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In an attempt to encourage innovation, Google is offering a $30 million, Lunar X prize, to the first private group that can launch, land, and operate a robotic rover on the Moon's surface, the "Earth's offshore island." Google calls the rover "Moon 2.0," and project manager Dylan Casey says that the expectation is that the Moon can be explored for useful elements and that new technologies will be created in getting there. The iconic firm also expects that young people will be inspired to study science and technology, and that contestants will use Google tools. The Google initiative now follows on the back of several well-publicised attempts to develop space-going technologies with private capital and brains. Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com has already tested a vertical takeoff and landing craft, which may launch people into low-earth orbit some day. Hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow already has a couple of unmanned craft in orbit, and is now offering $50 million to any American venture that can fly a fully loaded five-passenger craft into orbit by 2010. The most well publicised effort has been Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which is already selling tickets for $200,000. But test flights have been pushed back by 18 months after a fatal explosion at Scaled Composites, a Mojave-based company, that was building his spacecraft. X Prize-winning Burt Rutan runs Scaled Composites.
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