Mar 3 2011
Google’s Lunar X Prize Foundation has made an announcement to the effect that 29 teams would compete for the $30 million prize for sending a robot on a lunar mission.
The robot would travel a minimum distance of 500 meter and also send out data, images and videos to the Earth. The teams were from different groups such as Universities and non-profit organizations. NASA with a budget of $18.7 billions would sponsor space science and robotics exploration missions.
The competitors represent four continents and have groups participating from 17 nations. The competition organized by Google and the X Prize Foundation, was launched on September 2007 and has plans of choosing a winner by the year 2015. Peter Diamandis, CEO and Chairman of the X Prize Foundation revealed that officially the private race to the Moon had begun. He further stated that they had expected only some 12 groups to be bold enough to participate in the competition and hence they were amazed to see almost 30 groups of innovators ready to show the path to the Moon.
Apart from the Penn State Lunar Lions, seven new teams were also announced that included Space II of Israel and Mystical Moon of the U.S.A. These two teams were on a quest to enhance scientific awareness. Team Puli of Hungary consisting of young professionals is also to compete.
Space Exploration is thus taken away from the hands of the Government agencies and placed into the Private Sector by the Google Lunar X Prize. The Private sector has investors who are capable of funding such projects. NASA has declared that it would acquire data gathered by the lunar missions from six Google Lunar X Prize teams by giving them contracts of $ 10 million each.
Source: http://www.xprize.org/