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.
May 24, 2008 - by A Farewell from the Southern California Selene Group
May 23, 2008 - by Some serious thinking at the Southern California Selene Group
In my first blog, I wrote why Harold Rosen formed the Southern California Selene Group. In short, he and I registered our team to compete for the Google Lunar X PRIZE to demonstrate that a low-cost space mission to the moon could be accomplished and could lead to lowering the cost of some future robotic missions to planetary moons. Plus, we intended to have fun! Harold and I both are strong supporters of space science and robotic space exploration. (For one, I’m an astronomy and cosmology enthusiast.) We love the kind of work that JPL is doing, for example.
April 28, 2008 - by Camera and Propulsion System Design at the Southern California Selene Group
The Southern California Selene Group is continuing with its engineering and design work. Since my last blog report, we’ve had two very productive all-hands team meetings on Saturday, March 22 and Saturday, April 19, and we have another scheduled for May 10. (By the way, I’ve just put up a new photo album on our team page, showing pictures from our last three team meetings.) In between, as always, there are lots of smaller meetings going on – for example, at least once a week, Harold meets with Ron, Dorian, Robert, Al, Brian, Dan and others to go over key design issues.
March 20, 2008 - by Propulsion system design at the Southern California Selene Group
We’ve been busy -- there’s a lot of engineering and design work going on with the Southern California Selene Group. We had a very productive all-hands team meeting on Saturday, March 1st, and we will be having another on Saturday, March 22; meanwhile, there have been lots of smaller meetings going on. Right now, most of our focus is on the electronics (in particular, implementing the landing radar), the propulsion system, and in considering other launch options.
February 29, 2008 - by The Big Elephant in the Room: FUNDING
The big elephant in the room is FUNDING. Going to the moon is not cheap! I don’t think that this is a problem with just our team – all the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams likely have this problem. Right now we in the Southern California Selene Group are a self-funded group of volunteers, with extraordinary knowledge and expertise in knowing how to successfully accomplish this space mission (you can read our bios on our team page). Our design is so simple (and elegant!) that the spacecraft could be available for launch in less than two years.
February 10, 2008 - by Why Harold Rosen formed the Southern California Selene Group
My name is Deborah Castleman. I’m the Associate Team Leader of the Southern California Selene Group.
I want to use this first blog by telling you why we are in this race.
Our team leader, Dr. Harold Rosen, has long felt that space missions of all kinds could be done in a much more streamlined fashioned, using elegant and simple designs that, like a good symphony, are “an optimum blend of the old and the new.” Harold has practiced this engineering philosophy to great effect, and has the awards and commendations to prove it, in addition to well over 75 patents to his name.
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