About this project

An Introduction
Every child dreams of doing something great, something fantastical. Each one of us at one time stood and stared at the Moon, the Lady of the Night, and asked our parents if we could, someday, go there. Each of our parents replied in turn according to their disposition. In our case, they said, "Maybe. Someday. If you work really hard."

That someday is this day.

Team Phoenicia is undertaking a herculean venture of gloriously confounding proportions: we are entering the Google Lunar X Prize. To complete this profound endeavor, we will have to land a robot on the moon and take High Definition panoramic video of its 500m journey from its point of landing and transmit it back to Earth. As if that were not enough, we have to take equally high quality images en route from the Earth to the Moon.

Ponder for a moment: this project culminates in lobbing the product of our efforts an insane amount of distance at the cost of head spinning amounts of money. Yet at the end of that race there is glory, truly a glory that is as close to eternal as we can achieve in this life. It is not the glory of Homer. Or Caesar. It is nothing so merely transient as theirs.

Consider: whatever we place on the Moon will last. It will last past the last breath of the last human likely to live upon this world. Our rover, our robot, our creation will last millions, possibly billions of years upon the Moon. It may last until the moment when the Sun swells and engulfs the Inner Solar System and as a Red Giant incinerates the Earth and Moon. It will endure far, far longer than the congratulations of the press, our friends, and our families or the cursing of our competitors.

Or long past the days that those so transient Egyptian Pyramids have been blown away as dust.

That is a form of glory that is as nigh eternal as can be found in this life.

What Are We Doing
Team Phoenicia is a group aspiring to participate in the Google Lunar X Prize. The Google Lunar X Prize is a competition to land a rover on the Moon and travel more than 500 meters. During that time, it must transmit back HD video during that transit.

We have built a prototype rocket design that will be able to produce the delta-V necessary to land on the Moon. The very first rocket, named The Wind at Dawn, is nearly complete. We are in the process of finishing two more. These are what we need to learn how to fly small to medium sized rockets that would work as a lander on the lunar surface.

The team blog is http://teamphoenicia.blogspot.com.
The team website is http://www.teamphoenicia.org
The team youtube is http://www.youtube.com/user/teamphoenicia

We will be documenting all of our progress and work as it is complete on the team blog. All flights and test firings will be placed on youtube. Even the catastrophic ones. The team website will be ultimately reworked as well.

What We Need
We have been very successful in turning up in-kind sponsorships. Without them, we would not have gotten as far as we have. However, now as it is closing in on time to conduct our test flights, we need help monetarily.

Team Phoenicia has selected a test site in Northern California. We have negotiated a per day price.

We also have to get insurance for the flights.

There are associated other costs.

When Will This Happen?
Starting in the first weekend of February. We are going to reserve the airfield that weekend. We will do alternate weekends thereafter for up to 7 days of flight testing.

If You Exceed Your Goal, What Will the Extra Money Be Used For
Well, we really don't think we will. However, should we, additional days for more flight tests will be booked. You can never test enough with rockets!