The LRR Company will be a non-profit organization. The highest decision making authority of this company is an International Committee that consists of representatives of sponsors and supporting organizations. This observational organ appoints a project manager and can give advice for further company activity. Figure 4-38 shows the personnel that the LRR Company would typically employ.

The company will prepare, organize and carry out one project, that is the Lunar Rover Race and all related activities before and after. Two main company structures are available in our case: a matrix structure or a traditional structure. For the LRR Company, the benefits of both structures are combined in a hybrid form.

The staff consists of people concerning breakdown structure, about 45 persons. All recruit procedure is responsibility of project manager.

The company doesn't have own equipment for testing, ground control; therefore, they are going to rent them from national space agencies or private companies as well as involving maximum subcontractors. One of the main keys of this project is advertisement. Therefore this company has a big staff in an advertisement department, and if it necessary, can hire additional agents in order to fulfill its purpose.

Key Persons and Bodies

International committee: consists of representatives of agencies or companies that contribute in this organization (no more than nine people).

Project Manager: amongst others, the trait that is required is that he or she have at least five years of relevant managerial experience. This person must be a natural leader, a team player and he or she must have good communication skills.

Managers: heads of departments. The managers have similar, though less stringent requirements pertaining to features and characteristics.

Preliminary Cost Estimate

A preliminary estimate of the costs for the entire four year Lunar Rover Race activity is $190 million US dollars. The majority of these costs are due to the spacecraft, $63.5 million, the media vehicle, $11.4 million, and the launch on a Delta II or equivalent class vehicle, $50 million. In addition, the cost of insuring the launch and the lander/rover payload separately for failure plus the insurance to cover potential lost revenue in case either the lander or Media Vehicle are lost or malfunction before or during the race is nearly $25 million. The table below provides a summary of all major program costs without considering inflation or interest. In most cases costs were estimated using the analogy method.

Preliminary Revenue Estimate

At this stage it is difficult to calculate a confident estimate of revenues from the Lunar Rover Race. The focus of this activity was primarily to determine whether the race ought to be studied further for its revenue generating potential. Revenue sources include event broadcast fees for several events including

• multiple pre-qualification test events
• final qualification race event and the selection of the final 10 race contestants
• events at the mission control centers
• direct broadcast from the moon

These are ranked in ascending order of their revenue generating potential with the greatest being, of course, the actual broadcast of events from the moon. The value of these fees is based on the amount and value of the TV coverage time. A very rough estimate of the revenue potential ranges from over $50 million to well over $400 million. A somewhat conservative approach, which assumes only a few stations provide strong coverage for only race highlights, suggests a revenue potential of around $175 million.

Other significant revenue sources include:

• sponsorship of the event itself
• sponsorship of the lander and media rover
• sponsorship of the Mission Control crew and race officials (patches and clothing)
• merchandizing and copyrights
• sales of rover time during non-race activities

These revenue sources are even more difficult to estimate and would require direct marketing of the idea to potential sponsors. Again, as a very rough estimate, we believe the potential revenue from these sources could range from $5 million to as high as $50 million. These numbers are modeled somewhat loosely on the revenue generated by start-up professional sports teams and the value of naming stadiums and other public and private venues. Part of the problem is that this is a first time event. Should the Lunar Rover Race occur on a regular basis it is possible to forecast an increasing revenue stream as its popularity and sophistication grows?

Clearly further investigation is needed, but this preliminary research shows that there is significant potential for a positive return on this event (up to $450 million revenue vs. $190 million in cost, returning nearly $260 million in net cash). We believe that further research and revenue concept development will yield profitable results.

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