30 million in the Google Lunar X PRIZE challenge, a race to the moon. The new teams join the Isle of Man-based Odyssey Moon team that was the first group to take up the challenge. Google officials hadn't expected this many contestants to sign up this early and were "floored" by the jump in competitors. Google Lunar X PRIZE Cup organizers also announced their partnership with Space Florida; this organization will be offering launch site services and $2 million in extra prize money to the winning team if they blast off from Florida.For a team to win the Google Lunar X Prize 90 percent of their funding must come from the private sector. The first team to land their robot on the moon and complete a gauntlet of tasks with it by Dec. 31, 2012, will snatch the $20 million grand prize. The second team to achieve lunar victory by 2014 will take $5 million in prize money, and another $5 million is on the table for difficult bonus objectives. With all of the new entrys into the competition Google and the X Prize organizers should be very optimistic about the chances of someone actually reaching the moon. In 2013, the first-place purse drops to $15 million and will expire altogether on Dec. 31, 2014. So hopefully someone will come up with some ideas crazy enough to reach the Moon and all of the required objectives before 2013 or at least before 2015. But as we know, only time will tell.
If you want to read about all of the teams here is the link to the page on the Google Lunar X Prize official website.
Source: GoogleLunarXPrize.org
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Thanks for keeping us up todate on this, it will be very interesting to see if someone makes it, and what the final cost will be, gotta be more then 30 mil.
Yes it should be quite interesting to see how this turns out. I would imagine that even if no one bags the first prize there will still be some technological discoveries that come about because of this venture.
The Fool
Thanks for the post Fool. I hadn't heard of this project. I sure hope that one of the teams succeeds. But I wonder about the amount of the grand prize money. Twenty million doesn't seem like very much as an incentive. After all, they'll spend several times that amount just building out their launch vehicle and robot. I know they'll raise a lot of money - maybe Yahoo, or even Microsoft will chip in, but still, to only bring home such a small purse - it seems like it's almost an insult.
Well Swubird the way I see it is that the Google Lunar X Prize will provide publicity for the competitors, which gives them some possible funding through venture capitalists. Then if they make it to the moon they have the rights to all that technology which can make a lot of money by itself and then they get a possible $25 million on top of that. Sounds like a very good opportunity for those in the right spot. But I see where you are saying that the $20 million won't really cover much of the voyage
The Fool
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