Google's $20 million Lunar Xprize will end without a winner
The Lunar Xprize is about to come to an anticlimactic end after more than a decade . Google has confirmed to CNBC that it doesn't plan to extend the $20 million competition past its March 31st deadline -- itself an extension well beyond the original 2014 end date. Given that all the finalists either don't have the funds to continue or don't expect to launch that quickly (the fastest, SpaceIL, might not launch before the end of 2018), the competition is effectively over with no winners. Not that Google minds, however. If anything, the company believes that the journey was more important than the destination. "We are so thrilled with the progress made by these teams over the last ten years," it said in a statement. And to a degree, it's right. The teams have make significant strides in designing practical lunar rovers without the resources of a massive government agency. Private space exploration is theoretically one step closer, even if the technology fro...