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

[tuvas]

Something else that no one has said about Google backing it, to a degree they already have an agreement with NASA with several things, why not try to fund something privately? It does make sense. Google isn't above doing things that help people with different things, even some of which might not turn a profit, but, well, it doesn't hurt.

As to what the commercial value is of such an application, there are 3 things that I can think of (One of which I heard from here). First of all, someone could potentially land a rover on the moon, and sell the rights to control the rover for a period of time. The moon would be idea for this, because there's always somewhere facing the Earth, and it gets 2 weeks of sun at a time. I know many people on here are MER fans, just imagine if you could control it for a period of time. There are people who would pay alot of money for that. If you can get to the moon for around $30 million, and stay there for say, 3 lunar days, assuming 2 weeks of sellability per lunar day, and you've got 6 weeks worth of time to sell. That's 40 days, so you only have to make $1 million or so per day, and you're in the green. If you could sell an hour controlling the moon rover for $40,000, or perhaps some kind of exclusive footage for a price, you're doing quite well. Add in corporate sponsorships, etc, and you're in real good condition. Of course, there's alot of ifs here, but, well, it is in theory possible.

Secondly, it's one more stage to the moon. If you can get a robot there, then it's not that much harder to get a habitat, then humans there. It's a building block for future manned missions to the moon, that don't have anything to do with the government.

Lastly, as someone mentioned, anyone capable of doing such a thing can easily get NASA contracts.

So, as a whole, it's probably not going to turn a profit right away, but it's a start. I could see alot of technology being played at because of this mission. Just thought I'd toss in my $.02.