Google's New headquarters: The Moon

The search engine giant is setting its sight on the moon. Google recently announced a contest with $30 million dollars on price money for robot experts to develop units that can go to the moon and send back high definition pictures.

Google launched a Google moon site simultaneously designed to showcase the Apollo landing series with important dates and facts. The site, which is Google map base, provides such features as geological and topographical charts and lunar elevation mapping.

The contest offers a 20 million dollar top prize for a robotic vehicle that is able to travel around the moon while sending data back to Earth. A $5 million dollar second prize for a stationary robotic unit that sends data. Another $5 million dollar bonus prize for any robotic vehicle that is able to discover water or ice, that is able to travel a distance over 5 kilometers, or is able to captures images of abandoned space vehicles from past missions.

The contest comes about because of lack of government funds to start new exploration missions, although NASA has a planned mission for 2020. The prizes are offered until December 31, 2012, after which a lowered grand prize of 12 million dollars can be won.