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Over the moon
We’re delighted to hear that Google has decided to sponsor a £10m race for private firms and entrepreneurs to reach the moon.
At a time when technology could, for example, close the inequalities between the developing and developed world, or revolutionise healthcare or education, it’s good to see that Google will pay up for the first one of our readers (or indeed anyone else, but we’d like to run “Backbytes reader wins £10m” sometime soon) to land a fully operational robotic rover on the lunar surface by 2012.
The chairman of the X Prize, as it is called, is Dr Peter Diamandis. He says: “This will not be a race for flags and footprints. This time we will go to the moon to stay.” At Backbytes, we can only hope Dr D is on the trip.
As someone who works for an organisation that campaigns against the inequalities between poor and rich countries 10 million quid would go a very long way. I wonder what criteria Google will be measuring the success of the lunar rover? after all there are some very tempting looking chalk pits in the area..
Posted by :Pete Taylor | October 3, 2007 10:43 AM