Guest: Kevin Sloan. Topics: The 2012 Mars Society University Rover Challenge. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. We welcomed Kevin Sloan back to the program to discuss the Sixth Annual Mars Society University Rover Challenge (URC). Much of the information we discussed is on the URC website, http://urc.marssociety.org so do follow along with us. In addition, while this program contains the typical Space Show three segments, our URC discussion overlapped the segments so this summary has been written without separating out the discussion by segment. We started our program with Kevin by asking about the 2012 teams and the international makeup of the teams. You can check out this year's contestants and their project websites at http://urc.marssociety.org/home/team-info. Kevin also talked about the site location which is as before, near Hanksville, Utah in the vicinity of the MDRS. As in past years, there are no facilities for visitors or those wanting to see the competition. We must wait for website pictures and news. Kevin explained the probable timing for releasing information during the challenge which runs from May 31-June 2, 2012. As with previous years, the contestants must have their rovers do four projects. These projects are described in Section 3.b of Rules & Regulations. When you go to this link, http://urc.marssociety.org/home/requirements-guidelines, click to download the data and then scroll down to 3.b. Briefly, the four tasks include a site survey task, a sample return task, a remote science documentation procedure, and an astronaut assistance task. We talked about the challenge being open to high school students, the gender makeup of the teams, potential ITAR issues for the foreign participants, and some general questions about Mars for HSF. We also talked about the Mars Society and some of its other programming. Listeners asked logistical and how to compete questions. We also mentioned the NASA news release about their receiving overwhelming new ideas for Mars missions. The URL I mentioned on air is http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/24may_newconc…. If you have questions or comments about our discussion, please post them on The Space Show blog. If you have specific questions for Kevin about the URC, there is a contact page on the URC website for you to use. Make sure you reference his being on The Space Show.
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