Japan is racing to privatize its government in hopes of receiving Google's X-PRIZE of $30 million for the first private company to land a robot on the moon.

Japan just launched its JAXA H-2A carrying the country's first lunar orbiter "Kaguya" and is wondering where the reverse button is…

Lead candidate for replacing the Prime Minister, Taro Aso, read in a comic book about a new plan for putting robots on the moon that can:

1. roll for a quarter of a mile

2. send back gigabytes of images of the moon

and do it soon…in less than 5 years…gee, that meets Google's 2012 deadline.

Maybe, just maybe, Japan can get that $20 million first prize.

Japan definitely has the

1. engineers

2. math students

3. computer science skills

but not the cool factor that Google would like.

Can't have everything, huh?

Great idea Google…but is $30 million all you can spare? I think not.