Lunar Rover Initiative Lunar Rover Initiative
This home page describes the Lunar Rover Initiative, its activities and information relevant to its progress. The Lunar Rover Initiative (LRI) is now a joint venture of CMU and LunaCorp with the objective of emplacing an entertainment robot on the Moon by year 2000 and returning live video for audiences of theme park(s), TV network(s) & educational media like CD-ROMs. LRI activities at CMU assume three primary activities:
In 1998 Carnegie Mellon University, in conjunction with LunaCorp, Inc., of Arlington, Virginia, will conduct the first private lunar mission, landing a pair of teleoperated robotic vehicles on the Moon's surface. A central goal of the mission is to provide the public its first opportunity to directly participate in space exploration. Researcher's at the Robotics Institute at CMU in Pittsburgh, will design and build the Moon rovers. The customers for the mission include a theme park, television network, commercial sponsors, and scientists. A variety of educational events and activities will be coordinated with the sponsors and other interested organizations.
The mission will provide the first interactive space exploration event by placing Mission Control at a theme park. Visitors to the attraction will have the opportunity to "tele-port" to the Moon and explore it using the body of a robot. This will be accomplished using the latest developments in telepresence technology (communications, remote control, and virtual reality)-technology which will enable people to literally project their senses beyond Earth. Those interested in driving a rover live will sit down first at computer simulations of the rover to test their skills at lunar driving. The best driver every 5 to 10 minutes will take an actual rovers controls and navigate "live" on the Moon. Other visitors will board a virtual lunar tour bus that duplicates the pitch and roll of the rovers as they inspect each site, giving the riders a full 360- degree live panoramic view of the area. There will also be virtual reality environments for interacting with historic lunar locations - giving the viewer, for example, the opportunity to walk in Neil Armstrong's footsteps. The attraction will also include interactive educational exhibits about lunar science, spaceflight, robotics and telepresence programming.
The lunar rovers, which will explore the Moon for up to two years, will first stop at the Apollo 11 site, being careful not to disturb the area. They will then drive north to visit the wreck of the Ranger 8 probe and the Surveyor 5 spacecraft. The rovers, using high-quality stereo optics, will be able to study what three decades of exposure have done to the materials used to build these spacecraft. After examining the Apollo 17 site, they will begin a search for the Soviet Lunakhod-2 rover in LeMonnier crater. During this 1,000 km (625-mile) trek, they will collect information on the lunar environment and terrain. LunaCorp plans on setting aside a certain portion of the rovers capacity for dedicated science experiments, to be funded by universities or the government at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated mission. Candidate scientific payloads include precursor work for lunar observatories, crustal sampling, testing for helium3 and additional resource identification along the two year route.
Here is more information about the project:
On July 29, 1994, the eight-legged, 1700-pound robot Dante II began its descent into Alaska's active Mt. Spurr volcano, carefully rappelling into one of the most dangerous environments on Earth. Monitoring the robot from one of the control centers in Anchorage was Dr. Bares and his team from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Whittaker designed Dante with NASA funding as a prototype for planetary exploration. The robot was able to navigate its way both autonomously using artificial intelligence programming, and with guidance from controllers in Anchorage and at NASA's Ames Research Center in California using sophisticated telepresence (remote control and communication). The event marked a technological triumph for robotics and set the stage for the next challenge: developing the LunaCorp Moon rovers.
The partnership between LunaCorp and CMU to develop a lunar rover was formed last year. CMU's team lead by Dr. Whittaker has been chartered by NASA to find commercial lunar robotic missions. NASA supports CMUs lunar robotics effort with the goal of developing core technologies. NASA also recently awarded CMU the Robotics Engineering Consortium, which will house the Lunar Rover development facilities in a building complex donated by the city of Pittsburgh.
LunaCorp is currently funded through the publication and sales of space- oriented educational CD-ROMs. Through its subsidiary Lunar Eclipse Software, the company has created three titles to date. In 1992, LunaCorp provided the content for Americans in Space, published by Multicom of Seattle. The next year LunaCorp authored and published Return to the Moon, which has sold more than 22,000 copies to date. In August, 1994 LunaCorp authored and published Mission: Planet Earth, and will follow up in 1995 with the Outsiders Guide to the Solar System. LunaCorp was founded in 1989 by business executives, scientists, and former NASA officials and is dedicated to finding ways to open the space frontier for participation by a large percentage of the population.