Filed under: Launches, Google (GOOG), Marketing and advertising

Already dominating life here on earth, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is now making plans to conquer outer space too.

Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize yesterday at its headquarters in Mountain View, California. The competition offers $30 million in prizes to anyone who can get a robot to the moon and send back pictures and other data.

According to an article in Friday’s New York Times, 10 teams have joined the competition. The teams include robotic experts from American universities, an Italian aerospace company, the Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association, and a group of engineers who will work together online.

It’s hard not to admire Google for doing this. Sergey Brin compared Google’s support of space exploration to other companies’ support of yacht racing — the big difference being that space exploration develops interesting new technologies and expands human capacities while yacht racing simply provides entertainment for the super rich. And at a time when the American government is led by incompetent simpletons, it’s good to see someone picking up the slack in terms of technical investment and development. On the other hand, some people might worry that the commercialization of space is the last thing we need. I certainly hope that the lunar surface remains free of advertising, though I suspect that it won’t be too long before we start seeing corporate logos painted onto moon rock.

For those of you who are considering entering the competition, here are the basic rules from the Lunar X Prize web site:

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million international competition to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. Teams must be at least 90% privately funded and must be registered to compete by December 31, 2010. The first team to land on the Moon and complete the mission objectives will be awarded $20 million; the full first prize is available until December 31, 2012. After that date, the first prize will drop to $15 million. The second team to do so will be awarded $5 million. Another $5 million will awarded in bonus prizes. The final deadline for winning the prize is December 31, 2014.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Goog news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.