Google has put up a $30m prize in an effort to trigger a race to put the first privately financed space mission on the moon.

The competition, announced yesterday, is modelled on the X Prize Foundation's Ansari prize, which promised $10m for the first private rocket to reach into low earth orbit. That prize was won in 2004 by -aerospace entrepreneur Burt Rutan, who has since joined Richard Branson to try to create a space tourism industry.