Lunar Lander X-prize competition

Coming October 24-25, nine teams (with nine rocket-powered vehicles) will compete for NASA's $2 million, 2008 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge , with the obvious aim of accelerating development of commercial Lunar Landers capable of bringing payloads or humans back and forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. They will broadcast live here and you can read more here and here. All this is of course important because they're planning for manned moon missions by 2020. And they're not the only ones. The Japanese also wanna go, somewhere around 2025.

Ok. That's a lot of info right there. I think it's probably a good idea for them to hurry up! Because, meanwhile, on planet Earth >>

• December 07, 2007 -- WWF says 50% of rainforest gone by 2030 [check it out]
  
• September 29, 2008 -- Amazon destruction jumped 228 percent in August when compared to the same month a year ago! [check it out]
• September 30, 2008 -- Brazilian government faces criminal charges over Amazon deforestation [check it out]
• October 18, 2008 -- Jarno says: since things keep accelerating over time, things will probably be worse, therefore >> Don't miss out on the destruction, grab a cup of coffee and follow things 'Live' by means of Google Earth [check it out]

• May 22, 2007 -- CO2 emissions rise outpaces worst-case scenario [check it out]
  
• September 26, 2008 -- Greenhouse gas emissions shock scientists [check it out]
  
• October 16, 2008 -- Researchers call for drastic emissions cuts [check it out]
  
• October 18, 2008 -- Jarno says: intriguing isn't it? By early 2007 things are worse than worst and still scientists manage to be surprised 1.5 years later that the emissions are so high!!!
  

• March 09, 2008 -- The year of global food crisis [check it out]
• October 18, 2008 -- Jarno says: ok, I'll stop now. All this just reminds me of this new Dutch foundation that focuses on atelosology, the science of pointlessness. Yep, the planet's an absurd place, keep smiling cause everything's relative!