If you build it, they will fund?

Our big assumptions...

... have changed.


Best!
Mike

I did suggest in another form here that if anyone had a credible lander all built and reay to launch, they might get a free launch from SpaceX for a share of the prize money in the event you won it. But you would have to be REALLY credible; as credible as SpaceX themselves, which I regard VERY highly. You would have to have completed hardware ready to integrate onto the Falcon 1. SpaceX would not pay you to develop the lander even if you had a working rover operating on a simulated lunar environment. I wouldn't if I were Musk. But that is just a guess. I have no inside information.

I think the most credible scenario for a win, is a team already working on a rover collaborating with a team already working on an orbiter, and when they have a credible payload put together a commercial launch provider will step forward, each party paying their own way.

Failing a launch provider partner, it isn't totally incredible to think you could raise the money for a launch by public subscription, if you had a demonstrable, credible payload ready. iirc, $1 million was raised from the public just to keep data capture for Viking going for another 12 months, in spite of scientific opinion that it was pointless.

Another way of potentially procuring launch service is to hitch a ride with perhaps a satellite headed for GEO orbit. Several college smallsat projects have procured launch service with LEO launches

If you are lucky enough to find a satellite going to GEO transfer orbit (GTO) on just the right trajectory to continue on to the Moon with a little extra "kick". Not just any GTO orbit would do.

Is that just a question of the position of the moon at the time of launch, or is it more complicated?

It is mostly the position of the Moon, but it is more complicated too.

The Moon's orbital plane is tilted about 5 degrees to the Earth's equator. GEO is of course tilted 0 degrees. The transfer orbit will be tilted at some other angle, depending largely on the latitude of the launch site. In theory, if the launch occurred at JUST the right moment, then the tilts of the orbits would all work out to get you to the Moon's orbit without having to do a plane change, but the Moon needs to be there when you get there. It does no good to arrive in one part of the Moon's orbit when the Moon is in another part of its orbit. Of course if your kick stage has enough delta V, it could do a plane change on its own, which would reduce the constraint on launch a little, but the timing would still be critical.

Yep! Timing is everything....

MikeJ