There are two things that separate Moon Express from the typical Silicon Valley robotics startup. Most notably, as the company's name suggests, its robot won't simply roam quietly over your carpet — it will travel close to 240,000 miles before landing gently on the surface of the moon.
Achieving this is far from simple: Only three countries have ever made it to the moon's surface, and no private enterprise has ever come close. Secondly: Moon Express is racing. And not in typical business fashion where winners are measured by revenues and units sold. This is a modern space race in which Moon Express is one of 18 teams from around the world sprinting toward takeoff.
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It's been more than 40 years since Americans first set foot on the moon's surface, and in that time, the interest in lunar exploration has slowly died out, giving way to more pressing matters on our home planet. Plus, space travel is expensive, and the time period in which we used tax payer money to explore our lunar neighbor has passed, at least temporarily.
It's in part because of these changes that the Google Lunar XPrize exists.
On Wednesday, the non-profit announced its finalists for a set of milestone prizes that will provide long-competing teams with a financial boost. With $6 million up for grabs in 2014, the competition is quickly heating up with the ultimate reward in sight — $20 million in prize money.
The XPrize Foundation has been awarding multi-million dollar prizes for a decade, and the Google Lunar XPrize is its biggest and baddest. Started in 2007, Google's Lunar XPrize is meant to encourage private groups from around the world to take up the race to space once again, with the moon as their target.
The first team to land a craft on the moon, roam its surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and send images and data back to earth, wins.
Google is fronting the prize money for the competition, which is close to $40 million in total. In addition to the $20 million first place prize, a $5 million second place award is up for grabs, and another $5 million is available in bonus prizes for feats like traveling further than 500 meters or discovering water ice on the Moon's surface.
The purse also includes $6 million in milestone prizes which will be awarded in 2014, honoring teams for progress ahead of launch. In a competition that is already in its seventh year, these milestone prizes are a welcome sight. They offer teams a financial boost and a competitive reminder that the finish line is within grasp.
The race is nearing its pinnacle, at least in the slow world of space travel where missions start years, if not decades, in advance. A handful of the 18 teams competing, including Moon Express and American competitor Astrobotic out of Pittsburgh, Penn., hope to launch their crafts into space in late 2015.
These two teams appear to be the frontrunners and both are finalists for all three available milestone prizes, the only teams in the competition to do so. The other finalists, which were announced Wednesday, include Hakuto of Japan, the Part-Time-Scientists of Germany, and Team Indus from India.
Despite millions of dollars at stake, the teams have been exceptionally supportive of one another, says Alexandra Hall, senior director of the Google Lunar XPrize. Each year, the competing teams get together for a summit where they share general ideas and talk about the contest. Hall says that while there are competitors who keep things under wraps, "they're engineers — they often can't resist [showing off their technology]."
The 2013 summit was hosted by Angelicvm, one of two remaining teams from Chile that helped with costs for visiting groups. Team Puli of Hungary is set to host the summit in 2014, says Hall.
"Most [teams] are open to collaborating and partnering and figuring out ways that they can help each other," says John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. "I've seen a lot more of the co-opetition than the competition."
Astrobotic plans to carry other teams' rovers to the moon with its landing craft, the Griffin Lander. Teaming up with others to achieve the bonus prizes and maybe a second place prize could significantly boost a team's earnings, explains Thornton. Astrobotic hasn't announced any formal partnerships yet, but he believes that the company may ultimately join with as many as four other teams.
Moon Express is taking a slightly different approach. The company has already acquired two competing teams, Next Giant Leap and The Rocket City Space Pioneers, both from the United States. “We’re sort of the New York Yankees in this competition," says Tom Gardner, principal engineer for mission design and quality assurance at Moon Express. "We have the most resources and the most chance of success.”
All that's left is getting to the moon.
While the final destination may be equally visible to all competitors, the best way to get there depends on who you ask.
Moon Express is taking a hitchhiker's approach, planning to bum a ride on a third party rocket that will be hauling a satellite into orbit. The rocket will drop its MX-1 rover at geosynchronous orbit, roughly 25,000 miles above the earth's surface and well over 200,000 miles from the moon. Bumming a ride costs between $10 and $20 million, says Bob Richards, cofounder and CEO of Moon Express, about 20% of what it would cost to buy even the cheapest rocket.
The MX-1 looks like a large, metallic inner tube with an engine in the middle. Once it reaches geosynchronous orbit, that engine will propel the craft towards the moon. The tube itself serves as the fuel tank as well as the body of the craft, and 75% of its weight will be fuel in the form of extremely concentrated hydrogen peroxide, says Richards.
Moon Express needs all that fuel because it plans to accomplish the 500 meter lunar travel requirement through the air. While most teams are building rovers that roll, the MX-1 craft will use the remaining fuel from the tank to hover just above the moon's surface.

A model of Moon Express's craft, the MX-1 is on display at company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
Image: Karissa Bell/Mashable
Of course, none of the lunar tools — including the craft's 11 cameras or high powered telescope — will matter much if the MX-1 crash lands on the moon or misses it entirely. Landing on the moon's surface will require a flawless performance from the craft's engine, as well as its software. But the team received a huge confidence boost in November when it used its landing software in a test run with NASA's Mighty Eagle lander at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunstville, Ala.
That confidence will be necessary when Moon Express team members hold their collective breath for what will most likely be three minutes of terror come moon landing time. The MX-1 will go from orbiting the moon at 2 km/sec (roughly 4,500 miles per hour) to a feather-soft landing, says Richards, all in a little more than 180 seconds. The goal is to land MX-1 within one square mile of the team's target.
