Israel Team Enters Competition to Land on the Moon

Summary of Article for Parents: Google is hosting a competition open to any team in the world. Whoever develops a spacecraft that can land on the moon, take pictures and send those pictures back to earth will win $20 million dollars. So far only Russia and America have ever accomplished this. Israel wants to be the 3rd country ever to land on the moon. Click here for article.


Discussion Outline:

• Have people ever landed on the moon? Yes--America was first in 1969, Russia was second. No one else has ever been there. 
• A computer company, Google, is having a competition right now. Whoever can build a spacecraft that can go to the moon, land there, and take pictures, will win $20 million dollars. A team of people from Israel want to win. 
• Israel's team decided to enter the competition 2 years after everyone else. Why does this matter? (They have to work harder and faster to catch up). 
• If you were assembling a team to build a rocket ship, who would you ask to be on your team? What would you need? Israel asked the smartest scientists and astronauts in Israel to help. Besides materials, they needed money, so they had to find a donor, which they did. Then they started drawing plans. 
• What would you name your team? Israel named their team SpaceIL. What do you think "IL" stands for? (Israel). 
• What would you decorate your spaceship with? Israel's team decorated it with an Israeli flag. 
• What would your spaceship look like? Israel decided to make their's the smallest rocketship ever made. 
• After discussing article, kids can watch 5 minute video about this from Jpost.

Bonus project: after dinner, design a rocket ship that you would enter in the contest.