Comment by Ron Jacobs on April 16, 2010 at 8:14am

Sounds great.

What the heck is that? A Moon rover?

Moderator Comment by Gary Mortimer on April 16, 2010 at 9:07am

looks ready to add to your tow hook and take to Sparkfun

Comment by passunca on April 16, 2010 at 10:38am

actually is a mars rover now :)

Comment by Jack Crossfire on April 16, 2010 at 11:12am

Aren't you supposed to be excited about basic research & "commercial" crew transport to LEO instead of silly moon programs?

Moderator Comment by Morli on April 16, 2010 at 1:13pm

With 2 Mil a ride , there are lot more things to get excited about for poor souls like me but Yes , basic research and other stuff are better things "to do" than moon glazing

Comment by passunca on April 16, 2010 at 3:36pm

I always thought that the moon base idea was to provide some sort of refuelling station to be used in future Mars missions. That's why Nasa was looking for water in the moon and I think it is easier to send a rocket to Mars from there.

Comment by Garry Qualls on April 17, 2010 at 11:12pm

Any published notes or video from this planning meeting? I would have loved to have been there. I am hiring a few college students to prototype a contest (among other things) this summer. Right now I am thinking about three tiers: simulation only, hardware in the loop simulation, and autonomous hardware. Contestants would graduate from one tier to the next as their skills and budget allow. No idea whether we'll be attempting this with ground vehicles or air vehicles, yet.

By the way, that is the NASA Desert RATS Lunar Electric Rover (LER), formerly known as the Small Pressurized Rover (SPR), in the alley. No official word yet on renaming it for Mars exploration... Here is a web page about it: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/LER.html

And, as long as I am linking, here is a cool diagram of how deep the various gravity wells are throughout the solar system, so you can compare going to Mars from Earth's moon and going there from Earth's surface: http://xkcd.com/681/. Clearly we won't be driving any rovers around on Mars' moons. It's hard to get any traction and once you get moving it's too easy to bounce off!

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