Moon vehicle prize

Now that NASA has stopped holding its annual Moon buggy event for schools and colleges it might be a good idea to set up a prize for groups to compete for.

Although companies like Raytheon are developing things like Hopping vehicles (see link below) I was thinking about something that moved across the lunar surface.

Vehicles could compete over a set terrain (possibly the one used for the now defunct moon buggy event) and have to comply with a set specification for;

weight, size, speed, cargo capacity/crew size, autonomous control and range for a given energy supply.

After a few years NASA might get a suitable lunar vehicle without having to develop one themselves. Any promising concepts could be tested further by NASA under more stringent conditions to see how they performed using a lunar regolith simulant or in a vacuum.

http://www.newscientistspace.com/articl ... -moon.html