Stories tagged private space exploration

Money for the moon: You can win up to $25 million if you're the first person in the next five years to successfully get a roving craft to the moon and send data back to Earth. Good luck! (Photo courtesy of NASA)Looking for a good science fair project and wanting to make a little cash on the side at the same time? Then check this out.

The X Prize Foundation in connection with Google has announced it will give $25 million to the first successful entity to land a rover on the moon and send back electronic data back to Earth.

The foundation is the same group that back in 2004 challenged private aerospace efforts to pilot a craft into the threshold of space.

So here’s exactly what you need to do to get $20 million:
• Get your rover to the moon.
• Have it travel at least 500 meters across the moon’s surface.
• Send back high-resolution video, photos or other data.

For an additional $5 million bonus prize, you need to:
• Have the rover cover 5,000 meters of moon surface
• Send back images of man-made artifacts on the moon, such as lunar craft from the Apollo missions.

The full values of the prizes will be available until Dec. 31, 2012, or when some group successfully completes the tasks. Then the reward drops to $15 million for the next couple years.

Full details on the contest are available at www.xprize.org.

Tags : moon, moon mission, private space exploration

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