Apollo 17 to get its first visitor in 44-yrs

The Apollo 17 landing site has been abandoned since the last lunar astronauts went home in 1972. Now the site could get its first visitor in 44 years, as private companies race to the moon in the Google Lunar Xprize competition.

A German team known as the PartTimeScientists plans to send its rovers to the Apollo 17 landing site and examine the moon buggy left behind by astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.

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PartTimeScientists is the fourth team to book a flight to the moon. A rocket rideshare company called Spaceflight Inc. is handling the launch contract. Exactly which rocket it will ride on (and when) is still up in the air.

$30 million is up for grabs in the competition, in which teams are tasked with landing a spacecraft on the moon and traveling 500 meters over the surface (then sending high definition images back to Earth). And they have to get it all done by the end of 2017. The German team will get extra points if they manage to make it to the Apollo 17 site.

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