Regolith Excavation Challenge a Goldmine for Media

USA (SANEPR.com) August 1, 2008 -- The California Space Education Workforce Institute (CSEWI) and the California Space Authority (CSA) released their upcoming list of media attendees today for the 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge on August 2-3 at Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo. Notable media entities include Flight 33 Productions representing a new series for The Discovery Channel, LAUNCH Magazine, and Hollywood Cinematographer Chip Proser and The Crew of Strike-TV, a streaming video Internet show.

The 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge is a NASA creation involving a $750,000 winning purse and co-hosted by CSA, CSEWI, and Cal Poly. Sponsored by California’s Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency (BTH), Diani Building Corporation, and Empirical Systems Aerospace, the challenge requires each team to build an autonomous lunar excavator running on no more than 150 watts of power (less energy than a color TV) that can dig 150 kilograms of simulant and place it in a collector within 30 minutes. Last year’s competition produced no winners, but the 25 registered teams has substantially raised the expectation that a winner will break out from the competitive pack.

“There are some very innovative designs again this year. With the lessons learned from the 2007 competition, and greater availability of JSC-1A lunar simulant for testing," says Matt Everingham, CSA Engineering Programs Manager. "I think we can count on a notable increase in excavator performance for 2008.”

"We are attracting more electronic media this year for the challenge in contrast to magazines last year,” explains CSA/CSEWI Regolith Media Advisor Wil Simon. "Clearly, the regolith competition is visually rich, but the increase in competing teams has also given journalists a lot more interview material to work with this year.”

Media entities confirmed to attend include: Flight 33 Productions/Discovery Channel, NASA Videographer Steve Parcel, Crewestone Technologies/NASA and National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) educational videos, Planetary Society Radio, The Space Show, LAUNCH Magazine, Celestial Mechanics, The Crew-Strike TV, Ken Brown Aerospace Photojournalism, and Santa Maria Times. The event and final winners of the competition may draw current and past interested media such as the San Luis Obispo Tribune, KSBY-TV, KCOY-TV, KEYT-TV, Lars Larson Talk Radio, and Associated Press to cover the event in some fashion.

Last year, the Regolith Excavation Challenge was held in Santa Maria, California, and drew The New York Times Magazine, WIRED Magazine and BBC Radio that reported on teams coming from California, Missouri and Michigan.

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