I deeply regret that I was unable to join my colleagues, Paul Carliner and Liam Sarsfield, at the February 21 event where details of our company's and nine other teams' efforts to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE were publicly announced.

Though I missed seeing the X PRIZE folks in California, I was able to catch up with them in Washington, D.C., last week. Paul Carliner and I attended the annual Arthur C. Clarke Foundation's awards event where Peter Diamandis, cofounder of the X PRIZE Foundation and the Zero-G Corporation, among other ventures, received the Sir Arthur Clarke Innovator's Award. In his acceptance remarks, Peter mentioned the exciting news that numerous other teams will also be joining the race. Our attitude is that the more competition the better!

I should add that another hero of mine, David W. Thompson, cofounder and Chairman, Orbital Sciences Corporation, received the Clarke Award for Lifetime Achievement. Based on a personal dream, David built a company that today, 25 years later, generates nearly $1B in gross revenue, employs 3500 people and has developed and deployed a stunning array of rockets and satellites. He's an inspiration to all space entrepreneurs.

The February 21 announcement event at Google headquarters also was inspiring. Since then, we have been building our interdisciplinary team, refining our engineering concepts, fundraising –- orchestrating the multiple variables on a 24/7 basis that make the difference between an idea that remains captive to a PowerPoint chart vs. successful execution.

This brings me to where I was on the day of the historic announcement at Google HQ. I was participating in a long-scheduled trip to Rome and the Vatican City. In some ways, I was about as far removed from the sleek high tech Google campus as one can imagine. But in other ways, I found that the extraordinary architecture of the Renaissance period was a profound and relevant reminder of how faith in an idea can inspire a talented team to do the seemingly impossible. True, the architects and the artisans had, comparatively speaking, unlimited resources within which to translate their patrons' ideas into marble and stone. But it all started with an inspirational concept followed by effective leadership and an incredible work ethic to bring together diverse teams, in the context of intense competition, to produce a more magnificent structure than one's counterparts in a neighboring city-state.

In the same manner, the Google Lunar X PRIZE is acting as a catalyst to make our competitors and us strive for a level of excellence that will benefit us all. I truly believe that we are at the beginning of a new way of breaking out of earth orbit and laying the groundwork for human-built legacies on other worlds that will be as grand and magnificent, in their own way, as the Duomo of Florence or St. Peter's Basilica.

-- Posted by Courtney Stadd, Quantum3 senior vice president and cofounder