Google to the Moon

Google wants to give you $20 million. All you have to do is build a robot and send it to the Moon.

Google and the X Prize Foundation today challenged private companies from around the world to a “robotic race to the Moon.”

To win the grand prize of $20 million, “a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth.”

The $20 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is available until the end of 2012. After that the top prize will drop to $15 million and would expire at the end of 2014. There’s also $5 million for second place and another $5 million in bonus prizes. Bonuses are available for roving long distances, imaging manmade artifacts like Apollo hardware, discovering ice or surviving the frigid lunar nights that last two Earth weeks.