WHAT A SHAME: No one is going to win the Google Lunar X Prize competition.

“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 31st, 2018 deadline,” the X Prize Foundation released in a statement. “This literal ‘moonshot’ is hard, and while we did expect a winner by now, due to the difficulties of fundraising, technical and regulatory challenges, the grand prize of the $30 [million] Google Lunar X Prize will go unclaimed.”

I’d like to see more of the regulatory hurdles either lowered or removed.