Crazy is not an emotion one would associate with Rahul Narayan. But this 39-year-old soft-spoken software engineer has done the unthinkable.

With a family to feed and no rich benefactor to fall back on, Narayan has left his Delhi-based family and quit his job to make his passion come true. And what is his passion - space, or to be more exact, putting India on the world space map.

Narayan was joined in this endeavour by a group of like-minded friends and colleagues to form Team Indus. Together, this 30-member team of men and women are India's only entry for the Google Lunar X Prize, which offers $40 million to the winner. The rules are simple: the prize will go to the first privately funded team to land a robot on the moon. The robot must then travel 500 metres and transmit pictures, video and data back to earth. And what's more, this must be achieved before December 31, 2015.

The robot which Indians plan to send to the moon must transmit pictures, video and data from the lunar surface back to earth. The robot which Indians plan to send to the moon must transmit pictures, video and data from the lunar surface back to earth.

While the passion is visible, the journey has been far from easy. Apart from no jobs and spending months away from home, building a moon-robot costs money, a lot of money.

According to Dilip Chabria, co-founder of the team, "The Team Indus moon mission can cost us anywhere between $30 million and $40 million, depending on the cost of the launch vehicle (see box)." And this is money that will have to be raised through sponsorships, prizes and crowdfunding - a daunting task.

The good news is that the right people, such as Dr Saurabh Srivastava, Chairman of CA Technologies and one of India's leading IT entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists, Dr Kiran Karnik, former president of NASSCOM, Arun Seth, chairwoman of Alcatel-Luncent India and former chairman of British Telecom India, are very much part of this project. Thanks to their advice and help, Team Indus will gladden Indian hearts by launching the robot from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota next year.

While India's science community and space enthusiasts are going gaga on Team Indus's Facebook page, blog and Twitter accounts, the competition is tough. Thirty-four countries are taking part, 23 of them already familiar with the world of space and what's more, incredibly well funded and staffed.

The US-based Astrobiotic entry is headed by William Red Whittaker, considered a world authority on robotics. Moon Express is funded by billionaire Naveen Jain and run by Andy Aldrin, son of the renowned astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. Clearly, these teams do not have to worry about job security or lack of funds.

But the passion, pride and patriotic fervour associated with the project has had many big players from India and abroad join Team Indus, some of them offering their services free of cost.

According to Sheela Ravishankar, people head at Team Indus, "Lockheed Martin, a global security and aerospace player, will aid the lunar mission's trajectory descent and landing. Tata Communications will help us with long-range communication for the data centre and low latency connectivity between ground stations, while Sasken Communication Technologies will work on avionics."

This is an impressive list of clients to bring on for any company, let alone a start-up. As Narayan candidly admits, "My initial knowledge of space was limited to watching reruns of Star Trek."

But when the robot finally lands on the moon, Narayan and his team will stand vindicated. They truly will have done what no Indian has done before.