Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Scorecard / Scoreboard

This is no longer being maintained. Sorry

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is NOT just a simple race to the moon. The point is the change it can bring through the competition. It’s not the race, it’s what happens because of the race.

This is the result of about 3 years of interviews and research (ongoing). You can hear many of the interviews on the podcast.

The fine print:

This is a completely unofficial look at the current Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams based on knowledge from interviews, in person accounts, and publicly available information. This is our opinion of the potential impact of the prize. No necessarily who will win at this point.

The current scorecard is based on the following set of metrics:

Funding – 20 possible points – Measures how far along the teams are in their acquisition of funding based on their publicly stated estimated mission costs
Innovation – 10 possible points – Measures how much innovation is being used across the entire project. This includes new inventions and clever reuses of existing resources and technology
Social Savvy – 10 possible points – It’s 2011 and connecting with people will require the use of social networks and other avenues in order to gain mindshare of both influential thinkers and the “people on the street”
Connections – 10 possible points – Measures how connected are the people involved in the team leadership to the outside help and expertise they will need to execute their mission.
Progress – 10 possible points – Measures our perception of their progress to being able to launch.
Feeling – 10 possible points - Measures just our gut feeling about the team. Things like that look in a leader’s eyes when they speak.
Inspiration – 10 possible points – Measures the ability to inspire others.
Rover/Hopper/Lander Completion – 10 possible points – How complete is the actual build of the device to be on the moon.
Participatory Exploration – 10 possible points – Measures the teams involvement in involving others. People need to feel directly connected to the exploration of space in order to have a long term impact on their thinking.

Some teams with no points don’t necessarily have no progress, we just don’t have any information on them.

This scorecard will be updated in real time as the data about the teams we are able to gather changes.

Email comments and suggestions to mike@evadot.com

About the Google Lunar X PRIZE

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is igniting a new era of lunar exploration by offering the largest international incentive prize of all time. A total of $30 million in prizes are available to the first privately funded teams to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon and have that robot travel 500 meters over the lunar surface and send images and data back to the Earth. Teams must be at least 90% privately funded, though commercially reasonable sales to government customers are allowed without limit.

Find out more at The Google Lunar X PRIZE Website

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Tags: entire project, existing resources, exploration of space, google, gut feeling, neccessarily, new inventions, person accounts, race to the moon, street connections, team leadership, X PRIZE

About the Author

Michael is the founder of Evadot.com and as such can often be found cavorting with penguins or eating herring. Michael can be reached at mike@evadot.com and at michaeldoornbos.com and on twitter as @mrdoornbos

http://www.oz9aec.net/ Alex Csete

No matter how one looks at it, I think Micro-Space deserves significantly more than 0 points.
- http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
  
  As is stated, it’s not that they don’t deserve a score, but at the present time we don’t have enough data to give them a score. Their score isn’t zero, it’s “not enough data”.
  
  We are happy to receive supporting information to help us score them or to better assess any team for that matter.
  - http://www.oz9aec.net/ Alex Csete
    
    Well, reading their GLXP team blog, which IMHO has been one of the most active and informative amongst all team blogs, I feel that I know much more about their plans and progress than I know about Advaeros, Independemce X, Stellar, or Team Italia – or even Jurban who haven’t updated their team blog for 2 years now.
http://twitter.com/LunaCI Nick Azer

Do you have a breakdown of who’s leading in each category? Be interesting to see who’s ahead on design, funding, etc. specifically.Interesting list. I concur that Micro-Space could be slightly higher than zero, even if their website looks circa 1994 (http://www.micro-space.com/). Barcelona Moon is one that I’d think is higher; they’re an arm of a bigger and longer-standing Galactic Suite space hotel project (http://bit.ly/9cPbiw), so somewhat like Rocket City, they come in with some establishment…though how much that means, I’m not sure of.
- http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
  
  Yes, we plan to do more visualizations over the coming days. Thanks for the feedback Nick, we’ll take all of those ideas and information into consideration. Also, we’ll fix the typo
Pingback: Does the GLXP scorecard need a new grading curve? « NewSpace Journal
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NQICSGTZYMIWVXYJTT3UTTJQUY Inigo

If anyone wins, it will be Astrobotic. Hands down. I don’t think anyone else will even come close.
http://x.co/IvY9 >>>>>> Google The Movie <<<<<<

the GLXP is ALREADY FAILED but Google can’t admit its nth FLOP

…their Xerox copiers haven’t worked well five years ago… http://x.co/GqFF
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mycroft-Holmes/100001636103022 Mycroft Holmes

You should pay more attention to GETTING to the lunar surface
technical tasks – in order of difficulty:
1. achieve low earth orbit
2. land at a pre-selected target location (ie Apollo site, not required except for bonus prizes)
3. soft land on the lunar surface
4. achieve accurate trans lunar trajectory from earth orbit
5. build the required spacecraft bus & hardware (not talking about a rover)
6. build a rover capable of traveling 500 meters on the moon

the social media stuff is meaningless as well. either the team is funded by a sugar daddy or they will get a sponsor that will dictate the social media outreach

