Google Cancels Race To The Moon With Failure In Sight

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — A second giant leap for mankind may have to wait. Google has announced that it is canceling its $30 million prize for the first private team to launch a rocket and land it on the moon, because none of the prospective teams are close to making the trip by the fast-approaching deadline.

“After close consultation with our five finalist Google Lunar XPRIZE teams over the past several months, we have concluded that no team will make a launch attempt to reach the Moon by the March 31st, 2018 deadline," XPRIZE said in a statement. "This literal 'moonshot' is hard, and while we did expect a winner by now, due to the difficulties of fundraising, technical and regulatory challenges, the grand prize of the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE will go unclaimed."

XPRIZE is a nonprofit that aims to incentivize research and technological developments that would benefit humanity. The Google Lunar XPRIZE award, sponsored by the tech giant, was initially announced in 2007.

Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of XPRIZE posted the state ment along with CEO Marcus Shingles.

They believe that the prize had a positive impact, even if no team succeeded in the final mission.

They explained that the teams raised more than $300 million in their attempts. India, Malaysia, Israel and Hungary now have their first commercial space flight companies. And the teams that attempted the moonshot received international media, raising their stature.

XPRIZE was also encouraged by the fact that, as a part of the challenge, one team gained regulatory approval from the U.S. government to leave Earth's orbit — an all-time first for a private company.

Teams were also awarded prizes totaling $6 million by Google for reaching milestones along the way to the moon.

"It’s incredibly difficult to land on the Moon," XPRIZE said in its statement. "If every XPRIZE competition we launch has a winner, we are not being audacious enough, and we will continue to launch competitions that are literal or figurative moonshots, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible."

Early signs suggested Google's deadline may have been a stretch. Astrobotic Technology, originally a frontrunner in the race, according to Air & Space, was forced to pull out in 2016.

Astrobotic CEO John Thornton told the magazine that the deadlines were unreasonable.

“Many of the teams left in the XPRIZE are taking monstrous amounts of risk and frankly have unrealistic programs for getting it done,” he said in 2016.

Originally, the deadline had been for the launch to occur 2014. That was pushed back to 2017 and then again to 2018.

Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images