First Competitor for the Lunar X-Prize

From Wired:

The Google Lunar X-Prize folks held an event at a space investment conference in San Jose to announce their first fully-registered competitor.

Odyssey Moon, a startup based on the Isle of Man, and run by Carl Sagan mentee, Bob Richards and the CFO of satellite-provider Inmarsat, Ramin Khadem, plans to land a rover on the moon within the next seven years.

"For Odyssey Moon, the race is just the beginning. It is our intention to seed and then lead private lunar commercial enterprise." said Richards. "It's our goal to lower the cost of lunar access by an order of magnitude."

The lunar prize, launched in September at Wired NextFest, offers $30 million to the first private company to reach the moon with a rover by December 31st, 2014. X-Prize founder, Peter Diamandis, said he expected a variety of competitors and that someone would win the prize.