For us, the fun part is over. We have had a wonderful team, and we’ve all worked closely together to come up with an innovative, lightweight and low-cost spacecraft design. It has been a really good five months.
The Team Summit’s Guidelines workshop showed that the more bureaucratic part of the mission has begun. While on a personal level, I liked each of the leaders there from XPF, and enjoyed interacting with them, I was puzzled at the somewhat cavalier way they seemed to dismiss some of the teams’ concerns. For example, we were very proud of the fact that our team had managed to get some surplus company fuel tanks; when I asked about it, without much thought I was told “you’ll have to get a ruling on that.” Also, when I asked something about our camera design (a design we had worked very hard on), I was told that the way we were doing it would not be allowed.
HUH? Do they know how hard we have worked on this?
I inwardly cringed at their responses to some of the other team’s concerns. The delightful FredNet team. Those innovative and very impressive ARCA guys (who had lugged across Europe a full-scale mockup of their craft to ISU for display!). Colleen (Astrobotics), Paul (Quantum3), Mary (LunaTrex) – they all had concerns regarding the media aspects of the rules that I did not feel were adequately addressed, and maybe even more important -- even adequately appreciated.
The cumulative effect coming from the XPF leadership was one of discouragement, rather than encouragement.
I had a sudden moment of clarity when I realized that even if we could make it through our enormous hurdles of getting a suitable launch vehicle, and even if we could get a sponsor, for the reasons stated here and in my previous blog, I no longer even wanted to win this prize!!
When I discussed all this later with our team leader Harold Rosen, he agreed completely. He is far too independent, and far too smart, to waste any more time in pursuing what he now knows to be a different goal (an “outrageously unrealistic version of space commercialization,” to use his words) than what he had originally thought (a simple contest to see who could get to the moon first and send back the required Mooncasts). As he said to me, he’s got more important things to work on…!
I will miss interacting with Will Pomerantz and Becky Ramsey of the X PRIZE Foundation. Those two were absolutely fantastic in every way, very encouraging, and I admire and like them very much.
But we are OUT. Good-bye to all, and best of luck to all the other teams.
Deborah Castleman
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Might as well call off the X-Prize
You are the only team that I thought might have a chance of obtaining the goal and completing the mission. From day one you had an achievable architecture and design in place. I was inspired to join your team to head/support the V&V efforts once manufacturing & testing began and was actually online to try to contact your team about joining only to read this blog about you quiting. I really wish you'd reconsider and just fight the B%$ S@%!.
A recently discouraged engineer,
Hans C. Lambrecht
You are correct
Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't - either way, you are correct!
To Harold A. Rosen
Sir,
Please read this.
I am Bogdan Sburlea, ARCA Project Manager. We've met in San Francisco a few month ago and I am a huge admirer of you. What I'm writing in this message are my own thoughts. I don't want to involve ARCA in any way. Trust me, it is not easy for me to write this.
PLEASE STOP!
What you are doing right now is wrong!
Let's start with some examples...
0. Harold A. Rosen. For the ones that know nothing about him please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_A._Rosen
Frednet, this is a wiki entry. Is it familiar to you?...
1. Media rights.
I understand your concerns. We were also very disappointed hearing the X Prize decision to have a "one size fits all" solution. We already have a media agreement for our next launch with an organization that has nothing to do with X Prize. What should we do, ignore this agreement? Is a contract that easy to ignore, not to mention a handshake? Should we become so "pragmatic"?... My answer is a clear, obvious "NO". We will negotiate this with XPF. We will keep our word, that's for sure.
2. Our technical solution.
We had a perfect solution for our lunar lander, a sphere. Everything would be inside the lander and the sphere should have moved on the Moon for the required 500 meters by using the remaining fuel from the descent stage.
He have one problem. We can't get a picture or video of the outside logos that are sticked on the outside... How can we get an outside image from the inside? Can you imagine our frustration? How do you think we felt? Get the design, start building the hardware and have the rules changed? BTW, there was one other team that I won't name that was really happy because we have to change our design. During the closed team meeting discussions, this was the only team that didn't share the original X Prize mission/vision/goals... Shame on that person and team - they know who I'm talking about. This is not the spirit of X Prize. We will find a solution to our problem, but I was not expecting this negative behavior from a team.
During the closed meeting, we had other technical issues that were not present in the original rules. I will not mention them here. We will find solutions.
3. Outside the scope of this discussion. I hate blogs! I come from another generation that used to read books, black letters on white paper - lots of papers and lots of books. Yet, I talked to an intelligent person from XPF, Mike Fabio. He is really young. He explained me the needs of the nowadays generation. These are guys that communicate a lot more than we used to. Maybe the quality is a little bit lower because the quantity is simply huge. He explained me the reasons behind posting a blog each week. I promised him that I will try to "blog".
