Yesterday I heard through my good friends at NPR that the X-Prize Foundation has announced that they will partner with Google to offer $30 million dollars in prizes for the first two teams who can land a privately funded rover on the moon. The deadline is 2014.

Well, I'm officially throwing my hat in the ring. How hard can it be? I've recently endorsed the idea that if you have the internet, google, and wikipedia, you can learn to do anything that's been done before. Now I've got seven years to prove it.

So in a way, this is a statement of intentions. In another way, it's an invitation for partners. If you have a PhD in physics and think you've got the right stuff, I'll be having try-outs for my lunar challenge team in my backyard on the morning of October 20. Interested parties should bring a copy of their resume and an Estes Rocket that he or she has assembled from scratch. Contact me for more details.

I've already got a working design and it's not even 9am. I don't want to let the other teams in on my secrets, but let's just say it's a combination of this and this. I'll keep you posted as my progress continues.