Princeton’s alumni magazine recently profiled Red Whittaker and team in an article featuring Princetonians in the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition.

Fly Me To The Moon
Kenneth Chang, Princeton Alumni Weekly

The lunar rover expedition being created by Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon University has been selected by Popular Science magazine as one the 100 best innovations of the year. The December issue named Astrobotic and its founder Dr. William “Red” Whittaker as the “Leader of the New Moon Race.”

Popular Science said Astrobotic took the front position among the 26 competitors for the Google Lunar X PRIZE due to its extensive terrestrial robot testing and its signing of a launch contract with SpaceX. While the Google reward is substantial with up to $24 million available to the winner, Astrobotic’s main business — the delivery of payloads to the lunar surface for space agencies – will produce several times that revenue.

The same issue named SpaceX the “Grand Award Winner 2011” in the space and aviation category, calling it “The Future of American Spaceflight.”

Astrobotic Technology Inc. is featured in a FoxNews.com article and a British Daily Mail report on accelerating solar system exploration through the use of lunar resources.

 The Fox News report describes how Astrobotic has begun a two-year NASA contract to develop a prototype robotic excavator to recover the water and methane ices at the Moon’s poles, which can be transformed into rocket propellant to refuel spacecraft for their return to Earth.  This fuel also can be exported to Earth orbit to tank up future missions to Mars.

 The MailOnline article describes the promise of recovering helium3 from the lunar soil as a nonradioactive fuel for clean carbon-free fusion power reactors.

A story about Astrobotic Technology’s lunar lander appeared on the front page of the New York Times national edition July 22, describing Astrobotic and Moon Express, a company planning a much smaller spacecraft. The New York Times noted that Astrobotic missions will earn substantial profits regardless of the outcome of the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. The complete article is linked below:

Race to the Moon Heats Up for Private Firms

Princeton University’s alumni blog names Red Whittaker as ‘Tiger of the Week’:

Robot designer William “Red” Whittaker ’73 likes challenges. One of his latest goals: sending one of his robots to the moon. With a team of students, the Carnegie Mellon robotics professor is competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, which will award $20 million to the first privately funded team to create a robot that can land safely on the moon’s surface, travel 500 meters, and transmit data and images back to Earth…

Read the full article here: Tiger of the Week: William “Red” Whittaker ’73

Red Whittaker and the lunar lander

The Wall Street Journal’s Creativity page has introduced readers around the world to Red Whittaker, the driving force behind the moon project at Astrobotic and Carnegie Mellon.

Read the full article:

A Roboticist’s Trip from Mines to the Moon