Tuesday, May 27, 2008

How to Win the Google Lunar X Prize and Beat NASA to the Moon


The year is 2012. A quarter-million miles from Earth, a small spacecraft is nearing the surface of the moon. When the unmanned craft touches down in a cloud of rocket-blown dust, it becomes the first man-made object to arrive intact on the lunar surface in 32 years. But the logo on the side of the spacecraft doesn't belong to NASA or any other government space agency. Instead the spacecraft reveal a familiar multicolored corporate logo: Google's.

David Noland writing for Popular Mechanics in the June 2008 issue weaves a scenario reminiscent of biblical David and Goliath, where the common man could conceivably take on corporate and governmental giants to be the first private person to land a craft on another world. Click the article title to go to the Popular Mechanic's article

Illustration is PM’s vision of a lunar lander on arrival. (Illustration by Jeremy Cook)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very Heinlein-esque...I like it!

Anonymous said...

hey, you know thats a very good point. I knew something drew me to the way it was presented.