Competitions

In the pre-race phase, the main activities used to spread the idea will be a variety of contests, designed to reach different groups of society.

• The first approach is Space Olympics, a semi-scientific contest for high schools in space related fields, similar to the Mathematics and Physics Olympics. In this way, interest in space amongst the upcoming generation can be stimulated. It is also a means to present the idea of the lunar rover race to a selected public. The final competition, as well as the winner of the Space Olympics can be publicized via intensive media coverage. This would allow advertising of the race to reach a wider public.
   
• In a later phase, the involvement of educational institutions will be more directly connected with the race. Universities are invited to participate in a contest designing the best Scientific Experiment that can be carried out on the lander-spacecraft during the race on the Moon. We expect several institutions to submit proposals. These would then be assessed by an independent scientific committee. The winning experiment will be mounted on the lander and a member of the designing institution will be principal investigator.
   
• High schools can write proposals for the scientific use of Rovo-Minutes i.e. minutes of steering of one of the rovers on the moon after the race via tele-operation. Again, it is a committee that allocates the minutes, but this contest will be less competitive. It will be probably a few hundred schools that will have the opportunity to steer a rover.
   
• We intend to address younger students via a contest for the Art Design of the Launching Rocket. All elementary schools around the world are invited to participate in designing the painting of the fairing. This is again - like the Space Olympics - an activity that is open to every country. Non-space faring countries have no disadvantages. The winning school class will be invited to actually paint the real launcher in the proposed design. This can be a huge media event, showing enthusiastic children colorfully painting a rocket. Furthermore, it is also an important symbolic statement to demonstrate the peaceful use of rockets.
   
• The most challenging contest will of course be the participation in the race itself. As the race is open to each and every individual or group on the Earth, but only 10 rovers can actually be sent to the moon, there will be a highly selective pre-race competition. The organization committee has to make sure that the launched rovers are at least appropriate to survive in the lunar environment; therefore here will be several qualifying races, probably on a national basis. To provide a chance for non-space faring countries to participate, we plan to send the five continental champions (ie. the rovers that won the qualifying races on each continent) plus the five rovers with the highest scores to the finals on the moon, similar to the soccer World Cup. We hope that private companies, national agencies, universities, as well as small groups of garage-operating "geniuses" will participate. In this way, we hope to stimulate much innovation.
   
• Finally, to involve a part of society that is traditionally left out of space activities, we will hold a contest for artists for the design of moon sculptures. The Camerators, or penetrators that carry a little camera, will be sticks that are ballistically deployed like a javelin from the lander within an area of approximately 1 km in radius. Except for the small payload of camera plus communication device (with the lander), which is in the order of approximately 100 g, the artists are totally free to create their sculptures as long as the weight limit of 0.5 kg is not exceeded. This way, we open the first Art Gallery on the Moon, and in addition to that, in the final phase of the race, when the rovers approach the lander, they will provide the Earth with lively pictures of the finish from many different angles. Although this will add another 5 kg to be landed on the moon and therefore will increase launching costs by several percent, we find it is a great opportunity to go one step beyond ordinary thinking in space activities. The "camerators" can also be used for a wide range of activities to involve and inspire the public.

Figure 4-37: Timeline for the Activities Involving the Public

Media coverage

To spread the idea of the race as well as gain public support, intensive media coverage is necessary.

• All the above mentioned activities in the pre-race phase will be intensively covered on TV, especially the final competitions of each contest. These can be huge media events. Such a program will not only create a variety of marketing opportunities (Section 4.8) but will also serve as a means of public education in various fields such as telecommunications, robotics, rocket technology, celestial mechanics, and even thermodynamics and propagation of light. The aim is to increase general knowledge about space and to prepare the public for human exploration away from Earth. In order to raise interest all over the world, the events will take place in different countries. It is important here to particularly involve developing countries in the contest.

Some of the previously mentioned contests, like the national and continental qualifying races, could be linked with highly popular sports events like Formula One racing the World Cup Finals or the "Super Bowl" in order to make the project well-known.

• Another media element of rapidly growing importance is a website providing a wide range of facilities to every individual on request. In the pre-race phase the website will basically consist of two parts.

The first is the information part that displays the basic idea of the project, the credo of the organization committee, and the rules of the race. There will be application forms as well as detailed terms of participation available for download not only for the race itself but also for all the other contests planned. Even the Space Olympics will be described and covered here, thus providing the link with the otherwise unrelated rover race. The website will be the information headquarters of the project with all the common features of an elaborate web facility such as newsletters, discussion groups, questions and answers, and web-cam coverage of events, etc. A special feature will be a virtual reality race simulation that demonstrates the 2.7 s time-delay in teleoperation on the Moon. In this way even children can learn about things such as the limited speed of light. Finally, prepared lessons about related topics will be provided for download, serving teachers as background information.

The second part is a teaching system in astronomy and astrophysics in general. Inspired by the projected popularity of the lunar race, an interested public may be receptive to introductory to advanced level education in related fields. Many very interesting teaching systems are being developed at the moment, some even equipped with artificial intelligence to individually adapt to students' needs (ESPACE, 1999). As a special feature of this teaching system, we will have an assessment section in which we award some "rovo-minutes" to students who have excellent learning progress.

Betting

Betting will be allowed in the Lunar Rover Race. People who are not at all interested in space activities will start to study rover technology in order to improve their probability of winning the bet.

Race-Phase - Media Coverage

When the actual race on the Moon begins, TV coverage will intensify. The rovers will provide ten different views of the racetrack via real time images. In addition to that the media vehicle sends the leader board information and lively TV coverage of the start and finish phase of each stage to Earth. The racetrack is chosen to pass historic previous landing sites as well as interesting geological features on the Moon. At the start of every stage the rovers will be head-to-head, thus providing exciting, lively race pictures. The important phases may be broadcast via the major TV stations and we perhaps an additional channel with 24-hour live coverage during the 10 race days: a "RVN" or "Rovo-News" channel that broadcasts also via the web. The information provided will be enriched by a master of ceremonies explaining geological features, historic sites, evolution of the Moon and the Solar System as well as the technology used. This "Rovo-Tech MC" will serve as an educator for the public.

The information part of the web-site will be enhanced by a detailed description and technical specification of the participating teams. This is an important part of the terms of participation: all the technology and the innovations used have to be made available to the public as soon as the race starts.

Race-Phase - Public Events

As the rovers are partly or fully tele-operated from Earth, there will be a ground station for every participating team where people can visit and watch the contestants in action. We see this as an important part of the game: fans actually seeing and being "in touch" with the pilots. The strong connection between high-tech and physical human endurance during the ten days of the race is meant to create heroes, like in any other sport. The intention is to present the pilots as real athletes. We want to place the ground-stations at a public point of interest in each participating team's country. Around those ground-stations we plan to promote a variety of activities like pop concerts, fashion shows, expositions and the like. We want everybody to identify with his/her favorite team, to get into the "we participate" spirit like in the Olympic games. In this way the Moon gets much closer in peoples minds. During the race we foresee the round-station as a fair of public education.

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