SpaceX will launch remote controlled racecars to lunar surface:
An ambitious startup is sending a pair of 5.5 pound, remotely-controlled racecars to the lunar surface to hold the first ever car race on the Moon, New Atlas reports — and a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will help them get there as soon as October 2021.
The race is being organized by Moon Mark, a multimedia and education content company, which partnered with Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based aerospace outfit.
Intuitive Machines claims it could soon become "the first private aerospace company to land on the Moon," according to a recent press release.
Only eight percent of the 100 kilogram payload is taken up by the remote-control cars, which will race around the sandy dunes of Oceanus Procellarum, a massive plain near the western edge of the near side of the Moon.
The rest of the payload is provided by NASA as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which is laying the groundwork for sending astronauts back to the surface of the Moon in 2024, according to an April press release.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @08:10AM (2 children)
That's a rover.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 02 2020, @02:45PM
Rovers generally have lots of scientific instrumentation - at only 5.5lb it'd be pretty useless in that role. I suspect it'd be a bit lackadaisical as a racecar on the rough lunar surface as well. But hey, here's hoping - at 0.9lbs on the moon it probably doesn't need much suspension, and with carbon-fiber construction could perhaps be big enough to roll over most minor obstructions. And with some decent driver assist AI to compensate for the ~2.5 seconds round-trip communication lag to Earth it could be manageable.
Hmm, actually... stick an omni-directional stereo camera on the thing, and enough solar panels to travel at least a mile or two per day (ideally indefinitely so long as the sun is overhead) and it could actually be quite useful as a forward scout - either in combination with a more capable rover that can then travel directly between the interesting things found by the scouts, or on their own - presumably with a signal-boosting communications rover, or at least a cell tower for decent range. Direct communication with Earth would be better, but I assume that would incur a pretty huge mass budget. If not though - drop hundreds of the things on the surface in a potentially interesting area and let them head out in different directions searching for interesting features - perhaps in small packs so that stay close enough to be able to come get their teammate unstuck if they run into trouble.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @04:06PM
Well, TFA says:
"Formula One racecar track designer Herman Tilke will design the track on the Moon."
Tilke is the real deal (although sometimes criticized for boring race track designs), that firm knows what is required in track design.
My guess, the students will design flip cars, something like this,
https://nueby.com/product/rc-stunt-car?color=green [nueby.com]
...here shown in green to match the green cheese on the Moon. This way, accidental rollovers or pitchovers are inconsequential.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @08:26AM
someone will intercept the signal and drive one of them off the set. oh yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @11:22AM (1 child)
Racecars with 4 seconds of ping... Good luck with the remote control!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday December 02 2020, @02:51PM
I think you added an extra doubling there. The moon varies between about 1.21 and 1.35 light-seconds away, putting round-trip lag between 2.4 and 2.7 seconds. Still not great for maintaining tight control, but with some basic driver assistance on board to avoid hitting things, driving off cliffs, spinning out, etc. it should be manageable. Just stay away from the dust-ups and don't try to pass in a corner.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @02:30PM (9 children)
Sent a car into space, with a fake driver and toy driver and car on the dash
Sent a string of "perals" destroying the night sky. Best used to used as laser targets and destroied.
Now wanting to send crap to the moon, not of discovery by to have a race.
Destroying the 39A a historical site and track space of rocket mover at KSC.
They sell themselves as a reuse company to bring the cost down - also cut waste, but instead they are a bunch of children leaving their crappy toys every where they are not needed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday December 02 2020, @03:01PM (4 children)
Grump much?
Would you have preferred they sent a block of concrete on a trans-Martian orbit? They needed some sort of test mass to prove capability, and concrete is the standard one. They just added a bit of PR flash to the process.
And they hardly destroyed 39A - the place was already falling apart from neglect. Would you prefer it was just left to sink into the swamp and rot? Not like it's going to be good for anything else. Maybe the SLS could have used it for a flight or two before they get canceled, but NASA doesn't have the budget to maintain a bunch of useless historical sites, and SpaceX turned it into a profit center for them instead, while giving it even more historical significance.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 02 2020, @09:47PM (3 children)
I'd rather not see the commercialization of space: to me it should be for all mankind, not just a few rich people who have worked and lobbied to make things work for them and against others.
