This is a very interesting approach to a sophisticated project. Team Frednet wants to send a lunar rover to the moon using less money by using the open source model. I think that this is an excellent idea! It gets people from all around the world together to work on it, creating a community of people with common interests.
This could eventually advance space exploration technology by opening communication lines between many different scientists and engineers that may never speak or write to each other otherwise.
It also inspires young people to study robotics and space exploration, getting them to think about these things from a young age.
Another great things is that it gets this project away from bloated, publicly funded groups like NASA which means they will find new ways to cut cost and maybe make future space travel cheaper.
Check out their site, who knows maybe you can help too!
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I certainly hope this sort of thing does move us away from bloated publicly funded groups like NASA, but I think that will be a long time in coming, if ever. The $20 million in prize money really isn't enough, but its surprising even that much is up for offer, so I can't really complain about that. It would certainly be great if someone could get the job done for under $20 million though! If these Fred Net folks actually accomplished that...what happens with the money? If it were actually divided up between the various volunteer contributors, even though they would likely take a big loss on their original "investment", that at least would be kind of a cool gimmick to promote people making donations to the project. That and bumper stickers, pins, links you can add to your My Space page, and that sort of thing. They need better marketing like that if they really want the money and aren't just playing around.
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