That landing appears to be the hardest part of the challenge for all teams involved. Astrobotic will use lasers to scope out rocks and crevices on the moon's surface as it approaches, and plans a landing far more precise than others. "Apollo, for example, was aiming for [a landing zone the size of] the greater Pittsburgh area," he says. "What we intend to do is call out the football field at Heinz Field and land within a few meters of center field."
Once there, the Griffin Lander will launch the team's rover, a robot built by team partner Carnegie Mellon University, which will travel the 500 meters necessary for the competition. The rover will communicate through the lander, which will serve as a hub to send its images back to earth.
Unlike Moon Express, Astrobotic will be buying its own rocket to outer space. The company plans to buy a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX, the company founded and run by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.
While the two teams have vastly different approaches, both in business model and technology, they share at least one similarity — they're representing the United States. It's a commonality that isn't taken lightly, says Thornton.
"The next chance that the U.S. as a nation has in going to the moon to follow up China's landing is us," he says. "Imagine if a private company from the U.S. is the next to land on the surface of the moon after China, the international powerhouse. It's a big play in that respect."
Finishing first may also bring a more tangible reward than national pride: moon-sized revenues.
The competition is a major step in creating private industry around space exploration, says Robert Weiss, Vice Chairman and President of XPrize. Instead of relying on governments to completely fund space exploration, Lunar XPrize is hoping to create an economic sector where private companies can operate regardless of national funding concerns.

A look at Astrobotic's Griffin Lander, which is set to land on the moon in late 2015.
Image: Astrobotic
Weiss still believes that NASA and other governmental space agencies should be responsible for challenges like deep space exploration, but travel to areas closer to home, like the moon, should be more widely available.
"Space exploration that is entirely funded by a tax base or government funds is not sustainable," he says. Cash "is the rocket fuel of the space business, and that business should be operated like a business, not by NASA."
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that participating in Google's Lunar XPrize costs a lot more than the potential payout. (Moon Express says it will spend $50 million on the competition and, while Astrobotic wouldn't share an exact figure, Thornton says the 12-person team will certainly spend more than the $20 million prize.) But for teams in the competition, the prize serves as motivation to build sustainable business models, not just a one-time moon expedition.
Michael Sims, chief robotics officer at Moon Express and a 25-year NASA veteran before joining the startup in December, believes that a win-at-all-costs mentality isn't the best approach. "If you won the race — the Google Lunar XPrize — and you didn't create viable economics after that, you wouldn't be as powerful as the company that didn't necessarily win, but actually created a powerful economic business model," he says.
These teams are willing to take the hit up front for potential longterm return. Richards says Moon Express will be profitable by its first launch in late 2015, using revenues from contracts with NASA, sponsorships, and charging others for payloads.
Astrobotic too is using the payload business model to finance its first flight. Thornton says the company has a dozen customers already lined up for its first trip, and Astrobotic charges $1.2 million for each kilogram delivered to the lunar surface. "Think of us as a UPS or FedEx to the moon," he says.
When Astrobotic's lander touches down on the moon's surface, it plans to do so at the edge of an area called Lacus Mortis, otherwise known as the "Lake of Death." It is here that Thornton says scientists have discovered a large cave network that would allow rovers, like Astrobotic's, to visit the moon's interior, where exposure to the sun's radiation and the moon's extreme weather conditions could be mitigated.
Perhaps, says Thornton, caves like this could make a suitable living environment for humans.
The idea that we may one day inhabit the moon — either by choice or necessity — may be the true beneficiary of a competition like Google's Lunar XPrize and a major goal of competitors is to further explore the minerals and resources available on its surface.
This push toward space travel, and ultimately, perhaps, space living, is why both Astrobotic and Moon Express referred to the moon as the eighth continent in conversations with Mashable. This newfound continent may also serve as the launchpad for further space exploration in the future, says Weiss.
"The moon really is a better stepping stone, or launchpad if you will, to reaching for the stars," he explains, citing the moon's lack of gravitational pull as a major benefit to taking off for other planets from the lunar surface. "Imagine a deep well, not of water but of gravity, and the earth sits at the bottom of this well. You have to strain against it to to break through the bonds of gravity to get out into space." Not so with the moon.
It's tantalizing to think it could serve as a gateway to Mars, asteroids, and rest of the solar system. Of course, that still requires a giant leap for mankind.
It's one that 18 teams across the globe are rapidly preparing to make.
“We will win," says Richards. "It’s OK if we don’t. We won’t win at any cost … But we’re planning on winning.”
Moon Express will launch its first craft. the MX-1, in late 2015. A model of the MX-1 is on display at company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
Moon Express CEO Bob Richards is a space industry veteran. He participated in the 2007 NASA Mars Lander mission and cofounded of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.
The International Lunar Observatory ("ILO-X") is a small, yet powerful telescope that will travel on the MX-1 as part of the craft's payload. The telescope, which weighs just over 2 kgs, will capture images of the galaxies, stars, planets, moon, and Earth. A larger version of the telescope will travel with Moon Express MX-2 on its second launch mission scheduled for 2017 or 2018.
Moon Express hired slosh expert Michael Vergalla to help keep the craft balanced as it burns fuel hurtling through space. The MX-1 is shaped like a large donut, and fuel will be moving around inside the craft and could cause balance issues.
Large monitors at the Moon Express headquarters visually preview what the craft's landing will look like in late 2015. The MX-1 will go from nearly 4,500 miles per hour to a dead stop in approximately 3 minutes in order to land.
EJ Sabathia, Jr., a mechanical design engineer with Moon Express, shows off computer images of the MX-1 from company headquarters in Mountain View.
The MX-1 is equipped with 11 different cameras and a high powered telescope. This satellite mast is collapsable, and also sits atop the craft.
Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot on Apollo 11 and the second man to walk on the moon, signed the model of MX-1 during a recent visit to the Moon express headquarters.
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