It used to be "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Now it's turning into "One small profit for a man, lots of giant profits for the same man which he will use to work and lobby to make things even better for him even if it means screwing people."
Not the future I (or Gene Roddenberry) was looking for.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday December 02 2020, @10:40PM (2 children)
Pretty words aside, it's always been one giant leap for the rich - or do you think the ICBM pissing match that fueled Apollo was really done for the benefit of us little guys? Honestly, it didn't benefit anyone, except for morale and a redirection of hostilities.
Commercialization is what has always driven colonization. Europe didn't conquer the Americas for the good of the street urchins, but for gold and other resources to enrich the nobility. And for a long time the only way anyone from the lower classes was making it to America was selling themselves into indentured servitude. Us common folk eventually benefited by carving out a slice of the pie for ourselves. You really think that'll be any different for Mars or the Moon, where the price of passage is going to be dramatically higher?
In some future utopia maybe that'll be different - but for the foreseeable future any large undertaking is going to take massive funding - which means the rich are going to be paying for it, and will expect a return on investment.
In fact, colonizing Mars is liable to be the least commercial endeavor in space. We'll colonize the moon initially to provide fuel to reach the rest of the solar system, and colonize the belt initially for access to its rich resources. Mars seemingly has nothing to offer to profit Earth.
I wouldn't be surprised though if colonizing space finally offers us little guys a chance to shine though. Any empire will be hard pressed to extend its control of thousands of mostly self-sufficient asteroid colonies scattered in ever-changing patterns across billions of miles. How each colony governs itself internally will be its own business, and if equality and democracy truly have something substantial to offer, those should be the colonies to prosper and proliferate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Thursday December 03 2020, @01:08AM (1 child)
What i mean is that things used to be more for the general betterment of mankind: Governments used to fund research into medicines and other research and share that research with governments around the world, for all to have and use.
Now, corporations (the rich) have worked things so that they pay less taxes to the government so that that research cannot be funded and all the corporations are duplicating research around the world, sharing none of it and keeping it all to make money.
We COULD be better (and once were until the rich started fixing the agenda with lobby $$). I wish we were better. The world (universe?) of Star Trek is fading. If corporations start commercializing space, i fear things will just not be good. Just look at how corporations have f*cked Earth.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday December 03 2020, @02:28AM
Maybe. But I think you may be looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses - this country was founded by wealthy landowners, for wealthy landowners, and has been designed from the constitution on up to serve their interests, with enough veneer of democracy to keep the commoners placid, and to insure against the government becoming an independent power that might escape the control of the wealthy.
There was a lovely window there for a few decades after the great depression, when popular outrage was flexing against the damaging excesses of the wealthy - but the next generations were complacent in the plenty their parents had won (and later by the false plenty of easy credit), and moved on to fighting other battles which, while worthy, distracted them from the eternal holding action necessary to keep the government in their service. And now we're pretty much back to the bad old days of robber barons again.
I agree, we COULD be better - but to stay better for more than a single generation I think it will require designing a new form of government from the ground up to serve the interests of commoners rather than the wealthy. A well-organized direct democracy might have potential, and heck, and Musk has even stated that he thinks that would be the way to go for a Mars colony, so maybe there's some hope for the future.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 02 2020, @03:15PM (3 children)
A few years ago, maybe four, I re-read BYTE magazine from its first issue up until about 1984 when BYTE had become a completely anti-Apple pro IBM-PC magazine.
The bias in BYTE first appears in the early 80's with the success of the Apple II. I remember a letter BYTE published which refers to "the mouseketeers of Bandley drive". A reference to the address [9to5mac.com] of Apple when they were still quite small.
This sounds very much like the people who did not take Apple seriously. Even after Lisa. Even after Macintosh. I remembered the people in BYTE who proclaimed how the GUI wouldn't really go anywhere. Yet here we are. Apple's influence and original ideas (menu bar with pull down menus for example) are present in modern GUIs.
What's wrong with sending a car into space instead of large boring concrete block of equal mass?
Rural people might complain because they have the best view of the night sky. Yet they will be among the first to want Starlink to have good internet service in sparsely populated areas.
Telephone and Electric utility poles are an ugly blight on cities and towns both big and small. And more recently ugly cell towers everywhere. And once upon a time radio and tv towers. Yet we all love the benefits these provide and happily use the services from these poles, and towers.
