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Google's $30,000,000 Lunar X PRIZE

Posted by Zonk on from the space-is-the-final-search-field dept.

chroma writes "It's been a long time since anyone has explored the surface of the moon. But now Google has teamed up with the X PRIZE Foundation to offer a $30,000,000 bounty to the first privately funded organization to land a robotic rover on the moon. Google, of course, has offered the free Google Moon mapping service for a few years now. Looks like the other search engines have some catching up to do in the space exploration department."

5 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Self serving by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah...all the candidates keep mentioning all these difficult-to-meet and ridiculous requirements that must be met to employed there...like air, water, food, protection from the Sun's radiation... The interview usually ends right there.

    --
    My blog
  2. robots.txt? by adnonsense · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will this robotic rover obey the moon's robots.txt? (It's available by querying the Tycho crater).

    FYI the robots.txt for Jupiter's Galilean moons looks like this:

    User-Agent: *
    Allow: /io/
    Allow: /ganymede/
    Allow: /callisto/
    Disallow: /europa/
  3. Re:Shoot the Moon by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
    > How do I prove I landed a robot on the Moon? Can I just email a link to a YouTube video (that I shot at Capricorn One Studios)?

    Use a solar-powered antenna to broadcast this on a HAM band. Once a month.

    Then kick back and enjoy the FCC going into paroxysms of incoherent rage trying to shut down a pirate radio broadcaster who happens to have a transmitter on The Fucking Moon. (Sure, the FCC can pull your licnese, but it'll still have to divert half its budget into a followup lunar mission to shut the transmitter off!)

  4. Re:Self serving by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

    Too bad that page is a parody. Bullshit. If that page is a parody, how is it that Google has an almost endless supply of green cheese in their cafeteria? Huh? Explain that one, smart guy!
  5. We need to up the stakes by east+coast · · Score: 5, Funny

    30 million for such a feat? Bah! There will be no serious contestants. We need to pass around the hat and get that up to a reputable figure that will bring out the serious engineers and rocket scientists.

    I'll do my part. The pot is now up to $30,000,005.00.

    That's cash money!

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.