Team STELLAR

Comment by Richard D. Dell Jr. on April 8, 2008 at 10:44am

Greetings,

For those who are interested in finding out more about Team STELLAR- until the website goes up, you can read our Executive Summary and view the powerpoint at

http://www.avrc.com/presentations/stellar/STELLAR_EXEC_SUMM.doc http://www.avrc.com/presentations/stellar/STELLAR.pdf

Best Regards to everyone,

-Richard D. Dell Jr.

Comment by Richard D. Dell Jr. on April 9, 2008 at 4:45pm

First draft of a website going up very soon, possibly tonight at www.teamstellar.org. All comments will be very welcome! This is only the beginning.

Comment by Joel Craig Raupe on April 10, 2008 at 8:02pm

I've enjoyed the concept material that I've seen, Richard. As you can imagine, I've got a million questions. One of my compatriots and I stayed up late last night, shaving sleep but taking a break from workaday concerns, and afterwards sketched out a lunar surface neutron detector that I then sent to him to double-check. He's the materials expert, but in the unlikely event he doesn't shoot down the concept for any number of reasons, it would fill a significant gap in our less than complete knowledge of surface in-fall and backscatter of secondary particles from GCR's on the surface. As you know, we've a pretty good idea of in-fall and secondaries while on orbit, but the surface data is limited. Any thoughts of piggy-backed Ultra-low-weight experiments for paying customers?

Comment by Richard D. Dell Jr. on April 23, 2008 at 6:58pm

I would recommend asking Dick about the Sodium Borohydride battery project. The inventor is the same one who we are working with on the Fusion propulsion commercialization project- in terms of space exploration and commercial gain, the two go hand-in-hand.

Comment by DEEPAK KUMAR GUPTA on May 28, 2008 at 6:18am

I am keen in SPACE application and research and want to embedded my specializations and interest.....
What are the SPACE applications in the Area of Analog-RF and mixed signal system VLSI design. Plz reply to deepakgupta.india@yahoo.com (me )

Comment by Joel Craig Raupe on June 3, 2008 at 6:36am

Raleigh News & Observer
Sunday, June 2, 2008

Tim Simmons
Staff Writer

In the category of audacious goals, a team of Triangle business leaders and N.C. State University faculty members has entered a worldwide contest to launch the first private rocket to the moon.

Houston, you have competition.

Sponsored by Google and the X Prize Foundation of California, the contest offers $30 million in prize money to teams that can meet the following challenge:

* Land an unmanned rover on the lunar surface.
* Travel at least 500 meters.
* Transmit video back to Earth.

But ultimately, this contest is about making the moon a permanent celestial outpost.

"The space race is on again," said Dick Dell Sr., director of Raleigh-based Advanced Vehicle Research Center and a key member of the moon launch team. "There is going to be a huge rush toward commercialization this time."

Almost four decades after man first landed on the moon, some will no doubt question the need for such a contest.

But the rules of the game are different this time. The X Prize Foundation, which offers huge sums of money to spur innovation in a variety of fields, envisions a day when large solar panels built on the moon are used to power entire cities on Earth.

It sees the moon as an extension of our reach, a launchpad for further exploration, a place where humans keep a permanent presence.

But first, you need to get there without government help.

Earth comes first

Dell was involved in supporting another futuristic endeavor -- building cars that compete in driverless races -- when he learned of the lunar competition.

The leader of the Grand Challenge driving team, Grayson Randall of Insight Technologies in Morrisville, was interested.

So was Andre Mazzoleni, a professor at NCSU who teaches orbital mechanics and space system design. William Edmonson, who teaches electrical and computer engineering at N.C. State, also wanted in. So did others.

By late 2007, TeamSTELLAR filed its application to launch a rocket to the moon. Its entry was accepted May 23, making it one of 14 teams cleared to compete.

Like Team Stellar, some of the groups have universities as partners.

The group known as Astrobotic Technology, for example, is a combined effort led by Carnegie Mellon University, The University of Arizona and Raytheon, a defense company.

But many of the teams are coalitions of private firms that want to pioneer private space travel. To underscore that point, 90 percent of a team's money must come from private sources, a rule intended to drive cost efficiencies.

The rules allow teams to hire a private launch company to take them into Earth orbit -- and there are many now, thanks to the needs of weather satellites and Global Positioning System satellites and a host of Earth-imaging products.

But it will take another set of rockets to launch from Earth orbit to lunar orbit, and still another set of rockets to drop out of the lunar orbit and land a rover.

Travel, video and just creating a craft that can survive extreme lunar climates -- temperatures can swing 450 degrees in a day -- keep the challenges coming.

But of all the tasks in front of Team Stellar, it is not the science that most worries Randall.

"We understand the technology," Randall said. "The first question is, where are we going to get the money we need?"

