SpaceIL is definitely not a frontrunner, although neither is anyone else really. The only one with a firm launch contract is the spanish team – and they plan to launch with Chinese Long March, on a chinese lunar lander platform.
What the…?
“Google’s big Lunar X contest…promises to award $30 million to a team that can land an unmanned, robotic craft on the moon.”
The Chinese just did this. But I thought they were disqualified because they are a government. So why isn’t Israel similarly disqualified?
Because it’s not the Israeli government. It’s a private consortium.
China-baiting is when ya say “OMG China is beating the US in space! We better go back to the Moon!!!!” Like it’s the 1960s or something.
They claim to be a nonprofit, and are apparently backed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and a pretty large academic community, plus a few billionaires.
And that is different from some of the other leading teams how?
Should we start a pool on how soon after landing we’ll hear claims that the Israeli craft landed on a piece of lunar territory belonging to the Palestinians? Then again, there’s probably already some Arabic newspaper story about the intended space grab by evil Zionist occupiers.
SpaceIL is definitely not a frontrunner, although neither is anyone else really. The only one with a firm launch contract is the spanish team – and they plan to launch with Chinese Long March, on a chinese lunar lander platform.
What the…?
“Google’s big Lunar X contest…promises to award $30 million to a team that can land an unmanned, robotic craft on the moon.”
The Chinese just did this. But I thought they were disqualified because they are a government. So why isn’t Israel similarly disqualified?
Because it’s not the Israeli government. It’s a private consortium.
Although, you couldn’t tell from this: http://www.examiner.com/article/israel-s-lunar-effort-proceeds-apace-toward-2015-landing-goal
Note: don’t look at the author’s name until after you read the article 🙂
He had a good one the other day. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/12/28/mark-whittington-china-space/4209223/
Equally stupid China-baiting.
What is China-baiting?
China-baiting is when ya say “OMG China is beating the US in space! We better go back to the Moon!!!!” Like it’s the 1960s or something.
They claim to be a nonprofit, and are apparently backed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and a pretty large academic community, plus a few billionaires.
And that is different from some of the other leading teams how?
Should we start a pool on how soon after landing we’ll hear claims that the Israeli craft landed on a piece of lunar territory belonging to the Palestinians? Then again, there’s probably already some Arabic newspaper story about the intended space grab by evil Zionist occupiers.
Heck, the moon itself is a Muslim symbol.