» Follow me on Twitter

At first I couldn’t believe it when I saw the article in my feed reader but heck it’s true. Google is indeed to sponsor the $30 million lunar X Prize! What’s in your mind Google? I can’t help but wonder.

Who can participate? Anybody who can land a lunar rover capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and transmit a mooncast back to Earth. It’s a hard-to-reach goal but it’s not impossible. Schools, private organizations, corporations, and even “garage scientists” can participate.

I quote from Space.com

The Google Lunar X Prize sets the competition bar much higher than suborbital space.

“This next major X Prize has a mission that goes far beyond suborbital flight, and extends the economic sphere of humanity 10 times farther beyond geostationary Earth orbit … all the way to the Moon,” said Peter Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation’s chairman and chief executive officer. “This competition will once again demonstrate that small teams of dedicated individuals can do what was once thought viable only by governments.”

Read complete Space.com article here.

The $30 Million prize will be divided into the following:

• $20 Million Grand Prize to the first team who will be able to complete the mission before the end of 2012
• $5 Million second prize
• $5 Million bonus prize

The grand prize will drop to $15 Million if the first accomplished mission is made between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2014.

If there’s Web 2.0 then a warm applause please for Moon 2.0 - a new era in lunar exploration that uses small robotic rovers. To make the mission easier, a few strategic alliances have been forged. Here are a few:

• The Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of El Segundo, California will provide competing teams a 10 percent discount if they launch their rover using one of its Falcon launch vehicles - identified as “the first preferred launch vehicle”
• The SETI Institute will grant access at no cost to its Allen Telescope Array to be used as a “preferred” downlink provider.
• At least couple of schools namely the St. Louis Science Center in Missouri and the International Space University in France will conduct a worldwide network of museums and outreach programs.

Apparently, with all the help around, all that the participating teams need to do is make that rover and of course… raise the needed money.

What’s in it for Google? Not sure but here’s a thought. The moon is a highly possible “mining” destination for private corporations. If Google can get a share of that then it’s good for business.

Well… well… well, what’s in your mind Google? Are you really dominating the Earth and beyond? I say, if you can do it then I say you’re worth it.

More reads at the Google Blog and at www.googlelunarxprize.org.

» Follow me on Twitter

The Hubble space telescope has been providing us earthlings with great images of space. It does so by taking photos of the cosmos from above Earth’s atmosphere and no matter how large earth-bound telescopes are, they simply can’t get rid of the blurring effect produced by our life-giving atmosphere. Hubble was nearly sentenced to death in the past due to glitches to its system but it’s still up there - aging and dying - because there simply is no replacement for it’s sharp photos - yet.

(more…)