# Sources of Extraterrestrial Rare Earth Elements: To the Moon and Beyond
## 3 Earth's Moon: Missions to Our Nearest Neighbor
In September of 2007, at the Wired Nextfest in Los Angeles, the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP) was announced. This space competition, organized by XPRIZE is sponsored by Google, and offers $30 million USD in funding to privately funded teams who land a robot on the lunar surface. At the time of writing, four teams remain, each of which have secured launch contracts. These include: Moon Express (USA, launch contract with Rocket Lab); Synergy Moon (International, launch contract with Interorbital Systems); Hakuto (Japan, launch contract with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)); and Team Indus (India, launch contract with ISRO). The prize is awarded for (1) successfully placing a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon; (2) traveling 500 meters across the lunar surface; and (3) transmitting high-definition images and video feed back to Earth [60]. Each team is scheduled to launch by the end of 2017. Not since 1976 has a spacecraft landed on the Moon. This year, that is scheduled to change several times over with the success of the above missions in addition to the November Chang'e-5 launch. The USA team, Moon Express is to date, the only company to publicly announce that they aim to mine REEs on the Moon. Moon Express proposes to construct a lunar railroad on \"Earth's eighth continent\", process ores using robots, and return the extracted elements back to Earth [61]. Prior to this, they must claim the Google Lunar XPRIZE. Only \"then the second or third mission can involve bringing things back from the Moon\" ([PERSON], co-founder and CEO of Moon Express, speaking to [PERSON] of CNBC in 2014 [62]). In addition, the current Lunar CATALYST (Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown) initiative, managed by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, is collaborating with three commercial companies in order to develop technologies that could be used to transport materials to the lunar surface ([[https://www.nasa.gov/lunarcatalyst/](https://www.nasa.gov/lunarcatalyst/)]([https://www.nasa.gov/lunarcatalyst/](https://www.nasa.gov/lunarcatalyst/))). Through partnerships with Astrobotic Technologies, Masten Space Systems, and Moon Express, these collaborative efforts aim to result in the successful landing of commercial robotic spacecrafts on the Moon with \"resource prospecting\" being one of the capabilities that would be supported. As of 2017, NASA had issued a second Request for Information regarding the \"availability of small payloads that could be delivered to the Moon as early as the 2017-2020 timeframe\" ([[https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cbcd56e6](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cbcd56e6) afbd7 dfad1 ef9 cd0 fb52b67&tab=core&tabmode=list]([https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cbcd56e6](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cbcd56e6) afbd7 dfad1 ef9 cd0 fb52b67&tab=core&tabmode=list)). From past, present, and future remote sensing missions, to Apollo and Luna missions of the 1960s and 1970s, to the future plans for robotic landers on the lunar surface, there is no doubt of the interest and investment being placed on the exploration and potential utilization of our nearest neighbor in space.