There will actually be a robot on the Moon one day. It will look around as it moves for a short distance and it will send back high definition video if Google has anything to say about it. The exciting news, according to many sources, is that there are 29 teams from 17 countries who will work toward this goal in order to win the Lunar X prize.
The Lunar X Prize totals $30 million, which equates to £18.5 million.
With names like Mystical Moon of the USA, The Penn State Lunar Lions (USA), Space II of Israel and Team Puli of Hungary, the international flavor and worldwide involvement is exciting. The entire roster can be found at the Lunar X Prize foundation site.
But how can the teams hitchhike or buy a ticket to the moon? Is anyone going in the next few years? According to BBC news, several of the teams have bought space on rockets in order to get their robots to the moon. Space X, which is Paypal’s private space company, has plans for its Falcon Rocket and has worked with Carnegie Mellon University’s private space exploration firm. Russia, China and India have plans to send spacecraft to the moon.
The goal is to see which team can get a robot onto the surface of the Moon and send back video that it takes while it travels for 500 meters, or about one third of a mile.The first team to complete the task will receive $20 million and the second team to complete the task will receive $5 million.
There is an addition $1 million award for fostering diversity in the field of space exploration and even more: $4 million total for other accomplishments, such as traveling further and having gone to the location of a previous lunar mission.
The time frame for the competition is not a short one, however. The idea originated in 2007 and the winner may not be announced until 2015.
Some teams have been working for a while, which benefits NASA and ties into the ultimate benefits of privately sponsored space exploration initiatives. According to CNET, NASA’s budget for space exploration is expected to be cut by $276 million in 2012.
The good news is that some of the teams have already sold some of their data to NASA.The final benefit of the Google competition is that it helps to lead to way toward private, not government controlled or taxpayer sponsored initiatives in space exploration.
While most competitions are resolved fairly quickly, space exploration requires much longer time frames. It makes sense to set such a competition time period in terms of years or even a decade before any prize is awarded. Many valuable benefits will come from the discoveries and advancements that are made along the way to the ultimate prizes.
