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. Back in the early 1960s, while at Hughes Aircraft Company, Harold conceived and led a small team to build the world’s first geostationary satellite, Syncom. He did it in less than two years, within a small budget, and despite a huge number of obstacles and skepticism. While he was working on Syncom, Hughes was also building the Surveyor series of landers to the moon. Harold felt strongly that, using some of the same techniques he had developed for Syncom, that the Surveyor moon lander could also be greatly simplified and done at far lower cost. However, at the time he was working very hard on Syncom. Surveyor, the first of which landed on the moon in June of 1966, was not his project. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t quit thinking about it -- in fact, in the back of his mind he’s been thinking about the best way to land on the moon for the past 40 years! When he read about the announcement of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, it seemed tailor-made for him: he had no hesitation whatsoever and wanted to sign up right away and form a team. He was able to quickly gather up some of the people that he has worked with successfully over the years on other space projects, as well as some new people, to form our team. Note that these are all busy people, but eager and willing to work with Harold, on a volunteer basis (!!), and to share in his vision. We have already made very good progress on the design of our system.