Google cancels $30m competition to travel to the moon

Google's Lunar X prize competition, which was set up more than 10 years ago to encourage the development of commercial space travel, has ended.

The contest required entrants to get a spacecraft onto the moon, move it 500m and send HD pictures back to earth.

Google's Peter Diamandis, the founder of X prize, and Marcus Shingles, the company's CEO, announced that they will not extend the deadline and the $30m (£21m) prize will go unclaimed.

"After close consultation with our five finalist Google Lunar X prize teams over the past several months, we have concluded that no team will make a launch attempt to reach the moon by the March 31, 2018, deadline."