First Falcon 9 booking to moon!

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ALL the Press have already put apart the TRUE STORY of the """Google""" Lunar X Prize ....... http://x.co/GqFF
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anyhow, there are some problems to win this prize
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one Falcon-9 costs up to $56 millions but we must add the costs of the rover, the lander and the Earth Departure Stage (the last two not yet developed) for a total price of $65-70 millions (or much more)
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but the winner will have only $20 millions (or only $15 millions) and the second team only $5 millions
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so, ALL the 21 GLXP teams and, most important, their funding sources, must be ready to LOSE up to $50M (for the winner) or up to $65M (for the second place team) and up to $70M each for ALL the 19 teams that will arrive as 3rd and after the 3rd in this race
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so, the TOTAL amount funded and LOST by the 21 teams and their funders will be of up to $1.4 billions!!!
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of course, the teams that understand to be unable to win, should stop to run before they launch the rover with a $56M Falcon-9, but, the total money LOST to develop all the rovers, landers and EDS, could anyway be of over $300 millions!!!
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also, if two-three of the GLXP teams already have the technology and the funds to develop, build and launch their rovers, that means that, up to 18 of the 21 GLXP teams ALREADY ARE TODAY OUT OF THE RACE, then, this is NOT a TRUE moon-race where all competitors have the SAME chances to win!!!
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Whilst I agree that the maths do not show anyone making any money out of this (although I thin you figures are a bit out), I would disagree with the last line - it is a race, and, like any race, there are winners and losers. Compare with F1 - there are teams there that have no chance of winning, or even scoring points, but still spend £50m a season (more than the cost of a GLXP flight!). These people know they are in a race, but they know they are not going to win. And yet they still do it. Just like the GLXP competitors. It's a RACE, and much of the fun is in taking part.

And, of course, people are entitled to spend their money on whatever they want.

true, but, the teams have no money, while, the investors are not so happy to lose $50-70 million each to be the #2 or #7 or #18 in a race

after the Apollo 11 the interest in the MANNED Moon landing has fallen very quickly

then, just imagine the "hype" of the #2 rover that lands on the Moon: nearly zero!

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Au contraire. Google is getting tons of nearly free publicity exposure and site/ad hits. And if someone succeeds, they get their google flag planted on the moon and a cool new web ap (live webcam feeds from the Moon!!!1!) to sell to their media market. All for a tiny percentage of the cost/risk of doing it themselves.

Its so brilliant its... evil.

Sorry, you are right of course, I hadn't considered Google in my list of people making money, just the people competing!

And that is the investors lookout - if they are happy to put their money in they should also be happy not to get anything out - it's a risky business. Anyone who spends more than 10minutes looking at the figures should know enough whether they want to invest or not.

If you want to find a new way to make money, you have to invest!

You could always tag a long, and make some here and there, but if you want to get the "big bucks" you have to invest! It's economics 101.

It's funny how you claim that the prize was your idea, and yet you don't really understand how it works.

First of all, the rules of the competition are freely available for everyone, so it should be no surprise to any of the teams that they are taking a chance!

Second, money invested are not necessarily lost, the project can still be used even if the team is not going to win, perhaps on a commercial moon mission, perhaps the technology developed can be used elsewhere.

Also you don't have to just bring the rover, you can bring payload for other costumers, and that way make money, furthermore the advertising value of putting your brand on the moon is (as mentioned earlier) enormous, so companies will pay big money for that, especially if you are the first one of course.

Furthermore you can sell data about the moon to space agencies and companies that want to do business on the moon.

So if you are planing on covering all of your costs just by the prize money, then you are wasting lots and lots of potential, and are kind of stupid!

Even if you spend money rather than earning money I think that the feeling of helping furthering mankind would be worth it anyway!



Not sure if that was meant as a joke, but I see this more as a win-win situation than Google taking advantage of the teams!

* GLXP teams get 10% discount on SpaceX launch costs.
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/ ... d-partners
* You do not need to develop an EDS, you can buy motors to perform the required TLI and LOI burns "off the shelf".
http://omegaenvoy.org/wp-content/upload ... inal-draft
* As seen in the paper above you can apparently do a GLXP mission on a Falcon 1e, so we are now talking about $10 ($9) million of launch costs instead of ~50

So I guess Astrobotic has greater ambitions than just winning 20$ for the GLXP if they are choosing a Falcon 9

I was surprised they went for F9 when the 1e would do the job - as you say, perhaps they have loftier ambitions.

If you read the article, and follow links to their own site, the picture is getting clearer...

Youtube link from astrobotic's website!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBOFHnnD ... r_embedded
Among other things explaining how they are making money.