Google Backs Private Moon Landing With Google Lunar X PRIZE

Sep 13, 2007 at 5:36pm ET by Danny Sullivan

It has nothing to do with organizing the world’s information — but I don’t care, it’s pretty cool. Google’s backing a private moon landing. In particular, it’s putting up $30 million for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a contest for private landings on the moon.

Can you land a craft that will roam for 500 meters and transmit back to earth? Do it first and before 2013, and $20 million could be yours. Check out the exact rules here.

FYI, Google’s already got one moon project already going, Google Moon, a map of the moon that went live back in July 2005. That’s been updated now with an all new version in conjunction with today’s announcement. Google Mars followed in March 2006, then Google Sky opened up viewing the stars and universe just last month.

For more coverage as people react, just out the Techmeme roundup.

Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series, maintains a personal blog called Daggle and can be followed on Twitter here.

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4 COMMENTS ON Google Backs Private Moon Landing With Google Lunar X PRIZE

tagvine, September 14th, 2007 at 12:22 am ET:

That’s what you call linkbaiting at the $30 million level =)

romualdas, September 14th, 2007 at 5:21 am ET:

Nice.

What’s the next thing Google will want to sponsor? Mars exploration?

Chris Boswell, September 15th, 2007 at 5:09 pm ET:

What a novel idea - don’t think I’ll get far though, with just a washing-up liquid bottle and some cellotape.

I always thought McDonalds would make it to the moon first and that there’d end up being be a pair of golden arches somewhere on the lunar landscape.

I’m getting an Adwords ad for buying property on the moon showing upon this page which reminds me of the debate over whether land claims on the moon and the planets are sustainable in law. Some folks are obviously willing to take the risk for the kudos of a lunar address. I bet if you look hard enough you can even set up a virtual office with a lunar address, and sell your wares for a lunar currency in lunar measurements. Maybe not.

BiCultural Surfin’ Mama, September 18th, 2007 at 4:19 pm ET:

Yeah, cool and scary news. Google going after the moon instead of governements doing so. Sounds like aspirations to world domination to me! ;-)

Danny, I actually was worried you’d been kidnapped by the Google police the past few weeks as I saw no new podcast episodes appear…

Because you’re one of those able to understand and help us see the extent of Google’s power these days- and to me that’s something we should actively be considering the implications of. (Nice sentence)

Can we secretly come up with a code word in your podcast to let us know when the Google police tells you they’re going to cut your throat if you continue talking about their potential privacy concerns? You can send it to me as a comment on the San Francisco Consulting blog. ;-)
Hear you soon!

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