Private Moon Landing or Mars Rover Chances?

So I was thinking on a couple of posts I've seen and thought the following:

1. Is it possible for a private citizen/corporation eithier by themselves or in conjunction with a small country to send a manned mission to the moon and or a rover to mars?

2. Is it legal or would there be lawsuits etc if it was found out that such a thing was in the works?

3. I'm thinking that this could be done either mission for around 5 billion US dollars. There are hundreds of individuals with many times that ammount in the world and there are thousands of corporations that could theoretically put forth that money and there are dozens of countries that could or would work with an individual or corporation to do this.

4. What would you need? mission control building/launch pad/rocket/ lander rover etc depending on the mission/ a few aircraft/ ship to pick up the returning lander or not if its a mars mission and a few other items/issues etc. You don't need to reinvent the mousetrap so to speak in either case you just copy what Nasa and the ESA have done so far and walla!

I know it's not really that easy but. If I had 10 billion ..why wouldn't I do it? so what if I it blew up on launch or failed. I'd be famous and if it did work imagine the money and fame and what I could accomplish. why isn't something like this in the works?

I believe it's entirely possible, just insanely expensive. I also don't think there would be any legals issues so long as say the US Apollo equipment wasn't messed with or anything. The moon is not claimed by any nation, currently and is open for exploration, if you can get there.

Right now there is the Google Lunar X Prize, www.googlelunarxprize.org... which offers 30 million for the first private robot flight to the moon, and is a step in the direction you're talking about.

It cost NASA billions of dollars to get to the moon, and a huge staff and the best minds on the planet. That's a lot of resources, but we have also advanced a lot since man last set foot on another planet. The key to making the project work would probably be somewhere in figuring out how to make the information age technology lower the costs in resources and manpower needed. Orbital flight is tricky too, but lunar is on a whole different level. The piloting needed to pull off the complex docking and undocking needed is very advanced and requires tons of practice. This is also something that would have to be overcome. Perhaps a single ship, instead of a orbiter/lander system could help with some of this but would also raise the cost of the craft quite a bit too.

I think it probably will be done, within the next 30 years even, but it's going to take an incredibly dedicated team with very deep pockets.

I was reading up on this and there is a private group that is planning to launch end of 2009 I think and part of their mission is a german engineered balloon that will float above the surface of mars taking pictures and gathering information about the atmosphere. There is also the mars group and they are funding desert training excersises for future private manned mars missions. I was also reading that you could pull off either a lunar or mars satellite or robotic mission for under $500 million depending on what type of mission it was. So I suppose this isn't out of the question.

If I had to nominate anyone to do it by the way it would be Sir Richard Branson. He already owns Virgin Galactic, soon to be the world's first commercial spaceline, and is already making plans of how to turn long-range air travel into space travel.

It is entirely possible and legal implications as far as socially would hold little to no hold on such a purpose. Rather it would fall in line of government to give the green light on such a project. They would be the implication and the prohibiter. They would use the guise of "National security"