Why a prize?
Prizes work! From the Orteig Prize sending aircraft across the Atlantic, to the Ansari XPRIZE sending private manned spacecraft to space, to the Google Lunar XPRIZE which is seeing finalists compete to land a private rover on the Moon, prizes are an effective way of directing the efforts of others towards a unified goal with potentially universal utility.
What is the current value of the Prize?
As of August 2017, the prize purse of 10,000 Monero is equivalent to USD $1.3 Million (conversion rate). If the market adoption of Monero becomes similar to what the cryptocurrency Bitcoin enjoys today, then the 10,000 Monero prize purse would be roughly forty times more valuable, or greater than $50 Million.
What is Lunar Soil Made Of?
Glass and metal, mostly[3,4]. Aluminum, titanium, tungsten, and iron. Volatiles like ice and many useful trace elements[5,6,7]. Most soil particles are very fine with sharp angles, turned to powder through billions of years of meteoric impact. Older, more weathered particles have small bits of non-oxidized iron on their surface and imbedded within, making them efficiently heated with microwaves [8,9] and levitate in magnetic fields[10].
What Can Lunar Soil be Made Into?
Just about any solid object you can think of. Researchers have turned lunar soil simulant into gears, bolts, bricks, and bunkers[11,12,13,14,15]. They do this by selectively melting the soil in a desired shape and then cooling it until it hardens. Possible heat sources include lasers, microwaves, and concentrated solar, to name a few.
Is the 2022 deadline realistic?
A big test will be whether a team can win the Google Lunar XPRIZE by the end of 2017. If so, then the 2022 deadline appears highly achievable since all other design requirements have already been proved.
How will you judge the teams?
Dimensional tolerances of test parts will be verified photogrammetrically using a backdrop of known scale (note: this will require the team to have a HD-picture uplink to Earth). Strength testing will be performed using a protocol suited for each team and will take the form of a modified 3-point bending test.
Why Monero?
Monero is a fast, secure, and private digital asset that behaves as electronic cash. The number of Monero users is quite low and so its price is low in response. As more people learn about Monero, its price will rise exponentially with a linear increase in users. Therefore, a $1 pledge made today using Monero could be orders of magnitude more valuable by the time the competition concludes. This is our Moon shot. Learn more about Monero at getmonero.org.