Google sponsors $30 million Moon landing prize
‘Web search leader Google Inc. will sponsor a $30 million competition for an unmanned lunar landing, following up on the $10 million Ansari X Prize that spurred a private sector race to space.
Like the Ansari X Prize, which was claimed in 2004 by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen for a pair of flights by SpaceShipOne, the Google Lunar X Prize is open to private industry and non-government entities worldwide, organizers said on Thursday.
First prize is $20 million for the group that can land a lunar rover – an unmanned robotic probe – on the Moon, take it on a 500-metre trek and broadcast video back to Earth by 31 December 2012.’
