Hopes To Rekindle Interest In A German Moon Expedition

Team c-base Open Moon, a German group that includes physicians, businessmen, and engineers, announced its official entry into the Google Lunar X Prize Thursday.  The $30 million competition challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch to the Moon a privately funded spacecraft capable of completing a series of exploration and transmission tasks.

Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, the team is comprised of 5 members and is one of 20 teams from ten countries that are competing for the $30 million prize.
 
Neven Dološ, head of the c-base Open Moon Team says: "We believe that the Google Lunar X Prize is an excellent way to initiate a worldwide movement of enterprises and private space enthusiasts to continue the mission which began 40 years ago with the first landing on the Moon. The door into outer space was pushed wide open in those days by the Apollo program. Now it's time to resume the mission and to go even further in our solar system."

The c-base Open Moon Team seeks to motivate the public and aerospace companies in Germany to reconsider its plans for a trip to the Moon. The group was inspired by the announcement of the Google Lunar X Prize and believes it has become more and more clear that there are immense benefits not only for commercial enterprises, but for society as a whole to conduct lunar exploration. The c-base Open Moon team aims to contribute to and power this movement.
 
"We're happy that new groups continue to enroll in the Google Lunar X Prize," noted William Pomerantz, the Senior Director for Space Prizes at the X Prize Foundation. "By reaching out to bright and motivated entrepreneurs and inventors like Neven and his teammates, this prize helps the space industry harness the creativity and talent of a much larger pool of contributors. With outside-of-the-box thinkers comes outside-of-the-box breakthrough solutions."

FMI: www.openmoon.info, www.googlelunarxprize.org