[colincsl]

I'm familiar with CMU's effort and am pretty sure they are still planning on using SpaceX's Falcon 9 to launch the robot.

The entrepreneurial ideas are necessary because going to the moon is very, very expensive. Even with the $30M prize, significant additional funds are necessary to get us there.

[luckyeights]

That's true, they're still planning to use the Falcon 9. I'm all for Google's prize and I think CMU is doing a great job. What bothers me is that significant incentives exist; SpaceX bids for plenty of contracts to deliver payloads to orbit or the space station. (http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php)

Yes, there's plenty of room to expand into space tourism, space reality TV shows, and make money from that. But take the last paragraph of this article - "People become part of moon exploration" - why so rushed? Let's get a commercial crew to space in one piece first, and talk about bringing the people in later.

Really I agree - I just think the entrepreneurial ideas have gotten away with themselves too early in the game.

[steauengeglase]

The NYT is good at a lot of things, but I'm not sure if I'd put space reporting on that list. This is the same fine institution that assumed that Robert Goddard didn't understand the first thing about basic physics.

Most of those ideas are hair brained, serve only to waste dollars and I think that is the editorial board's point. So I'll just smile as history repeats itself.