4. Remember, I hate to blog. This generation don't just wait for things to happen, they search for info. During this team meeting, there was an event that hit me. Dumitru, ARCA's Team Leader. was asked by a reporter from Euronews about his thoughts from Apollo 11 landing. The answer was simple - Dumitru said that he wasn't born in 1969... It really hit me. I was 8 years old when Armstrong said "one small step for a man - one giant leap for mankind". It was very late in the night for a 8 year old Romanian kid. I wanted to go to sleep but my father told me that it's important and I should watch it. I did.
Dumitru never had this chance, to see a man on the Moon. From my perspective, it took forever since the moment the Lunar Lander was opened and Armstrong stepped on the Moon. Time passes in a different way for children, I understood this much later. Maybe this is true for the new generation - I just don't know.
5. ARCA lost Ansari X Prize. We had built a lot of hardware, but Burt Rutan was just too good. So what? We felt the presence of dinosaurs. Guys like Burt. In Google Lunar X Prize we don't have many dinosaurs. Sir. you are one of the last dinosaurs, sorry for this statement. I can't talk for the young generation, but for our generation you are a leader. Please don't lead us to a place we don't want to go. What should we do, watch TV while eating popcorns? Sir, you have a responsibility in this life. Don't give up. It is very hard for me to write this... I can't give you guidelines or advice, you are way above my league... What I can tell you is simple: we need you. Stand up and FIGHT. Let's make StarTrek real. There is nothing else more significant that we will do during the time we still have in this life.
5. Why are we doing this? Certainly, it's not for the money, there are much easier ways to gain money. Options? Buy some land in Romania and sell it 5 years from now, without developing anything. You will get rich...
Once again, why are we doing this? We're doing this for ourselves. We want to leave a footprint in this world. We will all die sooner or later. There is no escape. So what? Let's do something with our life. Let's explain the new generation our dreams. When I was a kid, I always had dreams about spaceflight. I wanted to become a miner on Mars... Nowadays kids dream about Internet, chats, and - sorry Google guys - Twitter and blogs. The new generation is important. We have to share our dreams. The new generation represent our future. You, Sir, are a reference. If you quit, many of them will quit as well. Many will get comfort in virtual lives like Second Life (http://secondlife.com/) or worse. Help them. You are responsible. You are a leader. Give them a chance.
My answer in simple, as ARCA's approach: DON'T GIVE UP! FIGHT!!!
Sorry if I offended you or someone else. I was absolutely sincere and these are my thoughts.
An admirer,
Bogdan Sburlea, MBA,
Arca Project Manager
PS Peter, please get involved. We need leaders like Harold A. Rosen...
It is sad...
...to hear, that one of the most promising teams is out of the competition. Is the GLXP not about reaching the moon? Does the XPF know how hard it is to do enginneering on this funding level? Why all these rules and restrictions? There are plenty of caveats and constraints that impact on the hardware design level. A high definition rad hard camera costs millions of dollars, so we have to be innovative! One question does really bother me, as I am an avionics guy: How can a high definition vieostream be strongly encrypted with a rad hard data processing unit that has only a few hundred KB of memory and processing power in the order of a few MIPs? Because that would be wise to use looking at power consumption and system complexity. And they only talk about this requirement in a fuzzy way. The task at hand is to land on the moon, is it not?
Dear Deborah: I am sorry to
Dear Deborah:
I am sorry to hear that SCSG is leaving the competition. I was looking forward to working with you and your Team in the ongoing competition and cooperation. I look forward to some future talks, and perhaps some collaboration as well. Give my [co- Tulane Alum] regards to Harold, and please drop me a line when you get a moment.
Best Regards,
Fred
--
Fred J. Bourgeois, III
Leader, Team FREDNET -- http://xprize.frednet.com/
The First and ONLY 100% Open Source Entrant for the Google Lunar X Prize
"Just because it isn't easy doesn't mean it isn't fun."
Sorry to hear it, but I
Sorry to hear it, but I understand completely. I know of others who are not registering but will work independently to avoid these problems. The rules need to be reduced to a bare minimum, or they will discourage other teams as well, as the task itself is already hard enough.
Phil
Phil Stooke
Author of "The International Atlas of Lunar Exploration"
Departments of Geography and Physics/Astronomy
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
Deborah, I'm very sorry to
Deborah,
I'm very sorry to hear this.
It was nice to meet you at the summit and I hope to meet you again at another occasion. Good luck with your projects!
Alex
Team FREDNET