Google Lunar X Prize Team

I am seriously considering pulling together a team for the Google Lunar X Prize contest. I have been thinking about it almost constantly since the announcement on Thursday (13 Sept 07) and have been asking those closest to me what they think about the whole idea. The responses have been encouraging. All believe as I do, that the venture would be difficult and would require a great deal of planning. Furthermore, the two main areas that would be most likely to cause problems were generally determined to be (1) appropriate funding/sponsorship and (2) recruiting the right team for the endeavor.

So this is where I stand...in the middle of a once in a lifetime decision. Do I procede with assembling a plan and recruiting the first of the project team? Do I commit to spending the next seven years of my life to the development of a concept that could very easily propel me into notariety or just as easily into professional/financial ruin? Do I ask my family and friends to sacrifice their time and efforts to support something that could be so potentially life altering? Let me ponder on that for a moment.

The goal of the X-Prize as I understand it is to successfully land a robotic rover on the surface of the moon to be able to capture and transmit HD video back to earth and also deliver a preloaded data packet back to terra firma dubbed "the first email from the moon". Conceptually, there are many ways that this task could be accomplished. The low-earth orbital launch vehicle is one consideration as there are a small handful of potential commercially available, verticle launch rockets. These include but are not limited to those from Boeing, ESA, JAXA, and RSA. There are likely other more non-conventional means of launch as well. Next consideration is the "capsule" that will carry the payload to the vicinity of the moon's surface. Next is the means by which the rover would finally descend to the lunar surface. Then of course is the rover itself. Decisions would need to be made on whether a rolling rover is appropriate, or maybe a walking one. Ultimately there are many other design/concept decision points that would have to be sorted out.

Now before any of the aforementioned takes place, work will have to be performed to obtain private funding and or commercial sponsorship for the project. A business plan of sorts will have to be drawn up to present to those intent on funding this project. Finally, there will be numerous other non-engineering tasks that will have to take place to bring this whole concept into reality.

All that being said, that brings me back to my original question. Am I willing to take the steps neccesary to bring this once in a lifetime opportunity to life? As a final thought, I should also ask whether or not it should be done. I think the answer is Yes, it should be done.

What are your thoughts? Is anyone interested in joining such a team? Any ideas or concepts that you would be willing to contribute? If this team would come together, what should it be called? I am open to comments and suggestions and I encourage anyone who is seriously interested in this challenge to contact me.

I will be posting what I decide here, when I decide it.