Whether respected and worshiped, or feared and hated, Earth's natural satellite has always been a very prominent figure in our early history and has been linked to many gods and goddesses in ancient mythology. Many people were fascinated by the bright, glowing face that looked down at them at night, while others feared it brought bad luck and dangerous monsters. Without any scientific explanation for why the moon went through it's many phases, early people fired up their imaginations and made up answers for their seemingly-impossible to answer questions.
Landing on the surface of this puzzling item in the sky, has been mankind's ambition for generations. The USSR marked it's place in history by sending the first probe, Luna 2, to impact the Moon in 1959. It also had the first controlled, unmanned landing on the Moon, Luna 9, in 1966. Soon after that, from 1966 to 1968, the United States sent seven unmanned missions to the Moon, called the Surveyor Program. Five of these missions successfully soft landed on the Moon and performed the first analysis of the Moon's soil. Following that in 1969, the U.S. sent the first manned mission, Apollo 11, to the Moon and successfully landed, while setting history in the process. After that, the U.S. sent 5 more manned missions to the Moon; the last of these was Apollo 17. Sadly, the Apollo missions were the first and last times that man stepped on the Moon. Due to the tremendous expense, the Apollo missions were terminated.
The only crafts to ever land on the Moon have been government based and funded. Many of these have been unreasonably costly and offered no long term establishments. With limited funds, privately funded missions tend to be less expensive and more efficient than government missions. It is time for the people to step up and prove what free enterprise can do. That is where the Lunar X-Prize comes in. The purpose of the Lunar X-Prize is to kick start Moon 2.0, which has the goal of making long term plans for the Moon. The Moon can supply the Earth with clean, renewable solar energy and useful resources. Due to the fact that much of the lunar soil is composed of silicon, a key ingredient of solar cells, the Moon would be an ideal place to build solar satellites to power the Earth. Also, we could colonize the Moon with robots and machines in the near future. Controlling these mechanisms would be relatively simple because there is only a 1.3 second delay on sending radio waves from the Earth to the Moon. It is the purpose of the Lunar X-Prize to set in motion this lunar revolution, starting by sending a privately funded rover to the Moon. [3]