Apollo 16
astronaut Charles Duke placed a photo of his family on the surface of the moon
in 1972--and for a $10 donation you may be able to do the same.
The "Lunar
Legacy" program comes from the X Prize Foundation, which has teamed up
with Google to offer
a $30 million purse for anyone able to land a privately funded rover on the
moon by December 31, 2012.
A major
component of the challenge is for the rovers to beam back about 1 GB worth of
data. Aboard finalist vehicles that make it to the launch pad, Google will
reserve a portion of space to store users' photos and personal messages, or
"legacies."
"Details
are still being worked out, but we fully intend to broadcast, or 'mooncast', a
number of our supporters' legacies back to Earth," said X Prize founder
Peter Diamandis in a statement. "Which means that one of our Lunar Legacy creators
will quite literally be the Neil Armstrong of private space exploration."
By using
the Web site www.googlelunarxprize.org, users can upload a photo up to 1 MB in
size along with a message. Each legacy, however, will have to be reviewed and
deemed as "flight ready" by program officials.
Once a
legacy is approved, it will be added to an official online gallery hosted by
Google and the X Prize Foundation.
The Santa
Monica, Calif.-based X Prize Foundation has offered a series of cash awards for
technological achievements in the fields of spaceflight, genomics and the
automotive industry. In 2004, the foundation awarded the $10
million Ansari X Prize for the first privately built and crewed suborbital
spacecraft. X Prize also organizes the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Centennial
Challenge competition for NASA.
Click here for more information on
the X Prize Foundation's Lunar Legacy program.
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