AT 17 Robert Brand spent his summer holidays in Sydney wiring video and audio connections for NASA to relay Apollo 11's images from the moon to the world.

More than 40 years later, Mr Brand hopes to communicate with another craft destined for the lunar surface as part of an international race to land a robot on the moon by the end of 2015.

"Australia is so ideal to be part of the whole process, we have the infrastructure and expertise" ... Robert Brand. Credit:Sahlan Hayes

The Google Lunar X Prize will award $20 million to the first privately funded team to successfully land an unmanned craft on the moon.

The craft must travel 500 metres and send data and images back to Earth to claim the prize.