
Google’s $30m race to the moon is ready for lift-off - rajathagasthya
http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/10/07/googles-30m-race-to-the-moon-is-ready-for-lift-off/
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melling
The idea of using a prize to solve a big problem goes back hundreds of years.
The British created a prize to solve the Longitude problem:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act)

Charles Lindbergh won his prize money for crossing the Atlantic:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_St._Louis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_St._Louis)

The Google autonomous car is here because of DARPA prize:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge)

Netflix has their contest:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize)

And of course, we have the modern X-Prizes:

[http://www.xprize.org](http://www.xprize.org)

Anyway, the point is that we could solve a 1000 problems if we found the money
for it. Prizes like these seem to be a very effective way to invest in R&D.

