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LunaCorp has announced that
RadioShack Corporation has become the first corporate sponsor of
LunaCorp’s Icebreaker Moon Rover. RadioShack is investing US$1
million in the Moon rover project.  RadioShack’s
investment is for this year, and the company will consider further
support of the venture. The 200 kg (440 lbm) Icebreaker
Moon Rover is scheduled for launch in late 2003 on a, yet to be
selected, commercial rocket. The
rover will prospect for water near the Moon's poles, useful in
preparing the way for future human settlements, with the
exploration presented live on the Internet, on television networks
and at science centers. The
rover is being designed by the Robotics Institute of Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
The Icebreaker Moon Rover
project expects be funded by three to four additional corporate
sponsors,  exclusive
television contracts, fees from an Internet portal, ticket sales
at science centers offering motion-platform "telepresence
chambers" linked to the robot, and contracts with government
space agencies. The price for the entire project is
estimated to be about US$130 million.
 LunaCorp
President Davis Gump estimates, "There is a huge audience for
this,” citing the 556 million page views that NASA’s Mars
Pathfinder drew in 1997 in its first month of operation, when the
internet was only one-third its present size. RadioShack will
provide high-resolution, surround-sound mini-theaters at its 7,100
nationwide store locations that it now uses for its concert series
called "Music in High Places." In the next few months RadioShack will begin showing lunar
footage and a message from astronaut Buzz Aldrin announcing
LunaCorp’s and RadioShack’s plans. Aldrin, who is an advisor
to LunaCorp, will play a big role in future campaigns for the
partnership. Also, RadioShack
is teaming with Microsoft to offer
through
its website, www.RadioShack.com
, an online computer game simulator of lunar-robot driving.
The Robotics Institute rover
design will conduct a terrestrial test in July 2001 in the
Canadian Arctic, where a prototype will circle a local high spot
in 24 hours, as the Sun tracks around the horizon.
NASA is financing the field trial with a US$1 million grant
and LunaCorp's corporate sponsors will pay for the communications
required to link the robot to the Internet so the entire world can
participate.
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