Given the value of that facility and the need for increased future launches, is this such a bad thing? It seems that we already have vast amounts of historical video and images of the historical things that took place. While I enjoy seeing documentaries about the early space program, I am more excited about the future than the past.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 02 2020, @10:52PM (2 children)
I'm with you, except for the idea that menus, etc. were an Apple innovation. They were 20 years late to the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) paradigm, they were just the first to market a commercially successful version. Helped no doubt by the fact that individual workstations were finally becoming powerful enough to really do justice to the concept.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday December 03 2020, @04:19PM (1 child)
At most 15 years. The Mother of all demos [wikipedia.org] was in 1968. But that wasn't a commercial product.
The (in)famous Apple visit to Xerox Parc [stanford.edu] was in 1979.
As I recall, the menu bar at the top, with pull down menus was an Apple idea. Until that point in time, the mice all had multiple buttons, and you would use some button (other than the primary click button) clicked on something to bring up a "Pop Up" menu.
Apple didn't have Pop Up menus, although eventually, a rather long eventually, they did get them.
The problem Apple had was that they were looking for an even higher level of "user friendly" than Xerox. Steve Jobs insisted that the mouse must have only one button. Apple did user testing on everything. Users were never sure which button they should click. Having only one button would reduce the number of times users would ask which mouse button they should click. Thus there had to be a special "area" on screen where clicking it caused a menu to appear.
There was some aspect of modal dialog boxes that were also an Apple idea.
Another thing that Apple brought was that whenever windows were moved, the newly exposed background behind them was automatically repainted. Xerox required the user to issue a command to refresh the background. Given how primitive hardware was at that time, and how limited memory was, people wondered how Apple did that. It was mostly just the pure speed of Apple's QuickDraw graphics package. All applications had to accept "repaint" events, which the OS sent to application windows that had areas that were newly exposed.
Even Microsoft made an actual new contribution to GUI interfaces. Microsoft's idea was: "the focus". There is one single focus that always exists. Some control is in focus. This focus can be moved by a mouse click or by keystrokes! Yes keystrokes! I thought that idea was genius. Apple didn't have a "focus" concept in classic Mac. On Windows you could use keystrokes to move the focus to other controls, and change which windows was in focus. In fact, if you weren't using an application (eg, "Paint") that required a mouse, you could operate Windows and Windows Apps (eg Word, Excel) without even the need of having a mouse.
By the time of Windows 95, Microsoft had obviously given up on the idea of a "mouseless" GUI. But that fact that you could do this in earlier Windows was something that I admired. Just the technical design and effort to make that possible was admirable IMO.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday December 03 2020, @04:23PM
There is one other thing I forgot to credit Microsoft with.
The Microsoft mice had two buttons. (Scroll wheel appeared much later)
But Windows didn't use that 2nd button for anything, initially.
Eventually they had a real use. The Context menu. The context menu is a Pop Up menu that appears in response to right-clicking something that offers a context menu. That was a great idea.
Another was the scroll wheel -- which doubled as yet another mouse button.
By the time that the 2nd mouse button actually did something, and by the time of the scroll wheel, everyone was using computers. It wasn't 1983 any more (Lisa) or 1984 (Mac). Users were more sophisticated. It was like everyone basically knew how the controls of an automobile worked, there is the steering wheel, the pedals, etc.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @03:15PM (2 children)
Companies love to turn the letter A into /\. It's a pyramid. Yet another occult sign from losers who desire control over humanity.
Fuck you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @04:39PM (1 child)
Get back on your meds!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @05:12PM
> Get back on your meds!
In Soviet Russia, meds get back on you!
Don't deflect from the reality that we are all owned by the same corrupt alien worshiping cunt, I mean cult.
Fuck all companies which use occult logos and spelling.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2020, @09:10PM
What, did you think it was going to be all Disney's Tomorrowland vision of the future? No! When you privatize it, or when commercial entities get involved, it will turn into a shithole. There's already companies planning on stunts and ads in LEO. Tens of thousands of more
space junkinternet satellites to be launched. Stupid shit on the Moon. Just wait until rich people get to go to the Moon. If we're lucky, maybe there will be hundreds of corpses eventually littering the surface like at the top of Everest.