Google Lunar X Prize

Google and X PRIZE officials have recently unveiled nine new privately funded teams that will compete for $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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NASA has named their future lunar lander Altair

After going through many acronyms and technical names NASA has settled on Altair as the name of their next lunar lander. Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and is the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. Also in Latin it means eagle which relates back to the Apollo 11 Eagle. The new Altair logo can be found at http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-121307a.html. Orion crew vehicles and Altair lunar landers will launch to Earth orbit on Ares I and Ares V rockets respectively. Each lander will be capable of bringing up to four astronauts to the surface of the moon along with supplies and equipment to set up an outpost. Hopefully we will be back to the moon by 2020 with NASA though I imagine we will be there much sooner by the way of private companies especially with Google's X Prize (Odyssey Moon accepts Google X Prize). Well I wish best of luck to NASA and their endeavors.

Odyssey Moon Accepts Google X Prize Challenge

This Thursday Odyssey Moon unveiled its plans the enter Google's Lunar X Prize. The Google X Prize competition is a global race to see who can land the first private spacecraft on the moon without any government aid. The competition has a $30 million dollar purse which will hardly cover the expected $60-$100 million cost of the venture but the company will then have a moon capable spacecraft which will be worth quite a lot and they may even have a new and ripe market for their services. Based in the Isle of Man – located just off the west coast of Great Britain – Odyssey Moon's inaugural mission will involve a small robotic lander designed to deliver scientific, exploration and commercial gear to the surface of the Moon. Odyssey Moon believes that there will sometime soon be a moon rush and they intend to cash in on it. The Google X Prize must be won by 2013 for anyone to get the prize money.

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