John Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace) at NASA HQ

John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace accepts his $350,000 Prize for winning Level 1 of the 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The Prize purse was put up by NASA as part of their Centennial Challenges and the competition was administered by the X PRIZE Foundation.

The Challenge is designed to accelerate commercial technological developments supporting the birth of a new generation of Lunar Landers capable of ferrying payloads or humans back and forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. Such a vehicle would have direct application to NASAs space exploration goals as well as the personal spaceflight industry, including the Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors. Additionally, the challenge will help industry develop the operational capacity to launch quick turnaround vertical take-off, vertical landing vehicles, which will be of significant use to many facets of the commercial launch procurement market.

The Competition is divided into two levels. Level 1 requires a rocket to take off from a designated launch area, rocket up to 150 feet (50 meters) altitude, then hover for 90 seconds while landing precisely on a landing pad 50 meters away. The flight must then be repeated in reverse—and both flights, along with all of the necessary preparation for each, must take place within a two and a half hour period.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• John
• Carmack
• Peter
• Diamandis
• xprize
• foundation
• armadillo
• aerospace
• space
• nasa
• northrop
• grumman
• lunar
• lander
• challenge
• private
• exploration
• mod
• rockets
• new
• mexico
• spaceport
• america
• faa

[leus]

Every day John Carmack looks a little closer like Stephen Hawkings. Coincidence?

[xprize]

@leus Awww... sad.. :(

[FeanorBR]

@SilkyMuggs I wish our politicians had 50% of his work ethics... or 1% of his IQ

[chriscumbag]

I love that John Carmack pretty much said that developing computer game engines is harder than rocket science.

[WolfosDotOrg]

@chriscumbag No, he said it is more simple.

[Zdolshin]

@zilkoify screw console games and the outdated hardware that they are released with!

[Zdolshin]

@FeanorBR shoot I wish I had 1% of his IQ and 50% MORE of his work ethic.

[Raessentia]

@leus why?

[SiPlusTV]

You know how Doom levels and textures were made? Carmack launched Petersen and McGee with laptops to the Mars using his rockets!

[zilkoify]

if he's so fucking smart put out next gen consoles already so we pc gamers can have good and working games without all that bullshit. You dont do your game engines with your xbox do u?

[Ondelendo]

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[bebeheuy]

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[willamricard]

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[imegatrone]

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