the launch is also the start of World Space Week -- which happily coincides with the Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit this year (want to know what events are happening in your part of the world? Check out http://www.worldspaceweek.org/).

Today kicked off Day 1 of the annual Google Lunar X PRIZE team summit, where teams come together to collaborate, share, and discuss the competition once every year. This year the event is taking place at the Isle of Man -- aka the "Space Isle" -- which has kindly offered to host the 2010 Summit. 13 teams are represented here; however, one team could not make it to this year's Summit for a very good reason...

Just yesterday, Team ARCA had the much-anticipated launch of their Helen 2 rocket. The Romanian team formerly competed in the Ansari X PRIZE, and has developed their own unique launch system which first hoists the rocket up to a high altitude using a balloon, then fires the hydrogen peroxide fueled rocket for the final push to space. Further details are expected to be released very soon, but the team has already posted photos of the event (view the whole album on Picasa):

The entire Google Lunar X PRIZE team sends congratulations to Team ARCA. We will be posting updates and photos from the Isle of Man Summit later today, so please stay tuned!

Nanosat Launch Challenge and Vog, Unreasonable, and Phoenicia, AirshipZ, WP OpEd, TrueRC

@pomerantz: An OpEd in the Washington Post suggests Mark Zuckerberg should have used his $ to start an X PRIZE: http://bit.ly/cBeOLt

@teamprometheus: TrueRC Canada Just agreed to sponsor us with help for the long range transmitter we need for the nearspace... http://fb.me/HISiC0aY

I've mentioned this potential prize from @AirshipZ before, but it's good to check back:

@hobbyspacer: Sci-Tech: Z-Prize for green airship winner: There is also a new airship prize competition in development: The Air... http://bit.ly/bnMdzH

From Team Phoenicia:

Team Phoenicia and TechShop are proud to announce that on November 6th, 2010 at TechShop - Menlo Park at 1 PM will host the Nanosatellite Launcher Challenge Seminar.

The agenda is firming up, but organizations that will be presenting are NASA Centennial Challenge Office, the To Be Announced allied organization running the challenge, FAA, California Space Authority, New Mexico Spaceport Authority, Team Phoenicia and some of the SF Bay Area teams. ...

Check out the packed draft agenda at the top post for lots of details (the posts are in reverse chronological order):

It's Wonderful.
The whole thing.
Making the Purty (a video explanation) (a second interlude)
A Brief Interlude - This one points to an article "Building Lunar Landers" by the Menlo Park Patch.
You see, it's all very clear to me now.
I understand how you feel.
...yet [we] have the knowledge to make the trip work.

One of the presenters is Vog Rockets:

Pressure tank - Vog Rockets

A few ideas and loose ends - Unreasonable Rocket has some ideas about the Nano-satellite Launch Challenge, and ends with a request for access to a vacuum oven.

IAC 2010 Wrap Up

Although there's still one day of the 2010 International Astronautical Congress remaining, the X PRIZE delegation is finished with our trip to the conference--we all have to depart for the Isle of Man and next week's Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit. Although we're sad to miss the final day of sessions, we can leave in good spirits, as it's been a successful conference.

For those of you who haven't yet been to an IAC, you are missing out--it's the largest and most prestigious international space conference of the year, with a great list of speakers, exhibitors, and attendees. The conference is held in a different location each year; this year's session was in Prague, Czech Republic. Start making your plans now for next year's event, which will be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Three X PRIZErs attended this years event--Nicky Jordan, Bob Weiss, and myself--and each of us presented a paper. Additionally, the representatives of at least seven Google Lunar X PRIZE teams attended and presented. Last night, we held a session where representatives of four of those teams (Italia, FREDNET, White Label Space, and Barcelona Moon) spoke to and answered questions from an assembled group of students and young professionals. The event was fun and well attended--thanks again to the IAF's Young Professionals program for selecting the Google Lunar X PRIZE as the topic for the evening, and to the Aerospace Corporation, Boeing, and the Space Foundation for providing the food and beverage for the reception. It was excellent to have four speakers from four different nations, representing teams that all place a strong emphasis on student and young professional contributions.

The conference was large enough in scope to defy a quick blog description, especially as I get ready to depart for the airport, but a few key thoughts: first and foremost, I found the general knowledge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE to be much better in than in previous years. Not only did we have more teams here spreading the word, but I heard the Google Lunar X PRIZE mentioned in many more presentations, especially in the various Moon related threads (for obvious reasons). We're grateful to see how the international space community has really latched on to the idea of the prize, and its encouraging that so many people seem to be more or less following along with the competition and the progress of the teams.

The one thing about the prize that hasn't yet gotten full acceptance is the back-end business case for commercial lunar exploration. Our teams, obviously, believe there is one, as do we at the Foundation, our partners at Google, and our large and diverse group of expert advisors, donors, and supporters. It's understandable that there are still skeptics, though--after all, this is still a relatively new and novel concept.  Hopefully, these skeptics are open to changing their minds: there can be no doubt that there was even more skepticism about the business cases emerging from the Ansari X PRIZE and the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X CHALLENGE at the corresponding points in those program's life cycles, and I'd say both of those worked out okay.

I gave a presentation--basically a highly abridged version of my chapter in this new textbook, soon to be available at Amazon et cetera--about this exact issue of the sustainable market for commercial lunar exploration.  I don't have a recording or slides to post yet, but hope to remedy that once I'm back in the States. For now, I'll just note that the presentation seemed to make a good impression on the audience in my session, many of whom started out quite skeptical, and left considerably less so.  On a related note, I'll point out that people curious about this issue might be interested in this Commercial Lunar Transportation Study / Market Assessment Summary (PDF) performed by the Futron Corporation for NASA about a year ago, and just released to the public. I'm still digesting the reoprt myself, so I'll pass it along here without comment.

All in all, it was a successful trip to the IAC. I wish I'd gotten to see more of Prague, but what I did see of it as lovely, and the people were all quite friendly.  We're looking forward to the 2011 IAC!