LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Did we say this would be easy? Apologies. Still, the prize is very real. Known as the Google Lunar X Prize, at least twenty-six teams have signed up to take the challenge. For those who get coveted pictures of the Apollo sites, there will be bonuses. 

However, the competition isn't without its caveats. NASA guidelines forbid the intrepid new explorers from disturbing the sites, including the footprints of the astronauts. All the teams have agreed to play by those guidelines. 

X Prizes are large cash awards that are put up by private sponsors to attract private innovation in a variety of fields, including health, poverty reduction, robotics, and spaceflight. So far, the incentives have worked. 

Development of private innovation for many of these fields is important because governments, particularly in the United States, are enduring a period of prolonged austerity and no longer have the money, or even the national will, to develop the next generation of advanced technologies. However, this merely opens the door of opportunity to the private sector, who can arguably do a better job than the government for a variety of reasons.

The use of prizes to incentivize innovation isn't new. Many people know that Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic to earn a prize and British Parliament passed the Longitude Act of 1714 which awarded prizes to facilitate innovation in the field of navigation.

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