(CNN)"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." -- U.S. President John F. Kennedy speaking before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the height of the Cold War and the United States and the Soviet Union were battling it out to be the first nation to put a man on the lunar surface. On July 20, 1969, eight years after President Kennedy implored the U.S. congress for funding for space exploration, NASA's Apollo 11 spaceflight touched down on the moon. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans in history to walk on the Earth's nearest neighbor.
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Google competition asks teams to send a module to the moon
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Once on moon, robot must travel 500m, transmit video back to Earth
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18 private teams are still in the running
But that's not all -- there are a few scientific objectives a team must complete in order to obtain the ultimate honors from @placeholder.