Google bankrolls $30 Million Moon contest

Global internet company, Google which is already providing close-up, interactive space views with just the click of a mouse is planning to add another feather to its cap. It has announced the audacious spaceflight contest Google Lunar X Prize for the private companies to land a robotic rover on the moon and get gigabyte of images and video to Earth.
Google has partnered with the X Prize Foundation which comes as no surprise. Earlier this year, Page (trustee of the X Prize Foundation) hosted a star-studded charity auction for the foundation at the company’s Mountain View headquarters.
The Google Lunar X Prize announcement was attended by Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin and featured a video message by sci-fi film director James Cameron.
According to the contest rules, completion of the task of roving and sending video and data will bring the winner $20 million. There is also a $5 million second-place prize and $5 million in bonus money to teams that go beyond the minimum requirements. If there is no winner, the purse will drop to $15 million until the end of 2014, when the contest expires.
So far, famed roboticist William Red Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon University has expressed the interest.
Image Credit
Source: The New York Times
Tags: Google, Buzz Aldrin, Google Lunar X Prize, Moon Contest, Travel