Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit - welcoming words from ISS Expedition 28. Mountain View, California, 07/12/11
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
A.Borisenko: Dear organizers of the Google Lunar X PRIZE team summit and participants of the lunar contest!
We welcome the Silicon Valley from the International Space Station.
This year is a jubilee year for the global space industry - 50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin made the first space flight in the history. This was the beginning of a new era that opened the way for humankind to space. It also inspired a whole generation of people on the planet that once and for all decided to cast its lot with space.
A.Samokutyaev: This lunar contest announced by X PRIZE and Google is very ambitious and has no precedent in history. It has already inspired teams of engineers in many countries to develop space technologies, which will subsequently be sure to demand.
Delivery of the first ever private rover on the Moon will also open a new chapter in the history of mankind, as it was after Gagarin's flight, and will inspire the youth of today to engage in space technology and science.
S.Volkov: More to the point, this competition has a strategic goal. It is aimed at encouraging public-private partnership in the global space arena. Such cooperation creates new possibilities for space exploration, help to effectively implement and use innovative space technologies for the benefit of all mankind.
It's great that the competition involved teams from almost all over the world. And this is already a success. It is an indication that young people think about space and looking for a new, innovative ways to move humanity beyond Earth orbit and explore the unknown.
A.Borisenko: We wish you all fruitful work at the summit and success to all the teams!
And we hope that soon the whole world knows winning team, which the first time in history, will deliver a rover on the moon surface!
