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Non-Tech : Cool Science - Gadgets & Tech
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From: mistermj12/10/2007 1:53:47 AM
   of 157
 
The Google Moon Race Is On

By John Tierney

Tags: Moon, prizes, space

Well, maybe it's not quite a race yet — that would require at least two racers. But less than three months after Google put up $30 million for the Google Lunar X Prize, the first contestant has signed up for the race to send a privately funded robot on the Moon.

The team, a company named Odyssey Moon, is getting assistance from the Planetary Society, which calls itself the world's largest space-interest group. The project is the brainchild of Robert Richards, a founder of the International Space University. He says he wants to lower the costs of space travel by an order of magnitude and start a "Moonrush" to the "eighth continent":

"We believe in competition and we believe in this prize. Future generations will view the Google Lunar X PRIZE as the turning point of the 21st century, when humanity realized the Moon's critical role for prosperity and survival in space and on Earth."

I remain a Mars-first fanatic and am skeptical of a detour to the Moon, but I'm happpy to see any kind of race in space. And, thanks to arguments by John Carmack and Robin Kool, I'm starting to see the appeal of a cheap trip to the Moon for some truly extreme sports. The broad jump at Moonolympics would be a hot ticket.

tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com
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