Unlike the effort to decode the human genome, or the project to put a man on the moon, the mapping of the human brain is a fuzzy endeavor, with no obvious milestones along the way.

WSJ: Obama Gives Details of Brain-Research Project

In other company news, 36 years after astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin strode upon the Earth's only natural satellite, Schmidt's firm has launched Google Moon: A mapping service that lets homo sapiens explore the lunar surface from their PCs.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Ebb and Flow deliberately plunged into a lunar mountain in December after mapping the moon's gravity field in unprecedented detail.

NPR: NASA Moon Craft Spots Ebb And Flow Crash Sites

"He was not a professionally trained astronomer and yet did professional quality work, particularly when it came to mapping the Moon in the 1950s - I think every astronomer in the world owes something to Patrick Moore, " said ex-BBC science correspondent and fellow astronomer Dr David Whitehouse .

BBC: Tributes paid to Sir Patrick Moore

The Grail gravity mapping satellites were smashed into a mountain near the Moon's north pole in December.

BBC: Nasa reveals new information about moon probes crash sites