Masten Space Systems and Lunar Lander Challenge
Spaceports has an article on Masten Space Systems and their goal to
win a Centennial Challenges Lunar Lander Challenge prize, as well as
to provide quick turnaround space access services.
Posted by Ray at 12:29 PM
Labels: Lunar Lander Challenge, Masten Space Systems, space innovation
prizes
Arts in Space awards
The National Space Society's ISDC 2007 conference has an Arts in Space
program. Among other things, this program includes the "Leonardo Da
Vinci Space Art Awards" ceremony. There are a number of award
categories, including "Space Art Life Dedication", "Space Art
Advocate", Space Art Organization", "Zero Gravity Art", "Annual ISDC
Artonaut", "Space Art Scholastic and Curatorial Awards", and "Special
Space Art Award".
Posted by Ray at 12:22 PM
Labels: art, events, ISDC 2007, National Space Society, other space
prizes, space interest societies
Space Access '07 - Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle is famous as a science fiction author and computer
columnist. At least that's what I know him for. However, at Space
Access '07 he showed that he says and does a lot of interesting things
in the space field, including with prizes.
Jerry discussed a prize idea as "the quickest way to space". He has
been pounding the prize message for a long time - maybe since 1980. He
discussed the Longitude Prize.
One prize idea would be a $10 Billion prize for a moon colony with 31
people on the moon for 3 years and 1 day, or $5 Billion for 12 people.
Jerry had other prize ideas for a space station, suborbital prizes and
reusable space vehicle prizes.
The X PRIZE put prizes in the public view, so Congress is aware of the
idea. We could use that fact to help prizes. Prizes are the best way,
but they are difficult politically, especially in large dollar
amounts. They are not impossible. However, the budget is not ready for
authorizations without appropriations.
An audience member had a question on Jeff Bezos or similar wealthy
individuals interested in space funding prizes. Jerry's answer was
that he's tried with the Gates Foundation, but didn't succeed.
I just summarized the aspects of Jerry's talk that pertained to
prizes. Please see these links for more on his talk.
RLV News
Why Homeschool
Posted by Ray at 11:59 AM
Labels: Politics, Space Access '07, space innovation prizes
Space Access '07 - Jim Muncy
Jim Muncy of Polispace had a talk on the politics of organizations
like NASA and how they affect the entrepreneurial space community.
I'll just summarize the prize-related aspects of this talk.
Last year Jim recommended not confronting NASA about their in-house
development plans for Ares and Orion vehicles, since they were going
to be supporting the entrepreneurial community with COTS and prizes.
Now these progams look uncertain as Ares and Orion are using up much
of the rest of NASA's budget, including these promising programs. At
first NASA was for the prize idea. However, Congress didn't know which
district the prize money will be spent in, or when it will be spent,
so they have little interest in prizes. Therefore, Congress is in part
at fault. Prizes don't make sense to Congress and their interests,
since their job is politics. They make some decisions on substance,
but many on politics. Since they don't know who will win a prize, they
don't know who to "invite to their fundraiser". Jim doesn't think
prizes are the "solution to all problems", but they are a useful tool.
According to Jim NASA never explained to Congress about the multiple
contestants in multiple districts, and the media help. Therefore
Congress is not funding Centennial Challenges, and now NASA has
stopped asking for Centennial Challenges money. (Ray's note: For this
year they are asking for $4 million, but given the lack of any funding
for a couple years, and the fact that $4 million is much less than the
original concept of the challenges, you could say that they have come
pretty close to what Jim said). On COTS, it seems that NASA would
rather go with ISS partners than buy from U.S. private companies. Ares
and Orion are eating the rest of NASA's budget (Ray's note: including
prizes and numerous other programs) to meet the arbitrary goal of ISS
gap reduction. However, if they really wanted to reduce the U.S. ISS
human transportation gap so much why didn't they use $2-5 billion to
set up prizes to do it? This goes back to the Congressional districts.
Please see the following links for more information about this talk,
including many parts I didn't cover because I focused on prizes. (The
rest of the talk is also interesting, but I want to focus on prizes
because I can't possibly effectively cover a broader subject with the
time I have available for this hobby).
Why Homeschool
RLV News
Posted by Ray at 11:26 AM
Labels: Politics, Space Access '07, space innovation prizes
radio show introducing Space Access '07
The Space Show has a recent interview of Henry Vanderbilt, organizer
of the Space Access conferences, that was held shortly before the
Space Access '07 conference. This interview gives a good background on
the overall "mood" of the industry at the time of the conference. It
also gives an idea of what to expect for future Space Access
conferences. The interview did not focus on space prizes, but they
were brought up incidentally. In one case, a caller asked what they
could do as a space activist to help the space access entrepreneurs,
No comments:
Post a Comment