The United States’ Astrobotics and Japan’s Hakuta teams made an announcement earlier this week that they intend to send their robot rovers all the way to the moon using the very same SpaceX flight some time in 2016. Astrobotics has already come up with a lander that is known as the Griffin which will allow the delivery of the pair to the surface, and these two will have the intention to vie for part of the $20 million grand prize pie.
In order to be declared as the victor, these solar-powered off-roaders will first need to make a trek of at least 500 meters – and apart from that, they will have to stream High Definition video all the way back to earth. Astrobotics CEO John Thornton claims that his company has a vision of a “’NASCAR on the Moon’ scenario, but I am not too sure whether the lack of speed as opposed to an actual NASCAR race is going to spice things up?