Google becomes a "space case" with announcement of $30 moon landing prize

Google is offering $30 million dollars to the first team that can land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon. The craft must be able to traverse the moon's surface and broadcast video back to earth, plus seek out relics left by the Apollo program.

You know what this is? A huge link-bait scheme by Google - by funding the $30 million prize (a drop in the bucket compared to the total Google market cap and cash on hand). It's nice that Google is doing something to push the scientific boundaries in the U.S., especially considering how poor our next generation of scientists, mathematicians and researchers are going to be. But, I see right through it, and it comes down to Google using this as a marketing strategy, just like online link-bait pages are used to draw attention to a product, service, or business.

In the past, Google has spoken out about the overt use of non-natural link building techniques. And while Matt Cutts seems to promote link-bait schemes, I can see Google penalizing link-baiting in the future because of a claim of "tainting the search results".

Link-baiting is nothing more than smart marketing, and is VERY similar to the $30 million Google is throwing at this moon landing project.