NASA To Hold Moon Lander Contest

NASA plans to award $2 million to a team that can design, build and fly a mission that simulates a lunar takeoff and landing.Patterned after the successful $10-million Ansari X Prize, which was awarded in 2004 for the first private manned spaceflight, NASA is underwriting the Lunar Lander Analog Challenge in hopes of spurring new ideas and low-cost technologies to support its moon exploration initiative.

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To clinch the prize, a team will have to build a vehicle that can launch vertically, hover in mid-air, land vertically on a target 100 meters away and then repeat the feat. The craft must reach an altitude of at least 50 meters.

Although the demonstrations will take place very close to terra firma, they are intended to simulate a launch from the moon's surface into a low-lunar orbit.

The competition will be staged in October at an annual exhibition of commercial suborbital spaceflight, which this year also will feature the debut of rocket-powered aircraft racers." - discover

I'd like to see this. Almost like a UFO building competition.