Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamHeard
It's a noble idea.... but 30 million is hardly enough to cover the cost to design, build, program, test and launch a rover.
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It's not out of the question for the launch part of the mission to cost less than ten million dollars. That leaves more than twenty million to design and build a landing system and the rover itself. Volunteer labor is cheap, and off-the-shelf components can be surprisingly capable. You don't need military-grade hardware if you design in system-level redundancy, and you might be surprised at how easy it is to use consumer-grade components if you simply put them in a pressurized and air-conditioned box.
Also, a significant amount of rover design is already complete, as part of a number of long-running projects that never got significant funds raised to go beyond the design phase.