Google has recently teamed up with the X-Prize Foundation in order to launch the Google Lunar X-Prize challenge.
In order to help motivate the private sector, Google is offering a $20 million purse to anyone who soft lands a rover on the Moon, with five million dollars to any team coming in second place.
The X-Prize foundation has also provided a video to help inspire future engineers to join in the second great race towards the moon.
What makes this competition really worthwhile is the fact that the Google X-Prize Lunar challenge will be awarding an extra $5 million to the team that is able to find either ice water, a previous lunar landing or survive a "lunar night" (which is approximately 14.5 Earth days long).
Whether or not teams will actually be able to accomplish a soft landing for under $20 million is subject to debate (as launching rockets can be quite expensive).
However, if a team is able to actually land a rover upon the Moon's surface and locate valuable resources, they may be able to not only secure future profits, but their place in history as well.
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You can either visit the stars or watch them from afar.
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~Darnell Clayton, 2007
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