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head to the show notes. Use my special code andjointhecurrent.com Revolution It's banking, but not as you know it. It's better. Today's episode will feature one of my favorite interviews from a few years ago. It's from a company called Moonmark and the purpose of this company is to send remote control cars and have a competition, a race on the lunar surface. Enjoy. Because we're we're here to share the information.
So Moonmark is a competition between high school teams across the country and we are already getting a lot of interest from across the world and students grades nine through 12 are going to compete to become the final two teams that create built 2 space worthy racers. They're not Rovers, they're racers and they will go up on the intuitive machines known as Sealander, which is going up October 11th of 2021. Very, very cool, yeah, Heikum said. In, He said. Oh, high schools, yeah.
Is it only open to high school people or can people outside of high school older than high school, like college teams or something like that? Ander. So about the the actual teams that are going to build these racers are going to be high school students. We are reaching out to those, like I say, in grades nine through 12. However, the purpose is for
them. They're to, you know, if you get to, if you get to build something instead of land on the moon and race on the moon, there's a little bit of, you know, skin you got to put in the game, right, or in the sport.
And in this particular case, the tuition, so to speak, is that they have to reach out and they have to engage people across the globe and and what they're doing, how they're doing it and why they're doing it. And so there's a lot of opportunity for people of all ages to engage with the students as they go through this process. Now, Moon, what Moon Mark is going to do is to capture the content and the adventures of these young people and share it in across television, digital
streaming. But you know, our purpose is really to share what is about to happen to humankind through the eyes of these students, meaning the accessibility of space, the commercialization of space. So we're really excited about this. And we also, right now I do want to mention we have a learner race car design challenge that's going on. We're working with intuitive
machines. We worked with them to develop the space specifications of what these racers will need, so that when they land on the mode, they'll have the the, the right
stuff, so to speak. And then there those that are competing in the the design challenge in the next few weeks actually through the end of June, they will be able to put their own mark on those races and we'll have a panel of judges that will judge the design, the space worthiness and we'll also have an audience voting worldwide. So we're pretty excited about the the Lunar Race Bar Design Challenge as well. Is this open to anybody around the globe or is it just US based?
No, it's open to anyone. We we have had like a man mentioned a lot of really great international interest. So students really want to participate and and we actually started the the design challenge a little sooner than we anticipated and we did that because so many young people and all of us but mostly are housebound.
So and and we're looking to provide young people and people that are interested in engaging with these young people with something that has a really positive and exciting focus at a time when we really need it. Oh, very cool. So we have. And I do want to mention, because I get this question very often, is there a registration
fee or a participation fee? And the answer is no. You know what you have to have is you have to have access to a computer and you have to have access to the answer now and then. You have to have some really cool and smart friends to get together and and and you know, put the good stuff on the moon. Oh, cool. So we have a couple questions in chat. What? What is the race? What is the actual race? Will they be racing for a target or an obstacle or what? So is there a finish line?
Or a great question. So we, we just this past week heard from an intuitive machines as to where the the Lander is going to touchdown and that's going to be in the the the oceans or the store, the oceans of storms. And so now what's going to happen is that when the Lander is about 30 meters off the circles of the mill, it will
eject a sphere of 360° cameras. And that we don't know exactly where that's going to land, but those cameras are #1 going to capture the app to landing itself, which I believe will be the first of its kind. And then that sphere of cameras will serve as the rallying point where the, the point at which we
will direct the races. So they will drive from the Lander. Probably we will have some Geo about geometric requirements along the way, but they're going to head to that camera and they're going to turn around and they're going to come back. Oh, wow. OK. Yeah. So the actual, the actual racetrack itself is still yet to be determined and there's a lot that we won't know. I I think there's a lot of golf moments in this well and there's certainly will be, no doubt about it, it.
Sounds challenging. It's going to be where that sphere lands and how we can line up. Yeah, sounds like a challenging problem to solve for the racers, especially when you don't know where that sphere is. Like, how are you going to find the sphere? You know, you have to design a vehicle that's going to be able to not alone, you know, go across the lunar surface.
Like, that's hard enough. But you have to find this sphere of cameras and then you have to then turn around and come back to the Lander. Well, that sounds incredibly difficult. Well, it certainly does have its challenges. The, the, the advantage that we have is that the the experts that we're working with that intuitive machines not only do they know how to build spacecraft and launch it along with human flight. They have years and years of experience both the NASA and and
and commercial space. But they actually are working with us to make sure that those erasures are space worthy.
And what we've discovered in in this process is that there are some significant challenges and there are some things that we we've determined that are a little bit easier than we thought they would be. One of the things that I'm really excited about is that we're going to be able to perhaps accelerate some application of technology with this project that would not we're going to be able to accelerate for example communications.
Currently the data streams or communication from the moon and elsewhere have a very, very specific scientific purpose.
