Do you want to be one of the first people to explore the business opportunities offered by visiting the moon? Then perhaps now is the time to start preparing your business plan as Google have put up a $30 million prize in to reward the first privately financed space mission on the moon.

The competition which was announced on Thursday, is based on the X Prize Foundation’s Ansari prize, which paid $10 million for the first private rocket to reach into low earth orbit. Aerospace entrepreneur Burt Rutan won that in 2004 and he’s now selling the technology to Richard Branson for use in the space tourism company Virgin Galactic.

The X Prize group will be administering the new Google competition. The competition will pay $20 million to the first mission to land a robotic rover on the moon and travel at least 500 metres and beam back video and other data to Earth. Another $10 million in prize money is for second place and other achievements, such as travelling a longer distance or discovering ice.

You can read more on the Google Lunar X Prize website.

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