Team Galidor Heads Back to The Moon... For Good...

If you just want to watch a fun LEGO film presentation, here it is: http://youtu.be/Gb9x0khWgSY

It's the fourth year for the Moonbots game.  This year the challenge poses the question to youth of ages 9 to 17: "Why Should we go Back to the Moon for Good?"

Now, if you've been following my posts, I've had my head on Mars.  I attended a lecture at the Robotics Society of Southern California where a Robot Driver from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) gave a talk about robots and why so much effort is being spent on Mars.  This made me wonder about whether there really could have been the possibility of life on Mars.  For the first time I thought... "Yes, I do believe that there really could have been life on Mars."  And I went to NASA/JPL's educator day to learn about the Mars rovers and some cool robotics projects to do with kids.

"Moon to Trish, come in Trish."

As I watched Team Galidor's video entry for the 2014 Moonbots Challenge, I learned a few things and was set thinking again.

Team Galidor (named after a TV series and a LEGO set series) gives a bit of background on man's travels to the moon and follows with the team's plan to use the moon as a training ground for colonizing other celestial bodies.  The key factor that makes this plan attractive is the mere fact that traveling to the moon takes three days and traveling to Mars takes... well... six months. 

The team wants to set up a permanent moon base and use it to develop systems that would help to satisfy basic human needs when colonizing space.  Think food, water, sanitation, health.

Very interesting, was the information on the presence of Helium 3 and the possibilities for its use in generating energy.  This energy would be used for powering rockets to launch colonizing spacecraft from the moon base.

Team Galidor, I think you've got something there... It makes sense to have a training area on the moon that is accessible to Earth.  A moon base.  A colony in space implies that there will be many people involved, and before we send all those people on a 6 month voyage, we probably should have them take shorter trips... just in case they get homesick.

And as I close, know that I am humming a few notes from an old Sinatra favorite... "Fly me to the moon, and let me live among the stars..."

About the Competition:
The Moonbots game is "A Google Lunar XPrize Mindstorms Challenge".  Other partner corporations are FIRST (as in FIRST LEGO League), GeekDad and a myriad of other robotics and technical companies.

There are two phases to the competition.  In Phase one, the teams create videos of 3 minutes or less that present their reasons for wanting to resume space travel to the moon.  In Phase Two, twenty five of the applicant teams are selected to receive "a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robotics toolkit, LEGO bricks and other materials to create their own robot and lunar landscape".  Hey, free LEGO!?! I want to play!  They will use the kit to create a game and solve challenges with the goal of being the team to be selected to test their robot on moon-like terrain in Hawaii, at the top of a volcano.

Go Team Galidor!

About the Author:
Trish Tsoiasue blogs on the Patch and video blogs on her YouTube channel Squigglemom!  (Subscribe!) She loves playing with LEGO bricks, and has a dream of creating a Teen LEGO Club in Long Beach.  She is working on making an International Youth Center (which will focus on youth Education, Career Exploration and Entrepreneurship) happen at the Long Beach Sea Base.  Sometimes, she has her head on the moon.