The first ten teams participating in Google's Lunar X Prize were announced Thursday, and the race is on.  Nearly forty years after the Apollo mission that first landed on the Moon, an international group of like-minded teams are competing for a $20 million first prize, a $5 million second prize and a $5 million bonus.  The goal: "to land a privately funded robotic craft on the Moon that is capable of roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth."

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said, "The idea of seeing these rovers on the moon and returning after 40 years...faster than the national programs, it's really exciting," Brin said to a small crowd of teams and press. "We love entrepreneurship here--it's worked well for us. So we're looking forward to the launches in the coming years."

X Prize President Peter Diamandis commented that, historically speaking, the X Prize and similar competitions pay out only a half to a quarter of what the contestants spend.  However, over 500 teams requested admittance to the contest, and many of them are looking for long-term business opportunities once passage to the Moon is restored.  Even the so-called losers intend to recoup their losses designing reusable transports to the Moon, and then perhaps surveying it for mining.

Diamandis said, "I think we’re going to see an exciting and very competitive race to the Moon, highlighted by some very creative designs unlike anything we’ve seen come out of the government space programs. Many of these teams represent some of the most creative and entrepreneurial minds in space exploration today. I wish them all the very best of luck. I can’t wait to join with Google in paying the winner."

The ten teams and their planned vehicles are:

Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA): European Lunar Explorer

Astrobotic: Artemis Lander and Red Rover (set to launch in 2009 to commemorate the Apollo 11 landing)

Chandah: Shehrezade

FREDNET: still working on design 

LunaTrex: Tumbleweed

Micro-Space: Human Lunar Lander

Odyssey Moon: MoonOne (M-1)

Quantum3: Moondancer

Southern California Selene Group: Spirit of Southern California

Team Italia: still working on their design idea, either a large rover or a swarm of small robots inside the lander 

(Sources: Official Google Lunar X Prize Homepage, C|net)