This is the most exciting news since, well, I don't know when. Maybe since Spirit and Opportunity started trundling around on Mars. Maybe even longer than that. I feel like jumping up and down. Or at least up...I'll come down without any extra effort. The cause of all this nutty behavior is the announcement today of the Google Lunar X Prize. 30 million crisp dollar bills (or the electronic equivalent) to the bunch who can land a rover on the moon, drive it around a little and send back some really awesome You Tube clips.
My world, my universe just got a whole lot bigger today. The universe of possibilities for the human race just got infinitely bigger. If we're ever gonna get off this rock -- which we'd better if we hope to survive and thrive as a species -- then it's going to be the independent inventors and entrepreneurs who get us there. Don't get me wrong, NASA has done some truly remarkable things. But they're not equipped to handle the nitty gritty of regular space travel, exploration, settlement building, industry and commerce off-world. They've got limitations, constraints, politics. The kinds of things that private citizens don't have to deal with. Plus, there's that Grail of All Grails -- the profit motive. There's money to be made out there, boys and girls, and some enterprising individuals are not gonna let a few million miles and the vacuum of space stand in their way.
I'm not going to be on an X Prize team. I'm not going to be one of the first settlers or mine owners on the Moon. I'm probably never going to leave this planet. But knowing that somebody not too far from now will move into a condo with an Earth view just thrills me to my tippy toes. We may just make in this big ol' universe after all.
5 comments:
I wonder how much the rent on a condo on the moon will cost per month?
$74.12
Wouldn't the cost of doing such a thing be vastly greater than the prize? Unless perhaps it would be way cheaper for a private enterprise to do it, as opposed to the government. Just wondering...
The title should have been "Going Luny". Get it?
I was trying for subtlelty, wa11zie.
Yes, the cost will be greater than the prize. That's a given. It was also with the Ansari X Prize. I think the vehicle cost about $20 million and the prize was $10 million. For sure, the prize money will offset the expense but I think they look at it more as a way to jumpstart the process of innovation. And the commercial enterprises involved expect to reap some kind of monetary benefit eventually. Or they think of it as a loss leader.
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