Breaking News: New X-Prize targets the Moon

Google is the sponsor for the new $30 Million Moon X-Prize: The Lunar X-Prize shall create a "Space Race for a New Generation".

The prize is for the first private group to successfully put a robotic rover on the moon.

We can expect more information to come online soon:
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale will participate in the prize announcement today in Los Angeles.

We will keep you updated while more detailed information will come in.

well spotted Klaus!

Can't wait to get some more info!!!!!
very exciting!

Rob

Source? xprize.org still has nohing.

If it's true, i think they lost their sense of reality. They are missing a few steps there. Orbit, moon slingshot en then a landing.

Ah well. I hope i am very wrong off course.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-wo ... 64223.html

Lol just $ 30 million.



So if they buy a falcon 1 for 8 milion and built there rover for just 2, than it can be done. If they have to make their own rocket also, that's suicide for the prize. So let's hope SpaceX can built a lot of Falcon ones.

Mmmm, perhaps fake. The story links to http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/ but that is not there.

Never mind, they forgot the X...

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/ is finally online.

Yeah, what he said.

this was all over the news.

What I find funny is that hopefully the probe will take pictures of the apollo crap left behind on the moon, and put the "moon landings were faked" conspiracy theory in the dustbin where it belongs.

According to the article "Google to Sponsor $30 Million Lunar X Prize" (www.space.com/news/070913_google_xprize.html)

So the competitors will have to pay $ 6.3 mio only for a Falcon 1-launch, $ 7.65 mio for a Falcon 1-launch using a Merlin 1a, $ 31.5 mio for a Falcon 9-launch and $ 81 mio for a Falcon 9 Heavy-launch.

But until 2012/2013 () these prices will drop significantly because the present prices don't account for reusability - according to Elon Musk. The numbers got in the SpaceX-related thread in the Financial Barriers-section - to be recalculated - up to now indicate that the drops may be in the order of tens of millions of dollars regarding the Falcon 9 Heavy and that they will be in the order of millions of dollars regarding Falcon 1 and Falcon 9.

So the prize-money may cover the launch costs easyly.

The rover itself might be an investment significantly below $ 30 mio or even $ 20 mio while the R&D-investment may be larger than that into the rover itself.

A success of the competition will make NASA, ESA, ROSKOSMOS and JAXA lokk bad.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

I agree with NASA, ESA and JAXA but not with Roscosmos (when I see them as the follow-up agency from the Soviet Union). They had real great achievements with their robotic lunar missions, named Lunochod.

And these are even a step further than the new X-Prize. Getting samples back to Earth.