The company Moon Express has just swept through a $20 million round of financing in a quest to dominate the lunar economy.

Led by CEO Bob Richards, the company is determined to secure the resources of what Richards calls "the unexplored eighth continent" in order to bring "precious resources, metals, and moon rocks" back to Earth. With this latest $20 million, he claims that Moon Express has "all the resources in place to shoot for the moon."

Our goal is to expand Earth's social and economic sphere to the Moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests.

Moon Express has amassed $45 million so far toward the construction of a lunar lander about the size of a modern washing machine. The MX-1E will launch out of New Zealand on the back of Rocket Lab's new Electron rocket, an as-yet untested craft that promises to "change how we access space" through its "revolutionary design."

If Moon Express can accomplish all of this before anyone else, they'll still need to travel 500 meters across the surface of the moon, as well as transmit high-definition images back to Earth. That will secure them the coveted Google Lunar Xprize, earning them another $30 million for their ongoing efforts.