Private Rover [Thoughts]

I know alot of us our very curious about the Moon anomalies.

What are your thoughts on a private rover program?

A small collection of people from different fields raising money and actually building a small rocket delivery system/rover to prove once and for all if they are truly anomalies.

Anomalies, or not..
I would love to be involved in a private Rover project.

I forsee allowing the public, via the internet , actually drive the rover.
Indirectly of course, maybey through a voting process.

But, how would you keep a rover warm, on along Lunar night?

I'd love to see private space exploration.

Anyone have a few billion dollars to spare?

Frankly, I dont see it costing billons of dollars.

My gf's sister worked for NASA for a couple years, she says that the Soviets under build space probes, and the US over builds. It would cost a pretty penny, but surly not in the billions.

Originally posted by SFC
Frankly, I dont see it costing billons of dollars.

My gf's sister worked for NASA for a couple years, she says that the Soviets under build space probes, and the US over builds. It would cost a pretty penny, but surly not in the billions.

It all depends on a number of factors. One of the biggest reasons why it costs so much is threefold. 1st is fuel costs of actually getting there, the building phase cost's allot and these things are not mass-produced which would bring the cost per unit down considerably.

The Private Sector should show up Nasa in this regard if they put their minds and wallets toward the effort. Come up with a modular design that is easy to mass-produce and you can send up 10 at a time so they would have to be small and expendable. Similiar proposels have been made in the past but all were shot down for one reason or the another.

Consider this: If every member of the current 56k or so donated $300 bi-annually over a 7 year duration and with referals to contribute $100, being that at 2.3 referals per member, anually for every year for the 7 years, with a new 2.3 each yea...this comes out to about $600 million (off the top of my head, correct me if I am wrong) over a seven year period. With corporate donations and considering new members and their referals...people, this a very feasible ATS project. So, who is with me?

I concur, financially (while not without difficulties) it is an obtainable goal.

What a great idea yeah I would definatly be in. im not rich but I am resourseful let me know what I can do to help.

Heres some specs on the Mars 'Spirit' rover which is the largest off all the rovers.

Cruise vehicle dimensions: 2.65 meters (8.7 feet) diameter, 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) tall

Rover dimensions: 1.5 meter (4.9 feet) high by 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) wide by 1.6 meter (5.2 feet) long

Weight: 1,062 kilograms (2,341 pounds) total at launch, consisting of 174-kilogram (384- pound) rover, 365-kilogram (805-pound) lander, 198-kilogram (436-pound) backshell and parachute, 90-kilogram (198-pound) heat shield and 183-kilogram (403-pound) cruise stage, plus 52 kilograms (115 pounds) of propellant

Power: Solar panel and lithium-ion battery system providing 140 watts on Mars surface

Science instruments: Panoramic cameras, miniature thermal emission spectrometer, Mössbauer spectrometer, alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, microscopic imager, rock abrasion tool, magnet arrays

(note: propellent based on 105 millon miles (earth-mars).

Cost: Approximately $820 million total.

Consisting approximately of $645 million spacecraft development and science instruments; $100 million launch; $75 million mission operations and science processing.

On the topic of private exploration i wanted to add this.A couple of months ago i read of a company planning a $50 million dollar satelitte to be landed on the far side of the moon.I can find the link anyone care to look

this is an awesome idea, perhaps it'd kick-start the Worlds Space Agencies into some form of Manned Mission started soon, before they're shamed completely when a Private Venture gets a manned mission to Mars, let alone the moon

Go For it!

[edit on 9/9/05 by Vox]

Good feedback so far! Love to hear more.

ok looks like you kids could get maybe enough money

but is there any one on ATS with a doctorate in aerospace enngineering?
does any one actually know the detailed workings of a rocket engine? not just the generall principle

and how are you going to launch it up with out craching into another sattalite? you would have to know the orbits of nearlly every peice of space junk out there.

or will you just finance it, and hire some people to do the work

cause there is also going to have be be construction, does any one have a shed big enough to build a rocket in,

then you gotta find a place to launch it

and so on and so forth

it will cost a hell of a lot more than u think, because the government space agencies have all the infrustructure their already, you have to start compleatly from scratch.

sorry

Ahhh, the bitter realist; I like that.

But seriously, the bulk of labor for this type of project would obviously not be resourced from ATS.

Resources like that would most likely be voulenteer. Construction costs of the actually 'mission control', rocket, lander, rover etc would be the raising money part. I also concur that were to replicate NASA's design to an exact T it would cost much more than we would could raise. Thats why we modify it for our goals which change the entire cost/scenario.

We dont have to build a 300 million dollar rover. And yes, we could build it. A school of kids built a satelite for christ sake. And as to crashing into something in orbit, its a BIG orbit. Small onboard thrusters could be used in conjunction with a simple on board radar linked to MC.

A place to launch it? No problem, desert.

well all you need is a camera on wheels, or not even on wheels, just to forbit moon with a good camera and take photos would be good enough wouldnt it?

Space tracking
give these guys a ring too

Page Can Not Be Found, better get hold of them another way then eh?

it'd be a matter of hiring other people to get the job done, we wouldn't be able to each build a piece and then send it in to be constructed now can we?

I'd go for that.

Although a simpler mission may be to simply launch a satellite that orbits the moon instead of the earth. The private sector launches thousands of satellites around Earth and all many of them get used for is broadcasting "home shopping network" to me. Once you can get into low-earth orbit, it isn't much of a bigger deal to get to the moon -- the difficult part was just getting out of the atmosphere into orbit in the first place.

Hi-res photos of the moon, especially that "dark side", and not controlled by NASA, could be most valuable. I'd have it take pictures in settable wavelengths (infrared, for example). Be sure it can take pictures at an angle as well as straight down. Maybe a couple other instruments too but I'm not that kind of scientist so I'm not sure what to suggest here (would a spectrometer be useful for this type of mission?)

I'm surprised no one has put a satellite around the moon yet. I know Nasa sent a couple of probes in the 90's but good luck getting ahold of the pictures they took.

Lunacorp,
I just saw this on the discovery channel last night.
the idea was to turn it into a virtual themepark ride.
the company dissolved in 2003,.

Here is a
Press Release from 2000

And the company's original Website.

it didn't turn out very well for them.. I suppose there are lessons to be learned from it.