Now here's something worth talking about:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_hi_te/google_moon_prize

"Google Inc. is bankrolling a $30 million out-of-this-world prize to the
first private company that can safely land a robotic rover on the moon
and beam back a gigabyte of images and video to Earth, the Internet
search leader said Thursday.

"The rules call for a spacecraft to trek at least 1,312 feet across the
lunar surface and return a package of data including self-portraits,
panoramic views and near-real time videos. ...Whoever accomplishes the
feat by the end of 2012 will receive $20 million. If there is no winner,
the purse will drop to $15 million until the end of 2014 when the
contest expires. There is also a $5 million second-place prize and $5
million in bonus money to teams that go beyond the minimum requirements."

This prize seems well conceived to me -- challenging, but not
outrageous, and the second-place and bonus prizes are a nice touch,
mitigating the risk of coming in second and encouraging more diverse
entries. I predict that this will generate quite a bit of buzz, and
sometime between 2010 and 2012, somebody will win -- maybe even two
somebodies.

Comments?

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