A la Luna de la mano de Google

2007/11/05 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Astronautika
• Sariak

The X Prize Foundation was born in 1995. The aim of the Foundation is to promote revolutionary advances for the benefit of humanity, and this is the third prize it organizes. The first was Ansari X Prize. To drive private space travel, he offered $10 million to anyone who would build a spacecraft that would take three people 100 kilometers from the earth.

More than one thought it was crazy, but it is not so rare to offer a prize to achieve progress, which is often effective. For example, the XIX. At the beginning of the 20th century, the French army needed a good food storage system and promised a 12,000 Franco prize for those who invented it. Nicolas François Appert won the competition with the method of storing vacuum food in glass containers.

A century later, a wealthy Frenchman dedicated $25,000 to the hotel for the first direct flight between New York and Paris. Offered in 1919, Charles Lindberg won in 1927 with a single-engine aircraft. In total, nine teams competed and spent $400,000 to get those $25,000.

In ten days he will win the Archon X Prize who decoded the DNA of a hundred people.

And XXI. In the early 20th century, in 2004, California private company Mojave Aerospace Ventures won the Ansari X Prize. The organization reported that 26 teams from 7 countries invested 100 million dollars in 10 million euros.

After this first prize, the X Prize Foundation organized Anchor X Prize. The prize, endowed with 10 million dollars, will be for the first private company to sequence the genomes of 100 people in 10 days.

Moon Exploration

Now, Google and the X Prize Foundation want to boost the exploration of the Moon. However, they point out that the current objectives are very different from those of the 1960s. It was the time of the Cold War and one of the battles was played on the Moon. The first time the Moon was played, the Americans won.

The Google Lunar X Prize, for its part, will help facilitate space explorations and the creation of a market technology. That is at least the goal of the organizers. The prize has been divided into three parts: A Grand Prix of 20 million dollars, a Second Prize of 5 million and the rest for those who make certain achievements (walk more than 5 km, find ice…).

To win the Grand Prix, the robotic vehicle must reach the Moon, take a minimum tour of 500 meters and send to Earth a certain number of videos, photographs and data. All this, before the end of 2012, will earn 20 million dollars. If no one has won by then, the prize will be 15 million until the end of 2014 and if there are no winners yet, they will end the prize.

However, the one who does not fully fulfill his goal has the opportunity to be the winner of the Second Prize, because for this it is enough that the vehicle arrives complete to the Moon, moves a little and collected and sent data and images. As for the Grand Prix, the deadline ends in 2014. Therefore, contestants are under seven years old to work. The countdown has already begun.

Published in 7K.