MH
- http://x.co/IvY9 >>>>>> Google The Movie <<<<<<
  
  all things the 22 teams are NOT ABLE to do
http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos

There’s a good critique of this scorecard by Jeff on the NewSpace Journal site. http://www.newspacejournal.com/2010/10/12/does-the-glxp-scorecard-need-a-new-grading-curve/
http://www.nextgiantleap.com/team.html NextGiantLeap

An interesting perspective, thanks for putting this up Michael!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1062691648 Nebojsa Stanojevic

Hi all,
it is a great thing to put “Scorecard”, even better when it was put by “outsider”, rather then by “insider”, but there are few things that started on a wrong leg.
I can’t but notice that Team “Rocket City Space Pioneers” get so high scores in areas that is impossible for them to get, based only on the FACT that they just joined GLXP few days ago!!! Other teams spent last 2-3 years building the “Space social awareness”, educational outreach, hundreds of interviews to the TV and paper press just to explain what is the goal/philosophy behind the GLXP and XPF to “street people” as well to science institutions around the world in effort to involve them in some sort of scientific experiments using one of our teams and bring them on board with our teams. And also with students to do the same. It was tedious, time consuming work, that helped new teams to have “1st step” done for them and take it from there ( and that’s great, as we all want to make our progress much faster, not that everyone had to go the same process from the beginning. In some way, we were the “Ice breaker ships”.
For me personally, this “Scorecard” is based mostly on your impressions after you first visit to one GLXP team summit, Isle of Man 4th GLXP Team Summit. As it is said, it was the 4th Team Summit, there were 3 before it
Nebojsa Stanojevic
Founder, Team Synergy Moon

P.S. I have great respect and great relationship with all other teams in GLXP, so this is just my personal observation on “Scorecard” .
- http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
  
  Excellent comments. I have a deep respect for all of the #GLXP teams, and I hope my close attention reflects that.
  
  I’ve been covering the GLXP for more than a year now. Kevin was on the podcast in the summer of 2009. I ran the GLXP social network while Amanda was doing the Automotive XPRIZE this summer, so it’s not like I just started gathering this data last week. That being said, I’ve been very forthright about two things: first, it’s just one organizations outside perspective, and second, we’re very aware that this early in the game our data will need constant massaging before we’re really happy with it.
  
  Also, it’s pretty unscientific, so take it for what it’s worth. It’s supposed to be fun, encouraging, and to create conversations just like this one.
  
  I was just talking about Synergy Moon last night over a dinner conversation. I love the idea of profiling team members and yours this week was excellent. You got a social media point bump for it last night.
  
  One of the reasons we published this in the first place is to help the teams identify areas where our data may not reflect what the teams feel is their real progress and to help encourage the teams to get the word out on what they are doing. If you think about it, I spend a lot of my free time(completely unpaid) following this competition and if I can’t tell what teams are doing, or don’t notice a team’s social impact, then a wider audience completely misses it.
  
  This week we’ve seen a flurry of activity (Synergy Moon included, please keep it up) of teams publicly introducing it’s people, and showing off what they are doing. If our scorecard helps encourage that activity even a little bit, then it has accomplished it’s purpose.
  
  It is an ever changing database and I encourage all teams to make an argument to the world as to why they are the best. I’m more than happy to entertain arguments from any team members in support of our data not being as accurate as it could be and we will make appropriate changes if those arguments and evidence warrant the changes. We updated some data on Micro-Space based on some data from Frednet, which is terrific.
  
  You’re welcome on the podcast ANY time to chat. Thank you for being a leader in something that is almost impossibly hard. We need 10,000 more people like you.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1062691648 Nebojsa Stanojevic
    
    Thanks for reply, and because English is not my first language ( I learned it on the streets of South Africa, many years ago ) please excuse if something sound bit “harsh” , trust me it was not intended
    Also, I follow you and Evadot for long time now, and I can only admire your, and people like you (e.g. SpaceKate, great interview, btw) for all your time and (unpaid) effort to bring NewSpace to ordinary people. Hats down from all of us.
    so, as you said to me, I say to you and people like you (most GLXP teams members included)
    “Thank you for being a leader in something that is almost impossibly hard. We need 10,000 more people like you.”
Pingback: Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration » Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #33
Anonymous