Investment and return

The answer brings the contest back to its entrepreneurial roots.

Any team that launches a rocket will spend far more than the $20 million set aside for the first-place winner. Dell predicts a final tab of $50 million to $100 million for the Team Stellar design. Raising that kind of money will depend on old-school marketing.

Small teams of NCSU students will handle some parts of the project, but the team still has holes to fill that will require private companies with specific technical expertise.Those companies could be asked to provide money as well as a specific skill, Dell said.

Others will be asked to sponsor the launch in return for publicity.

And potential investors will be told that $1 million plowed into the first private moon launch could return tens of millions.

Team Stellar members are convinced of that, pointing to the Ansari X Prize competition as proof.
In 2004, aerospace designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen won $10 million by becoming the first private group to carry three people into a low-space orbit.

Allen spent far more than $10 million, but within months the team signed a multimillion-dollar contract with a space tourism company.

Of course, that meant 25 other teams in the race got no immediate payback. And that's what will happen in the lunar competition for those who flop.

But space travel in general will push forward at a fraction of what it would cost a government agency -- a big goal of the contest.

Experiments and prizes

The idea of reaching air and space travel milestones with the lure of a prize is hardly new.

The idea was fairly common in the early 1900s, echoing a theme explored by author Jules Verne when the fictional Phileas Fogg bet he could travel around the world in 80 days.

When Charles Lindbergh flew nonstop from New York to Paris in 1927, he was spurred on by a $25,000 prize offered by French businessman Raymond Ortieg.

His efforts and others caused a huge increase in air travel that is seen as the catalyst for today's airline industry.

Aviation experts aren't sure what will happen once the first private moon launch succeeds.
But they are sure it will change the calculus of space travel.

The United States and other countries plan to return to the moon, but that could be more than a decade from now.

The deadline for the private competition is 2012. Those who compete will be first in line when the government needs subcontractors for its efforts.

"The only thing that has been profitable in space so far is some transportation and communications," said Bob Dickman, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Reston, Va.

"What this prize will do is send a message that NASA is not the only way to reach the moon," Dickman added. "Who knows where that will lead us?"

NCSU's Mazzoleni looks backward to answer the same question.

"When European explorers set out for the Americas, did they know what they would find?" he asked. "Was it important that they try?"

Comment by Joel Craig Raupe on June 3, 2008 at 6:37am

http://lunarnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/06/triangle-team-racing-to-moon.html

Comment by Richard D. Dell Jr. on July 29, 2008 at 10:06am

Greetings,

I thought I would bring this to your attention. From time to time, we hear how a donation button on a political campaign web site allows for political change, how such a device has made a difference in politics...

Well, why not Space Exploration? I submit to you that the time for a grassroots driven Space Mission is now.

https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=22131

Because the future doesn't have to be like the past...

-Richard

Comment by Richard D. Dell Jr. on July 30, 2008 at 3:35pm

Greetings everyone,

I thought I would share this with the group at large.

http://www.avrc.com/presentations/Fast_Manned_Interplanetary.ppt

This is part of our long range vision. We were asked by a potential sponsor a few weeks ago, "What do you do after the challenge?"

Our answer- space freight. Colonization of Moon and Mars will require serious fusion engine driven vehicles to get equipment, supplies and food to the colonies. Space Freight will be required to make a Lunar Resort a reality, or a Lunar Mining operation, or a Martian Manned outpost.

We are working with the distinguished Dr. George Miley, and several of his associates, in this regard. Prospects here for something tangible in space exploration are quite good, but to be candid, in the last couple months we have had very little time to pursue Angel investors while we have been engaged in keeping our core business in motion; therefore, we are seeking interested and accomplished parties to support developing a joint venture and a financial package to see the Fusion Ship II outlined in the presentation above become a reality within the next five years. In summary, we have the technical, technological and strategic business development talent to make this work.

Best Regards

Richard Dell

919.870.9494

Comment by Richard D. Dell Jr. on September 22, 2008 at 7:42pm

So it has been quite some time since I posted anything here. Been far too busy to stop and reflect, but I figured I would stop for a moment to reflect on the historic nature of what we have begun-

Take a visit to www.teamstellar.org and read the front page.

No other Team vying for the GLXP is doing what we're doing, and though the difficulties of creating and managing an auxiliary force of volunteers, organized as they are into submission driven cohorts, to do the truly hard work of research, should be obvious, nevertheless I must say that the level of expertise in our hundred plus volunteer group is truly astounding. A sizable number of these individuals are retired NASA, or work for various aerospace companies, and they represent also an incredible vanguard- a volunteer-driven effort to accomplish an aerospace mission.

Nothing like this has ever been tried before.

Stay tuned. -Richard Dell

Comment