Thursday, February 28, 2008

More About New Lunar X PRIZE Teams

Here's a YouTube video from Google on the Google Lunar X PRIZE team announcement. Apparently it's been watched (or started) over 20,000 times in 6 days. It's an hour long, and I've only had a chance to watch the first few minutes so far, but it looks like you'll see statements by the various teams as well as Google and X PRIZE Foundation representatives. I originally got the link from an article about Google at Teaching 2.0: A Professional Development Resource.

Astrobotic also has a YouTube Video on their Lunar X PRIZE team. This one is much shorter - 4.5 minutes.

The Inquisitive Mind ponders criticism of Google for getting involved with lunar missions and alternative energy. A factor that the critics might not be considering: brand loyalty.

The University of Arizona paper The Wildcat Online discusses the university's role in the GLXP.

The GLXP teams keep up the rapid pace of posts at the Teams site:

- Micro-Space discusses the Lunar Lander portion of the challenge, and the increasing cost of space access

- Team Italia introduces their concept and points out publicity the team has been getting. They also offer the following website: http://www.xprize.it/.

- Odyssey Moon notes that their partner MDA will have robotic helper Dextre on the next Space Shuttle mission.

- LunaTrex mentions work with Purdue, breaking down the necessary work items, space access, and educational outreach.