Delos Harriman* Google is funding a $30 million X-Prize for the first private group that sends a robot probe to the moon by 2012.
2012? That’s just around the corner. And it just can’t land there, it has to move around and do stuff like installing death rays or, more likely, hunting rocks. I would imagine that’s a tall order to fill, considering I haven’t heard of any private efforts to do so yet.
Not that everyone is running stuff past me (yet). But before the Ansari X-Prize, I had at least heard of private companies that were planning to build low Earth orbit lifters.
UPDATE: A personal hero, Red Whittaker from CMU has plans underway. Sweeeet.