 The X-Prize Foundation has officially acknowledged that after 10 years of work, the five remaining teams in the Google Lunar X-Prize are not going to be able to complete the competition and the prize is going to go unclaimed, and we need to talk about this a little bit. This is your space pod for Tuesday, February 6, 2018. The Google Lunar X-Prize, which was announced in September of 2007, was a competition to have a privately built vehicle land on the surface of the moon and travel 500 meters across the surface while sending back high-definition video. The first person to do so, the first team to do so, would have won $20 million, and the second would have won $5 million. And it originally, the competition had a deadline of 2012 for any private team to be able to accomplish this goal. 34 teams originally registered and slowly withdrew or merged as the years went by. Eventually, as the deadline was extended multiple times and the conditions for staying in the competition changed, the teams were whittled down to about five teams last year who hoped to win the race by March 31st of this year. The team that looked closest to being able to pull off that deadline was Team Indus, who had signed a contract with Antrix, which is the commercial arm of ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, to launch their lander and rover on a PSLV rocket. Unfortunately, Team Indus was unable to raise the money required to pay for the launch, and it's not known exactly how far along their flight hardware had progressed anyway. They raised about $30 million out of the $90 million required for the launch. And Team Hakuto from Japan was partnered with Team Indus and was scheduled to fly along with their lander and have a little bit of a race once they got to the surface and see which one of their respective rovers would travel 500 meters first. Interestingly, Hakuto has raised recently $90 million of seed money thanks to a partnership with a group called iSpace, but apparently those funds will not be applied to the PSLV launch and will be used to hopefully restructure Hakuto. Now, there was other teams as well of the remaining five teams, SpaceIL, the Israeli company is floundering and is seeking $30 million to stay in business. And then Team Synergy Moon doesn't have a functioning rocket that could take their lander to the moon or even Earth orbit. And it's unknown what progress they had on their lander or rover in the first place. However, Moon Express, which is scheduled to launch on Rocket Lab's Electron rocket, but not before the March 31st deadline, is looking forward positively to their commercial missions, regardless of the outcome of the Google Lunar XPrize. Even NASA has signed a contract for Scientific Payload to be launched on their early commercial lander. And Moon Express and also former teams, like part-time scientists and Astrobotic, are continuing to improve their plans and start a commercial lunar industry. If successful, especially considering larger sample return motions like this Moon Express concept that's pictured, then the bright side of this competition is at least that there are a few companies who are moving forward and could be part of a really exciting lunar future, especially considering the recent refocus of NASA to go to the moon as a stepping stone first on the way to Mars, as well as all of the international interest in lunar missions, human and robotic. Although it's very disappointing to have followed the Google Lunar XPrize for so long and see the prize go unclaimed, I am excited for the possibilities that the remaining companies have and excited that at least a few of them have the will to press on and try to be part and start a lunar commercial industry. And I for one, of course, enthusiastic about all projects. And so, despite this disappointment that the Google Lunar XPrize will go unclaimed, I'm still very excited for some of these companies' futures, like Moon Express, Part Time Scientists and Astrobotic. And I really hope that they will be part of a larger space future enabling us to go to the moon both robotically and send humans there as well. In any case, be sure to check out our last live show, Orbit 11.05, where we had a really interesting interview with Gilmore Space Technologies from Australia who are developing a hybrid solid rocket. So be sure to check that out as well as every live episode that we have every Saturday at 1800 Coordinated Universal Time. Be sure to like and subscribe and leave your comments and let us know what you think about the end of the Google Lunar XPrize. But until then, keep moving onwards and up to everybody and don't forget, add Astra to the stars.