Author Topic: Google's "Lunar Prize"  (Read 3109 times)

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Offline IronDioPriest

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Google's "Lunar Prize"
« on: February 20, 2011, 01:08:11 PM »
Google's Lunar X-Prize Gets Real
Google's Lunar X-Prize gears up­—and even NASA is lining up to buy data from private explorers.


NASA isn't heading back to the moon anytime soon, with astronauts or robots, but that doesn't mean there are no lunar races to follow.

Today the organizers of the Google Lunar X Prize announced the final roster of teams competing in a $30 million race to the lunar surface. And much to their surprise, 29 teams have signed on to the mission, more than they ever expected. "When we started this thing [in 2007], we were hopeful that we'd have a dozen teams," says Will Pomerantz, senior director for space prizes at the X Prize Foundation. "Now we're pushing 30 teams... Some came out of the woodwork at the end."

The terms of the contest are easy, but succeeding is hard. A private firm has to send a robot to the moon. After it gets there, the bot will travel 980 feet and transmit video, images and data back to the Earth. The prize: $30 million...

More @ Popular Mechanics...
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