Private Moon Race Will Preserve NASA's Historic Lunar Landing Sites
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The 26 teams engaged in a private race to the moon won't run roughshod over the lunar surface if and when they get there.
The Google Lunar X Prize is offering a total of $30 million to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the moon and have it complete a variety of tasks. The race will abide by guidelines NASA has established to protect historic and scientifically important sites on the moon, NASA and X Prize officials announced today (May 24).
The Playa Vista, Calif.-based X Prize Foundation will take these guidelines into account as it judges the plans submitted by the 26 teams still in the competition, officials said.
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The aim is to preserve the signs of humanity's first steps on another celestial body, which were taken by a handful of NASA Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1972, and safeguard ongoing and future lunar science efforts from a potential swarm of landers and rovers.
NASA developed the guidelines — which aren't mandatory, enforceable requirements — after analyzing data from various moon studies and consulting with experts from academia and the spaceflight community, agency officials said.
The Google Lunar X Prize will award $20 million to the first privately funded team to successfully land a robot on the lunar surface, have it move at least 1,650 feet (500 meters) and beam high-definition imagery back to Earth.
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The second team to complete these tasks will receive $5 million. An additional $4 million in bonus prizes is available for achieving other feats, such as operating at night, detecting water ice and traveling more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) on the lunar surface. Finally, $1 million will go to the team that shows the greatest effort to encourage diversity in space exploration, X Prize officials said.
The Google Lunar X Prize expires once all the money has been awarded, or at the end of 2015.