No one won the Google Lunar X Prize, but these competitors are still shooting for the Moon

Today was the official deadline for the now-defunct Google Lunar X Prize competition — an international contest to send the first private spacecraft to the Moon. There is no winner; no one got to the Moon in time. But many of the teams that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize say they are still forging ahead, even without the promise of millions of dollars in prize money.

The rules of the competition were relatively straightforward: build a robotic lander, using mostly private money, that can touch down gently on the Moon. Once there, the spacecraft had to explore the lunar surface — and then send back video and pictures to Earth. The winner was promised $20 million and the second-place team would have won $5 million. Other teams could...

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