Rob: It's a space mission unlike anything ever attempted before.
A foundation called X-Prize is challenging privately funded teams
from all over the world to land and maneuver a robotic craft on a lunar
surface for up to 30-million dollars in cash prizes.
Our Lacie Stockstill shows us how one group plans to lead the way in private
space exploration.
Lacie: It looks like something from a sci-fi flick.
But it just might make John Carmack and the rest of the Armadillo Aerospace
Team $2-million richer.
Its name is Pixel, and it's a lunar lander waiting for its first free
flight at Oklahoma's spaceport, a product of private aerospace built by
a team of part-time volunteers.
John Carmack: There's a lot of interesting opportunities in fairly
small areas where you can keep the costs down and
bring the operating tempo up.
Lacie: And that's what Carmack and his team have done to prepare for the
X-Prize Cup.
Look at the thousands of people here.
Lacie: A Competition in which Pixel will compete against other lunar
landers, not only for bragging rights, but for the chance to lead the way
in private space exploration.
We have ignition, and lift off.
John Carmack: We did a 192-second flight which is longer than any vehicle,
you know, any VTVO rocket ever done on earth.
Lacie: A first for the team, and a first for the state.
Bill Khourie: This is a historic, and a, shall we say, landmark event for
us, because this is our first real operation as a spaceport.
Lacie: Bill Khourie is executive director of the Oklahoma Space Industry
Development Authority, and says that while it may be the spaceport's first
launch; it certainly won't be the last.
Khourie: This is only the beginning.
We expect Armadillo to be back on several occasions, and we also have Rocket
Plane Limited here in Oklahoma.
Lacie: Still in its infancy, Carmack says private aerospace, while
viable, is not the alternative to governmental efforts.
Carmack: It's another path that hopefully leads to the same place but
hopefully a lot more cost effectively.
Lacie: And that could someday make space travel attainable to more than
just astronauts.
Carmack: That's when it'll get pretty exciting for a lot of people, where it's
kind of like the same cost as taking a high-speed jet ride or something.
You could actually fly all the way up to space and look down at the earth.
Lacie: But for now, it will be Pixel who's doing the looking, and with any
luck, bringing home the big bucks from the X-Prize Cup.