The year is 2012. A quarter-million miles from Earth, a small spacecraft is nearing the surface of the moon. When the unmanned craft touches down in a cloud of rocket-blown dust, it becomes the first man-made object to arrive intact on the lunar surface in 32 years.

But the logo on the side of the spacecraft doesn't belong to NASA or any other government space agency. Instead, the images beamed back to Earth by the small rover that emerges from the spacecraft reveal a familiar multicolored corporate logo: Google's. Not a single dollar of public money has been expended, or a scrap of governmental red tape encountered, during the mission.