Rover team back on track after initial delay

One team's project to send a rover to the moon, which was originally halted due to funding problems, has not stopped TeamSTELLAR members from continuing their race into outer space. The team's members have finished the rover's design and are working against 13 other teams, some of which have yet to complete an initial design.
      
TeamSTELLAR started in Oct. 2007 after Google announced its Lunar X-Prize competition. Richard Dell, program manager, co-founded the team with others dedicated to the world of space and technology.
      
Dell, who works mostly with the Advanced Vehicle Research Center, is on loan for this project. He spent more than 22 years with IBM starting as a Field Engineer, then in positions as instructor, field manager and program manager for strategic planning and large project management.
      
Gordon Jeans, a senior in engineering and another co-founder, has more than 10 years experience in all-terrain tracked and wheeled vehicles in harsh environments as well as normal operations. He is the assistant project manager.
      
“I guess I am a floater,” Jeans said. “My experience allows me to take part in basically every aspect of the project.”
              
TeamSTELLAR’s core team consists of eight men, but 130 people make up its volunteer team, 40 of whom are “extremely active,” Dell said.
     
“These aren’t just your normal volunteers,” Dell said. "They know their stuff. We have volunteers who are retired from NASA, and other veterans of the aerospace industry.”
   
These volunteers have been constantly researching to make the project better and more affordable.
     
“It is actually going to cost a lot less than we thought,” Dell said. “Only about one-third of what we first thought.”
      
The North Carolina State University Engineering Foundation gave TeamSTELLAR the funds it needs to get started, awarding it the $10,000 that was needed to enter the competition among 13 other teams.

But  that was not enough.
    
“We have come as far as we can on bootstraps,” Dell said.
    
The project has been on hold while team members came up with a business plan to help get the funding they needed. The team formed EarthSpace Commerce
as part of its business plan to help raise money and get the private and public funding it so desperately needs.
      
“We urge people to donate to EarthSpace Commerce,” Dell said.
      
But lack of funding has not kept the team from being competitive with its well-funded counterparts.
       
“We recently found out that we are actually ahead of some of the bigger
teams in the competition, as far as planning goes,” Dell said.
     
One team received $200,000 from its sponsor school -- an amount that team's members have already spent. That same team also just finished its business
plan, so TeamSTELLAR is right on pace with the rest of the competition.

“We’re actually not in as bad of shape as we thought,” Dell said.