Our purpose is to capture that race which is going to require much higher bandwidth or both on the moon, on the lunar surface and then back to Earth's. And so the companies that we are are working with in the various communications aspects of this, it's been clear that we are able to you know what what we one of the outcomes of this is that we will be able to test and prove communications on the Roaner's surface that will serve others when they get there. OK, so this is a forward
thinking mission. It's not just just get the racers of the moon race around, but it's actually to serve a purpose for the future landing and other Rover missions in the future or racers even. And could we possibly see a racing circuit like NASCAR on the moon in the future? How cool would that be? That would be awesome. You're you're, you're, you're talking to someone who truly, truly enjoys motorsport and I also very much enjoy high
performance driving. And so that is a reason because of the of my involvement in the sport, it became clear to me that there was really, you know, a really wonderful, you know, analogy or analogous kind of set of disciplines that was necessary both in in aerospace and in auto sports. So you've got the, the teamwork that's necessary.
You've, you've got the physics, you've got the engineering, you've got the timing, you've got the the discipline and all of that and and that belongs in, in in both of these areas and both of these industries. And we thought that it would be very interesting to apply those particular skills science, technology, engineering and arts as well as mathematics in this
competition. So not only are we, we are forward thinking in terms of how along the way we can accelerate technology and use of this for those that come behind us on on the lunar surface, but also the journey along the way which is really, really exciting of an adventure for these young people and and many people that they touch.
Well, that's very cool. I'm, I'm glad you guys are doing this because this is so. When I was a kid, I always thought about, you know, having a moon colony and having something like this, like sports on the moon. You know, we I had these books when I was a kid and they're all illustrated and they're really cool.
And I would open them up and I would imagine something like this happening, you know, and just that somebody's actually doing this in my lifetime is insane in the in the best kind of way, like in the happiest way that you could imagine that there's going to be race vehicles on the moon. Like that doesn't to me as a normal person that has nothing to do with the engineering part of this. And I'm I'm kind of like heading the clouds kind of person.
This is awesome and I really want to thank you for coming out today. Now we have one last question though. What is the winner win from this race? Oh, that's a that's a great question. The winner, the the two racers that get there, OK are are both winners. They will have gone through a a more really, really rigorous set of qualifying rounds in order to get to them out.
And you know the what what they're going with the the team that takes the checkered flag is going to get the checkered flag and it's also going to have the the the honor of being the first race winner on the MO. So we don't have a a cash prize or something like that. This is much actually more than them. He's deeper than that. It's just. Put They're not going to be motivated by cash. That's that's if.
Someone wants to come and give them cash, then you know we'll we'll make it a good scholarship. Yeah, and I'm sure somebody might be interested in that something, you know, some sort of sports drink or something like that might be interested, or some sort of energy drink. May I? May I share one more thing we'll sure of what you you just shared about your your dream when you were a kid. So when we when we looked at at women marketing, we looked at the and and what we wanted to
achieve. Things have not occurred in like what you experienced for many, many years and there's there's lots of reasons for that. It's not that we haven't had space heroes, it's not that we haven't had incredible stories. There hasn't been a a an Apollo moment since 1969. Nineteen 72, OK. Since then we we kind of let them run behind and and all of that sort of thing. We want to create because we can. Now we want to create an Apollo effect for kids.
We want kids to look at other kids and say wait a minute if they can do that, I can do that And that is something that hasn't occurred for many, many years. We can do that because we ask we have accessibility through space technology that that civilians haven't had before and we also have the ability through our communications and technology to engage for worldwide. So that's what we're going.
Oh, that's great. Yeah. You know, the, the, the reality of the situation is that, you know, these kind of things are going to be happening more so in the future, you know, than what I ever expected. Because we had, like you said, we had the Arpella moment when we were, you know, in the 70s, 60s and 70s. And then we have the space shuttle, we have people on the International Space Station. We don't have anything that's
like a big, big idea anymore. And I think this is one of those big ideas where people can get really inspired and get behind and young people, especially the way that you're marketing this and pushing this for young kids to get involved with all of those amazing, amazing techniques that they'll be using to get a racer to the freaking moon and then race it. On the and. Then race it and then maybe wind. Who knows. I mean, if if they get one, if they get the racer to the moon,
that is huge. That's a huge, huge deal for humanity. Like it's not just a a huge deal for for your company or intuitive machines or anything. Like it's a it's a huge deal for people, and for young people in particular, to move these little machines, you know, on the moon, like just getting them there and having them land, That's.
Amazing. That is absolutely our our intent and we have all since we've been born, we have how every human on Earth has had an experience with the moon and by and large it's been a positive experience.
And So what we're doing here is an intent is to you know a unifying experience that's positive and because we can, as I mentioned you know communicate globally, we have the ability to touch people in the way that that's meaningful to them and that's that's something that we really aspire to. That's really great. Well, I want to wrap this up for you, Mary. Thank you so much for showing up to the show today and. Oh, thank you.
Yeah, you're more than welcome. And if anybody wants to check out the race, you can go to Moon, Mark, dot, Space and get more information. Is there any other place they can find you on the Internet? Well. We're we're on all all the usual suspect places. We're on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. And check out TikTok coming up. Oh, cool. OK. Oh yeah. All right. Well, thanks so much, Mary. Appreciate it. And hopefully we will speak to you soon. Thank you very much.
You'll appreciate being here. Have a great. Day. Yeah, you too. Bye, Bye. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your support. If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode and each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly.
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