When my son was young he dreamed of becoming an astronaut. In recent years however, the scientific community has neglected the wonder and adventure of space exploration. Space exploration is more than crunching numbers, it requires a strong sense of courage and the ability to capture the hearts of the people and the next generation to maintain social and economic relevance. Just because there is an economic driver that doesn’t mean there will be a strong enough monetary force to overcome social resistance or even ambivalence. The goals of space exploration and commercialization require political and popular acceptance. Twitter, Face Book, business and politics all intertwine. It is the social savvy that is capturing the imagination, excitement, energy, and inspiration of the youth. It is these factors as well as the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition that will allow this endeavor to be more than a singular event. Right now it is about the competition, the race to the moon, what is the next step. To keep it real you need to involve the people by being socially relevant. Numbers are important but not motivating to my teenagers. My son and daughter are following the progress of a group of international college students, Part Time Scientist, because of their social savvy, inspiration, and their ability to engage with the people. Michael is telling the story of the people, which at one time, was NASA’s secret sauce. Space travel became boring over the years, however, space travel is alive again. We want to hear from all the teams, get to know the people and their stories, and be educated through frequent blogs. Currently, my kids know more about the lives of the Chilean miners than they know about their United State’s GLXP team members. We want to know and experience more through learning about the technology but just as importantly we want to be connected to the people.
http://www.seleneteam.com MarkusB

Only some thoughts…For example: Is CHANDA still in the race? I can not find this team anymore here: http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams
If I remember right, they only blogged one ore two times over two years, even no web site. Quite high score for nearly no information.
- http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
  
  Yes, Chanda is Moon Express, one of the teams that was awarded an ILDD contract last friday. We’ll be updating more on them very soon.
  - http://www.seleneteam.com MarkusB
    
    As mentioned, high score for nearly no information. I can only subscribe to Nebojsa’s opinion. For me this scorecard reflects your personal opinion. This is legitimate. But it should be declared as that one.
  - http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
    
    Yes, of course it reflects our personal opinion. We’ve been very clear about it being subjective and unscientific.
    
    We’re not however going about this willy nilly and take it seriously.
    
    I have information sources about that team which reflects enough information to score them. When they formally announce how this team is emerging, I’ll update the name if it’s appropriate at that time.
Pingback: Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration » NASA Awards Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data (ILDD) Contracts!
Pingback: Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration » Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #34
http://twitter.com/picorover Joshua Tristancho

Good report, Michael.
Best,
Joshua Tristancho
Pingback: Does the GLXP scorecard need a new grading curve?
http://twitter.com/Pomerantz William Pomerantz

Thanks for keeping this updated, Michael – we always enjoy having a way to see the competition through the eyes of someone else. Look forward to Scorecard 2.0 in (early?) 2011!
Pingback: Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration » Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #40
http://twitter.com/Pomerantz William Pomerantz

I, for one, am very hopeful that after the ISDC sessions, @mrdoornbos:disqus will launch Scorecard 2.0 and share his thoughts about the competitors: who is going to win, who is going to create a lasting company (not necessarily the same as the previous), who is going to do interesting things along the way even if they don’t win, and who is in danger of falling out of the running.

An idea for your consideration: you might want to borrow a trick from the “power rankings” published by sports websites and have some kind of regular update schedule (e.g. once a week), and graphical indication showing if teams are trending up or down, a sentence or two of original text describing why a team is where it is in the rankings.
- http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
  
  That’s actually an excellent idea (the power rankings). As you know, I’ve been playing around with a Scorecard 2.0 for a long time now. Time to set a date and ship!
  - http://twitter.com/Pomerantz William Pomerantz
  - http://michaeldoornbos.com mrdoornbos
    
    The trick is to do this in a way that actually adds to the visualization and is not just flashy eye candy.
  - http://twitter.com/Pomerantz William Pomerantz
    
    Says who? We want eye candy! ; P
Pingback: #SPACEMETA – Google Lunar X PR…
http://www.facebook.com/sergio123cabral Sergio Cabral Cavalcanti

This is just to congrats Evadot.com
For sure an INDEPENDENT score card is important to help teams managers to understand from the outside world, how is the assets projects perception.

Some times we have a nice idea, but the market don’t understand. Some times this misunderstand is consequence of less technical skill of some part or some times is due the bad message organization.

With Evadot Score , we can review and develop an auto-analizys what we are doing wrong and also look what some teams are doing right, so we can mirror and help develop best practices.

– Sergio Cabral Cavalcanti
SpaceMETA Founder.

Thanks to Evadot.
http://twitter.com/SPACEMETA SPACEMETA

This is just to congrats Evadot.com
For sure an INDEPENDENT score card is important to help teams managers to understand from the outside world, how is the assets projects perception.

Some times we have a nice idea, but the market don’t understand. Some times this misunderstand is consequence of less technical skill of some part or some times is due the bad message organization.

With Evadot Score , we can review and develop an auto-analizys what we are doing wrong and also look what some teams are doing right, so we can mirror and help develop best practices.

– Sergio Cabral Cavalcanti
SpaceMETA Founder.

Thanks to Evadot.
Pingback: Following the Race to the Moon | The Daily Planet
http://twitter.com/kevinchebs chebs

I like how this is updated, but can you add a “Changes:” underneath the “last updated” at the top. I look at it and question if anything changed because I don’t see any difference. The “Changes” section would say for example, “updated progress for team SpaceIL” or “updated participatory involvement for all teams”