Back in the Apollo days, digging in your heels on the Moon was one giant leap for humankind.
Now jump to today and the 21st century and there's a new type of lunar digging that's groundbreaking.
Over two dozen teams are vying for the upcoming 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge involving a NASA prize of $750,000!
The cosmic competition is being held on August 2 at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California. The contest pits teams that have built individual roving lunar excavator that can autonomously navigate, excavate, and transfer some 330 pounds of simulated lunar regolith into a collector bin within 30 minutes.
The majority of the teams represent the private sector, while four of them are affiliated with universities. Several of the teams have backgrounds that are not traditionally associated with the aerospace industry, such as toy and information technology enterprises - while several of the teams do have an aerospace background.
The California Space Education Workforce Institute (CSEWI) administers the Regolith Excavation Challenge and is co-hosted by the California Space Authority (CSA) and the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo College of Engineering. The event is sponsored by Diani Building Corporation, Empirical Systems Aerospace, and the California Business Transportation and Housing Agency.
Prize funding is provided by the NASA Centennial Challenges Program.
This upcoming August 2 competition underscores a key fact: Excavation will be an important first step towards lunar resource utilization - to live off the land. Advances in lunar regolith excavation have the potential to advance space exploration operations beyond the Earth as NASA moves forward on its Constellation agenda in the years to come.
To learn more about the teams and the rules of the contest, go to:
-- Leonard David
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