Japan, Google head for the moon
235254
Probing X-Prizes Everyone is going to the moon. Japan has launched its first lunar probe, Selene, and the X-Prize foundation has persuaded Google to put up a $30m fund to reward any private enterprise that manages to land a probe in lunar-land.â¦
118519
Google Inc. , the world's biggest  Internet search engine, said on Wednesday it is opening the  Japanese-language version of its email service to anyone who  wants to sign up.
123064
A device developed in Boulder has been selected by NASA to fly aboard a $400 million lunar-mapping mission set for launch in 2008.
142583
InfoWorld - Google will pay up to $30 million in prize money to anyone able to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, because &quot;it&#39;s cool,&quot; the company said on its blog.
416342
China launched its first lunar probe Wednesday, an initial step in an ambitious 10-year plan to send a rover to the moon and return it to Earth.
574895
Google Inc. is bankrolling a $30 million contest that could significantly boost the commercial space industry and spur the first non-governmental flight to the moon.
637395
Embarking on an ambitious 10-year moon exploration program, China launched its first lunar probe Wednesday Â a leap forward in the Asian space race that gave a boost to national pride, and the promise of scientific and military payoffs.
108649
China launched its first lunar probe Wednesday. Japan sent an orbiter up last month. India is close behind. It's an economic competition with military undertones.
6124
Google Inc. is bankrolling a $30 million out-of-this-world prize to the first private company that can safely land a robotic rover on the moon and beam back a gigabyte of images and video to Earth, the Internet search leader said Thursday.
407206
The contest calls for entrants to land a rover on the moon that can travel at least 500 meters and send data.
99953
(InfoWorld) - Google will pay up to $30 million in prize money to anyone able to land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, because "it's cool," the company said on its blog. "More seriously, space exploration has a remarkable history of producing technological breakthroughs," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering, on Google's blog. He cited ablative heat shields, asteroid mining, invisible braces, and the Tang orange drink as past achievements, and said the prize money could lead to further developments in robotics, new space-age materials, precision landing control technology, "and who knows what else." Teams from around the world will vie for the Google Lunar X-Prize by building lunar missions complete with robotic rovers capable of roaming the surface of the moon for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and other data back to Earth, according to a statement from the X Prize Foundation. The X Prize Foundation is best known for another space competition, the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private suborbital spaceflight, won by SpaceShipOne three years ago. Google teamed up with the foundation on the lunar project. A grand prize of $20 million will go to the first team to land a privately funded spacecraft to the Moon and complete several tasks. Bonuses of up to $5 million can be earned from roaming an additional 5,000 meters on the surface of the Moon, finding and photographing man made artifacts left on the lunar surface, such as hardware from one of the Apollo missions, discovering water ice, and surviving a lunar night, a frigid affair lasting 14.5 Earth days, the foundation said. The remaining $5 million will be paid to the second place finisher in the competition. Images from the lunar landing will be available online at the Google Lunar X Prize Web site. There is a time limit to the competition. The value of the grand prize will drop to $15 million after Dec. 31, 2012, and on Dec. 31, 2014 the contest will end unless extended by Google and the X Prize Foundation.
451642
Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo  Tanegashima Island, Japan, 18 December: An H-2A rocket carrying Japan's biggest satellite was launched Monday [18 December] from Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture after a two-day delay due to bad weather.
37965
China will launch its first unmanned mission to the Moon later this year, a senior space official confirms.
185455
Selene satellite launched by Japan in most ambitious mission to moon since US Apollo flights.
415014
Â· Beijing to put astronaut on moon by 2020 Â· Military implications of mission concern US
241339
Japan aims to put global warming top of the agenda as it takes over the chairmanship of the G8.
106089
Japan's space agency launches its first lunar orbiter for a year-long mission to explore the moon.