SFS News: Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE to Create a Space...

(X-Prize) - Google Sponsors Lunar X PRIZE to Create a Space Race for a New Generation
$30 Million Purse to be Awarded to Winners

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse. Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The X PRIZE Foundation, best known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private suborbital spaceflight, is an educational nonprofit prize organization whose goal is to bring about radical breakthroughs to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity,â€

How long will it take before we (the industry, not government) lands a rover on the moon ?

My guess: 2011.

Well, buy a Falcon and you're allready at the moon. So you would only need a lander to put the rover safely down. If Armadillo could make a small version of it's lander then the only problem would be the rover itself. So in terms of technical feasibility i'd say 2-3 years. But the money still outweighs the technical issue. So, from that perspective, 2015 would be optimistic.

And am i the only one who thinks that 30 milion dollar is:
1. Small change for Google.
2. Too low an amount.
3. The price is worth nothing in 5 years if the dollar continues on its' voyage down.

I would have hoped something more pro-active from the google-bros.

I think it will be pretty much 2012 - 2020 im not overly optimistic it will be done.

What sort of size rocket are we thinking of?

When do we hear who has signed up?

Can teams be built from multiple companies?

All good though, sure as with the last Xprize all the news/gossip will be here

Rob

I notice the video says there is a prize for finding old exploration technology, eg Apollo things!

Anyone wanna laugh for a bit! this should stop all hoax theories!

Gonna be good!

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Hey Google, the Moonrovers Prize was MY idea!!!

http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/008moonprize.html




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Haven't seen you putting up prize-money

That idea was already floating around way back before you wrote it on your site, it's about doing, not thinking!

then, you're saying that, if YOU invent something of VALUABLE and publish it on the web, EVERY big company is authorized to use it ...just having enough MONEY and POWER...

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good ideas don't "float"... they EXIST or DON'T EXIST... MY idea of a Moonrovers Prize actually EXISTS since published TWO years ago on my website and proposed on several space forums and blogs

however, this is NOT a REAL prize but just a Google's big "viral marketing" operation that will FAIL since the advantage of internet is that (both) very little bloggers and BIG companies can publish their opinions on the web

then, I will disseminate the web with my version of facts, so, everyone in the world will judge by himself...

I've no fear of Google!

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No - I'm saying: You haven't done anything with it

if you have a good idea, but don't use it, that doesn't means a company can use it and (also) say it is an "original idea developed in their labs"

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So what are u planning to do about?

It might be a idea of yours, so? I have an idea too, a prize for the first private team to land a probe on an asteroid. If Google, Microsoft or some other Fortune 100 company decides to put a bounty for it, I'm all for it, whether they bother to credit anyone.

I've not made a list of dozens possible prizes but proposed the ONLY prize that has commercial and technical interest and is in the limits of private ability... infact, THAT is the Google/X-Prize choice!

In other words, my moonrovers prize idea is like an advertising idea to sell a new car (published on the web and actually USED by a big car company to sell more cars and make more money NOW) while (now) your asteroids prize is unrealistic and sci-fi so NO ONE will use it now since NO ONE can make MONEY now or have FREE WORLD PUBLICITY using your idea.

Just invent a new kind of shoe to walk the beach and in a few months you will see millions copies from China... invent a shoe to walk on Mars and no one will take you seriously.

There are lots of strange ideas on the web but only a few are COMMERCIAL and can produce a profit if made (or copied...).

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do you think that Google's guys actually USE its own search engine?

well, do a search using the keywords "moonrover prize" and see the result.. the #1 position in the results WAS and STILL is the same...

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Wow! I'd be very interested in working on a lunar rover project! Next week I'm starting takeing graduate courses at an university that has a strong robotics, mechatronics, and cubesat program. I'm going to look into this...