The Google Lunar X-Prize wasn’t extended, it was ENDED

Google recently extended its Google Lunar X-Prize deadline to March 31, 2018, apparently giving the five remaining teams a little longer to vie for the $20 million top prize. But there’s a mystery here that suggests two vying reasons for the change — one sincere and the other cynical. The final answer may turn out to be a combination of both.

The Google Lunar X-Prize was announced in 2007, giving teams five years to put their landers on the Moon and drive around, sending back live HD video of the action. Though 30 teams eventually signed-up, none of them made it to the Moon by 2012. Or 2013, […]

By |August 25th, 2017|2017, competition, space, Uncategorized|58 Comments
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Four more predictions for 2017

2016-17Last week a reader told me that six predictions for 2017 weren’t enough and that I owed him four more, so here they are.

Prediction #7 — Not the demise of Bitcoin, but finally an acceptance of what the crypto currency is (and isn’t). My son Cole, who is 12 (and now taller than me), was for awhile a Bitcoin miner. We bought a used Ant Miner last year on eBay, equipped it with a proper power supply and set it going 24/7 in the Man Cave, where most boyish things happen around here. The rig was incredibly loud and — after the first electric bill arrived — totally uneconomic. We were […]

By |January 27th, 2017|2017, Predictions|60 Comments
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Moon Express gets FAA “approval” for Moon mission

me logoLast week Moon Express, a contender for the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP), announced that the company had received interagency approval from the White House, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of State and other U.S. government agencies “for a maiden flight of its robotic spacecraft onto the Moon’s surface to make the first private landing on the Moon.” This heady announcement got a lot of press including this story I am linking to because it was in the New York Times, the USA’s so-called paper of record. If the Times writes “gets approval to put robotic lander on the Moon” it must be true. Only this story isn’t true. Yes, […]

By |August 11th, 2016|2016, Government, Media, Public Relations, space, Startups, strategy|39 Comments
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