Google Lunar X Prize
| Google Lunar X PRIZE | |
|---|---|
| Google Lunar X Prize logo | |
| Description | "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" [1] |
| Country | Worldwide |
| Presented by | X Prize Foundation (organizer), Google Inc. (sponsor) |
| Reward(s) | US$20 million for the winner, US$10 million bonusses |
| Website | googlelunarxprize.org |
The Google Lunar X PRIZE, abbreviated GLXP, sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0,[2][3] is a space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. It was announced at the Wired Nextfest on 13 September 2007.[4] The challenge calls for privately-funded spaceflight teams to compete in successfully launching, landing, and then traveling across the surface of the Moon with a robot, while also sending back to Earth specified images and other data.
Competition summary
The Google Lunar X PRIZE offers a total of $30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that successfully travels more than 500 metres (1,640 ft) and transmits back high definition images and video. The first team to do so will claim the US$20 million Grand Prize; while the second team to accomplish the same tasks will earn a US$5 million Second Place Prize. Teams can also earn additional money by completing additional tasks beyond the baseline requirements required to win the Grand or Second Place Prize, such as traveling ten times the baseline requirements (greater than 5,000 metres (3 mi)), capturing images of the remains of Apollo program hardware or other man-made objects on the Moon, verifying from the lunar surface the recent detection of water ice on the Moon, or surviving a lunar night. Additionally, a US$1 million Diversity Award may be given to teams that make significant strides in promoting diversity in STEM Fields. Finally, Space Florida, one of the "Preferred Partners" for the competition has offered an additional US$2 million bonus to teams who launch their mission from the state of Florida.
The Google Lunar X PRIZE expires when all constituent purses have been claimed or at the end of the year 2015 (whichever comes first). To provide an added incentive for teams to complete their missions quickly and thereby create the first vehicles to operate on the surface of the Moon since 1976, the value of the Grand Prize will decrease from US$20 million to US$15million whenever a government-led mission lands on and explores the lunar surface.[1]
Overview
Peter Diamandis, the project founder, wrote on the official web page:
"It has been many decades since we explored the Moon from the lunar surface, and it could be another 6 - 8 years before any government returns. Even then, it will be at a large expense, and probably with little public involvement."[5]
The goal of the Google Lunar X Prize is similar to that of the Ansari X Prize: to inspire a new generation of private investment in hopes of developing more cost-effective technologies and materials to overcome many limitations of space exploration that are currently taken for granted.
Origin of the prize
Similar to the way in which the Ansari X Prize was formed, the Google Lunar X Prize was created out of a former venture of Peter Diamandis to achieve a similar goal. Dr. Diamandis served as CEO of BlastOff! Corporation, a commercial initiative to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon as a mix of entertainment, internet, and space. Although it was ultimately unsuccessful, the BlastOff! initiative paved the way for the Google Lunar X Prize.[6]
Initially, NASA was the planned sponsor and the prize purse was just US$20 million. As NASA is a federal agency of the United States government, and thus funded by US tax money, the prize would only have been available to teams from the United States. The original intention was to propose the idea to other national space agencies, including the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency, in the hope that they would offer similar prize purses. However, budget setbacks stopped NASA from sponsoring the prize. Peter Diamandis then presented the idea to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, at an X Prize Foundation board meeting. They agreed to sponsor it, and also to increase the prize purse to US$30 million, allowing for a second place prize, as well as bonus prizes.
Heritage bonus prize controversy
Some objections have been raised to the offering of a bonus "Heritage Prize" to the first group that successfully sends images back to Earth of the site of a previous lunar landing, such as Tranquility Base.[7] It has been noted that such sites are archaeologically and culturally significant, and that a team attempting to win the heritage bonus might inadvertently damage or destroy such a site, either during the landing phase of the mission, or by piloting a rover around the site.
The X Prize Foundation has recognized the presence of historical "Sites of Interest" in its rulebook for competitors and states that all mission plans must be approved in order to avoid "unnecessary risk," but as of June 2009 it has not offered any specific guidelines or criteria to participating groups to assist in planning. As a result, archaeologists have called for the foundation to cancel the heritage bonus and to ban groups from targeting landing zones within 100 kilometers of previous sites.[8]
The foundation has responded to this criticism, in an interview dated 9 June 2009, posted on Scientific American's website.[9] The foundation's newly stated position—that it hopes to foster debate about how to visit previous lunar landing sites, but that it does not want to take on the role of deciding how those visits should happen—has also been criticized by one of the authors of the editorial that started the controversy.[10]
Competitors
As of September 2010, there are 23 officially registered Google Lunar X Prize teams:[11]
