I had the pleasure of attending the launch event for the Google Lunar X-Prize, back in September at Wired's NextFest in Los Angeles.

It's a bit strange to think that the whole people going to the moon thing still feels like something of a pipedream, nearly 30 years after man first landed there, but, even in light of all of the awesome futurism happening around us at NextFest, what with robots galore and folks flying in on rocketpacks, it was still hard to imagine that the project was anything more than a bit of Web bubbled-fueled fantasy, which wasn't really helped by the fact that they couldn't mention the names of any companies that had registered. Still, they assured us, they were definitely coming.

The goal is still a ways off, but the good news is that we're a tiny bit closer to it than we were a few months back. Google and X-Prize held a party the other night, celebrating Odyssey Moon as the contest's first fully-registered entrant. "For Odyssey Moon, the race is just the beginning," the Isle of Wight-based company's co-founder, Bob Richards told Wired. "It is our intention to seed and then lead private lunar commercial enterprise. It's our goal to lower the cost of lunar access by an order of magnitude."

The deadline for the $30 million prize is December 31st, 2014. X-Prize expects a half-dozen teams to be registered by the middle of next year. While other companies have stated their intention to enter, Odyssey Moon is the first to have completed the registration and paid the deposit.

"We believe we have a robust business case even if we don't win the prize," said Richards' co-founder, Ramin Khadem. "The prize is a bonus."