Friday, May 15, 2009

Italian Spiderbots to explore the Moon


Nearly 40 years after Americans first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 with NASA's historic Apollo 11 flight, a host of private rocketeers are hoping to follow to win a $30 million prize. Here, SPACE.com looks at Team Italia, one of 17 teams competing in the Google Lunar X Prize:

What began as a glimmer in the mind's eye for one robotics researcher has grown into a national endeavor for Team Italia, one of 17 groups competing for the Google Lunar X Prize.

"Team Italia has evolved," said Piero Messina, president of the Naples-based International Association for the Aerospace Culture (AICA) that is coordinating Team Italia. Messina helped pull together all the major Italian aerospace and engineering universities, as well as the two largest Italian aerospace companies, to support the race to land a robot on the moon by 2012.

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