Rec.Aviation.Homebuilt.Spacecraft?

I figure there is enough expertise in this group to successfully tackle
this challenge...

Now all it takes is money!


http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceands...2/moon-20.html


The latest version of the X Prize is backed by Google: $20 million to
the first private enterprise that can land a robotic rover on the lunar
surface, send back images and data, and travel at least 500 meters--with
more rewards if it can find artifacts from the early days of lunar
exploration, when only the U.S. and Soviet governments could afford to
send probes.

The Apollo landings and the probes that preceded them were, to the X
Prize managers, "Moon 1.0"--done by Cold War powers in an expensive
rush, with no long-term plan to stay and mine the moon for whatever it
had to offer. Now comes Moon 2.0.

"The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition
that will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around
the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration." say
the backers.

They now have their first applicant: an operation called Odyssey Moon,
founded by Robert Richards, an entrepreneur who's also founded the
International Space University in France.