The dispute resolution process is proceeding and probably will take some time to reach a resolution. We will keep the teams posted with blog updates as to the progress toward “middle ground”. So, please stay tuned.

However, we want to get back to the fundamentals of our team’s prime objective. Therefore, we will continue our team’s special approach to compete in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. We started this process a few months ago with the following blog posts:

• We Love Rockets! – blasting off the surFACE of the Earth

• Faces of the Moon – the 'landscape’ & 'Phaces' of the Moon

• Digging up some ‘DIRT’on the Moon! - a giant named ‘Regolith’ to slay

This blog post is the continuation of the first phase of our process - education. Our team’s approach is a little different than most of the teams because our principle goal is the education and inspiration of today’s youth in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). We believe that we can execute this prime objective by competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (at least we hope to do so). This prime objective, however, requires us to have a different phased approach than the direct programmatic design process conducted by seasoned professionals. In order to accomplish our prime objective, our process must start with education and experimentation followed by innovation, and then continues with the usual system design process. Consequently, our phased approach is a bit more elaborate and time consuming but should yield a fresh perspective and new creative ideas.

First we must provide the students with the fundamental knowledge they need to understand the scope and magnitude of the problems they must solve. The education phase begins by addressing the scientific aspects of each phase of a nominal lunar mission. We begin our educational phase with blog posts designed to discuss the fundamental problems associated with any mission to the Moon. The education plan then continues by addressing the requirements specific to the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition through a simplified system decomposition, work breakdown structure, etc. (i.e., introduction to System Engineering 0001).

Once the students understand the fundamental science and engineering principles involved in a mission to the Moon, it’s time for direct hands-on experimentation to develop that knowledge into empirical understanding. The students will conduct, in a global collaborative environment, specific experiments utilizing the scientific method (as discussed in We Love Rockets! blog) associated with identified problems of each phase of the moon mission. This phase of the program provides the students with a deeper understanding of the major problems that must be addressed to accomplish the lunar mission. Mathematics will be used to introduce the power of analytical tools to provide numerical answers to problems (both large and small). The program continues with research to identify existing ‘off-the-shelf’ technologies to help solve some of the technical problems. The educational and experimental phases of our process are designed to be informative, practical and, most of all, FUN.

The next stage of the team process is innovation. This stage of the process is designed to captivate and capture the creativity of the students to ‘brain storm’ potential solutions to the remaining problems (not solved by ‘off-the-shelf’ technology). This process will also introduce the programmatic constraints of schedule and cost into the ‘equation’ using a cost/benefit analysis (i.e., introduction to Program Management 0001). This stage will culminate with a list of possible solutions to the major problems that need to be addressed to design a successful mission to the Moon (and meet the Google Lunar X PRIZE requirements to win the competition).

The process then continues through the usual classical programmatic phases of design, development, implementation and execution. The design phase will include the traditional system level trade study to determine the best overall mission design to meet all the requirements and within all the constraints (compliance matrix). We will conduct an abbreviated (time critical) ‘design review’ to complete the design phase. Then it’s on to the development, implementation and mission execution stages. This is where the ‘rubber meets the road’ or, more appropriate for this X PRIZE competition, we start ‘shooting for the stars’.

While we acknowledge that this blog post is a very high level (and simplified) discussion of our team approach, we want everyone to realize some of the different issues that Mystical Moon is facing by virtue of our prime educational objective. We have explained this situation to X PRIZE in our discussions. We explained that if we spend a great deal of time and money producing educational videos we will simply not have the funding to execute the rest of our program (to compete in the Google Lunar X PRIZE). Therefore, we chose to use existing videos during the educational phase. After all, there are plenty of videos immediately available and at the right price too – free. We hope that we got our point across, especially considering our shared primary objective of STEM education.

In our first educational blog post we addressed one of the biggest problems of any lunar mission; blasting off the surface of the Earth (or getting into Earth orbit). Next week our educational blog posts will continue with the discussion of another major mission problem to solve – landing on the lunar surface (from lunar orbit). Both problems are similar as they require a great deal (large magnitude) of force targeted in the proper direction (or thrust vector). Please join us next week for this discussion.

Please feel free to provide any instructive, constructive or suggestive beneficial feedback at magic@kelvin.net

Best Regards,
Mystical Moon