Moon 2.0: The Google moon challenge contest

Google Inc is offering a US$30mil (RM105mil) contest that could significantly boost the commercial space industry and spur the first non-governmental flight to the moon. They call it Moon 2.0 and the bulk of the prize will go to the first private company that can land a robotic rover on the moon and beam back a gigabyte of images and video to Earth.

For this challenge Google partnered with the X Prize Foundation, which is open to companies all around the world. The Santa Monica-based nonprofit prize institute is best known for hosting the Ansari X Prize contest, which led to the first manned private spaceflight in 2004. The Google Lunar X Prize joins another prize already dangling in front of potential competitors: US$50mil (RM175mil) that hotel magnate Robert Bigelow is offering the first private American team to rocket a manned craft into orbit by 2010.

Any spacecraft participate must be tough enough to survive a landing and be equipped with high-definition video and still cameras and also it must be smart enough to trek at least 400m on the moon and send self-portraits, panoramic views and near-real-time videos back to Earth that will be streamed on Google’s website.

Participants must secure a launch vehicle for the probe, either by building it themselves or contracting with an existing private rocket company. Private rocket company Space X said it will subsidise use of its launch vehicle to interested competitors. The company, headed by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, has not had a fully successful launch in two tries.

“I hope that a very ambitious team of people will allow us all to virtually go back to the moon very soon. I couldn’t be more excited about that,” said teh Google co-founder Larry Page at WIRED magazine’s technology show in Los Angeles. If there is no winner, the purse will drop to US$15mil (RM52.5mil) until the end of 2014, when the contest expires. There is also a US$5mil (RM17.5mil) second-place prize and US$5mil in bonus money to teams that go beyond the minimum requirements.