Google backs private Moon landing, Google is offering a $30m prize pot to private firms that land a Options

[SkyeLab]

FROM: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6993373.stm


Firms interested in trying for the prize have until the end of 2012 to mount their Moonshot

Anyone fancy a crack at this?

Cheers

Brian

[djellison]

I can understand how and my why the first X-Prize was won... it was essentially a back-dated seed-fund for sub-orbital tourism. What does this seed? I mean - a little rover on the moon - very very very very cool - cool beyond words - but where's the commercial return on it?

Doug

[JRehling]

I can understand how and my why the first X-Prize was won... it was essentially a back-dated seed-fund for sub-orbital tourism. What does this seed? I mean - a little rover on the moon - very very very very cool - cool beyond words - but where's the commercial return on it?

Doug

As a business, Google operates in a number of ways that seem to defy the laws of gravity, metaphorically speaking.

The most cynical outlook would be that they're gambling that the "cool factor" PR for Google will be worth the (to-them) measly sum of money. And if they miscalculate, they lose little, since they're operating almost as a monopoly and have money to burn.

Cool factor and uniqueness don't scale, however. I think the declining media attendance at the launches of Apollo 11, 12, and 13 tell that tale. This may, through marketing intangibles, be a break-even operation for Google, but it's not like every company will dish out cash so they can be the 8th corporation to fund an irrelevant lunar mission.

If successful, this will be a one-shot stunt. If not successful, it will be a no-shot stunt.