Good Morning Silicon Valley

It’s long been clear that Google’s mission — “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” — is actually sort of backward. Given the founders’ interest in space exploration and the company’s ties to NASA, the mission should really read “to organize the universe’s information and make it globally accessible and useful.”

To that end, Google is putting up $30 million to encourage a race to put information-gathering robotic expeditions on the moon. In cooperation with the X PRIZE Foundation, itself a great motivator of scientific competition, Google will give $20 million to the first group that lands a privately funded robotic rover on the moon capable of completing certain objectives, including roaming at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth. Second prize is $5 million, and another $5 million in bonuses will be available for completing additional mission tasks. If no one has won by the end of 2012, the top prize money drops to $15 million, and at the end of 2014, the contest ends entirely.

“We are confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, head of the foundation. And the press release makes it clear all this is not for show. “Moon 2.0, the second era of lunar exploration, will not be a quest for ‘flags and footprints.’ This time we will go to the moon to stay. The moon is a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and a source of solutions to some of the most pressing environmental problems that we face on Earth – energy independence and climate change.” More on the prize and Google’s off-world interests from Merc columnist Vindu Goel.