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Another thought: Want to inspire kids of all ages? Put 1,000 robots on the Moon and make them remotely controllable via the Internet. How is that for a start

Another thought: Want to inspire kids of all ages? Put 1,000 robots on the Moon and make them remotely controllable via the Internet. How is that for a startup idea? I'd probably pay a few hundred bucks to get some time programming a robot for a mission on the Moon. Imagine what science class would be like? Comms delay to the moon is in the order of 1.3 seconds. That, for all intents and purposes, is real-time. I can't imagine kids and adults not getting into this. Control my own time-shared robot on the Moon and go take some pictures? That would be amazingly cool.

kiba 14y ago
How is that for a startup idea? I'd probably pay a few hundred bucks to get some time programming a robot for a mission on the Moon. What's the cost for launch? What's the R&D cost? What's the specs? Incidently, we already have people developing rovers and lander for the moon, thanks to the Google Lunar X Prize. Maybe by the end of the decade, we will be able to do what you want.
- robomartin 14y ago
  No clue. Not my domain. I'll claim ignorance. I know it's not cheap. That said, if someone is willing to spend gobs and gobs of money to send a middle-aged couple for a Mars fly-by this would surely be orders of magnitude cheaper and far more likely to generate far more revenue.
  - kiba 14y ago
    No clue. Not my domain. I'll claim ignorance. Which doesn't exclude you from making a back-of-an-envelope calculation of the cost and a little bit of research, such as figuring out how expensive is a falcon heavy launch, and so on.
    - robomartin 14y ago
      True. I could. In this case, I don't think one needs to go that far. I know, with near absolute certainty, that it would be far cheaper to land 1,000 little robots on the Moon than to send two people to do a Mars fly-by. There is no way a fully automatic (no humans, no life support) Moon mission could even approach the cost of a mission to Mars with everything you need to support life and bring them back to Earth. Part of engineering is to develop a sense for these things. After a while you don't need to resort to constantly calculating things to have an idea of the relative degree of complexity or cost of a project. This, I think, is one of those cases.

kiba 14y ago

How is that for a startup idea? I'd probably pay a few hundred bucks to get some time programming a robot for a mission on the Moon. What's the cost for launch? What's the R&D cost? What's the specs? Incidently, we already have people developing rovers and lander for the moon, thanks to the Google Lunar X Prize. Maybe by the end of the decade, we will be able to do what you want.

robomartin 14y ago
No clue. Not my domain. I'll claim ignorance. I know it's not cheap. That said, if someone is willing to spend gobs and gobs of money to send a middle-aged couple for a Mars fly-by this would surely be orders of magnitude cheaper and far more likely to generate far more revenue.
- kiba 14y ago
  No clue. Not my domain. I'll claim ignorance. Which doesn't exclude you from making a back-of-an-envelope calculation of the cost and a little bit of research, such as figuring out how expensive is a falcon heavy launch, and so on.
  - robomartin 14y ago
    True. I could. In this case, I don't think one needs to go that far. I know, with near absolute certainty, that it would be far cheaper to land 1,000 little robots on the Moon than to send two people to do a Mars fly-by. There is no way a fully automatic (no humans, no life support) Moon mission could even approach the cost of a mission to Mars with everything you need to support life and bring them back to Earth. Part of engineering is to develop a sense for these things. After a while you don't need to resort to constantly calculating things to have an idea of the relative degree of complexity or cost of a project. This, I think, is one of those cases.