Five teams competing for the $30 million (about R353m) Google Lunar X Prize have been awarded a combined $5.25m (about R62m) for meeting significant milestones in developing a robot that can safely land on the surface of the moon, travel 500 metres over the lunar surface and send mooncasts back to the Earth.
A tiny start-up from India, Team Indus, with no experience in robotics or space flight has just won $1m (about R11.76m) of this prize.
It stood head to head with companies that had been funded by billionaires, had received the assistance of Nasa and had the support of leading universities.
The good news is that governments no longer have a monopoly on space exploration.
In two or three decades, we will have entrepreneurs taking us on private spaceflights to the moon. That is what has become possible.
Why is it that we still do not have unfettered and uncensored access to lunar imagery, partcularly far side imagery? Might there be something there that some powerful people do not want us to know about? To read more, click here.