americas space prize rules announced

America's Space Prize - Rules Announced.

The long awaited rules for America's Space Prize have been announced.

The Rules (and some discussion of them):

1. The spacecraft must reach a minimum altitude of 400 kilometers

approximately 250 miles);

2. The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to

complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth;

Given that Bigelow is looking to spur development of a space taxi,

these are reasonable minimum specifications.

3. The spacecraft must carry no less than a crew of five (5)

people;

The key question here is how many of the 'crew' will actually be

passengers when the craft transitions to revenue service. Prudence

would seem to dictate two 'crew', and thus three 'passengers'.

This, to me, seems too high of a crew/passenger ratio. Something

else as yet unadressed is logistics management and the expected

lifetime of the orbital modules.

4. The spacecraft must dock or demonstrate its ability to dock with

a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space habitat, and be capable of

remaining on station at least six (6) months;

This rule implies to me that the station crew flies separately from

the passengers, and remain on orbit between passenger visits. This

rule can also be interpreted as meaning one or more vehicles will

remain on orbit between visits to provide a rescue/escape

capability. To my mind, these capabilities are better provided by

proper station design and the ability to launch on short notice.

5. The spacecraft must perform two (2) consecutive, safe and

successful orbital missions within a period of sixty (60) calendar

days, subject to Government regulations;

Another reasonable specification. You want to fly the craft as

often as possible in order to hold your total fleet size (and thus

capital investment) down. (You also want a certain minimum fleet

size in order to assure reliable and constant availability. See my

article on standing armies for more musings on this topic.)

6. No more than twenty percent (20 percent) of the spacecraft may

be composed of expendable hardware;

A key question here is how the term 'spacecraft' is interpreted in

the judging. This rule seems easy enough to meet if the term is

considered to only encompass the orbital portion of the vehicle. If

it is intended to encompass the launch vehicle as well, then the

Prize will be much more difficult to win. In some places it has

been suggested that this rule is intended to encourage SpaceX with

the hoped for high and economical reuse of it's Falcon series. (The

Falcon's have yet to fly however.)

7. The contestant must be domiciled in the United States of

America.

8. The contestant must have its principal place of business in the

United States of America.

These two provisions have raised a great deal on angst in certain

quarters. However, given the Bigelow is operating a US based

company, and that the current (and for the forseeable future) legal

environment frowns on the proliferation of ICBM technology, I

cannot see any way he can reasonably avoid having these provisions,

and meet his goal of purchasing services from the winner of the

prize.

Make no mistake, vehicles of this nature are de facto ICBM's.

9. The Competitor must not accept of utilize government development

funding related to this contest of any kind, nor shall there be any

government ownership of the competitor. Using government test

facilities shall be permitted.

An interesting provision, one whose genesis and impact eludes me at

the moment.

10. The spacecraft must complete its two (2) missions safely and

successfully, with all five (5) crew members aboard for the second

qualifying flight, before the competition's deadline of Jan. 10, 2010.

Many have commented that this seems too short given that it took

eight years to claim the Ansari X-Prize. On the other hand, none of

the serious contenders for that prize seem to have started

significant work much more than two years ago, once the Prize was

fully funded.

Frankly, I don't see any but dark horses in this race. Many

organizations have been working on suborbital, but orbital flight (and

reentry) is a very different kettle of fish. The key to reuseablity

will be the TPS, and the 20% rule (rule 6) would seem to mitigate

against a replaceable ablative shield. The otherwise low performance

objectives mean that a fairly simple life support system will suffice,

nor does guidance, control, or power seem to hold any hidden

showstoppers. The availability of an inexpensive booster however could

prove to be problem. (And again, how rule 6 is interpreted affects

this greatly.)

_________________________________________________________________

In related news, XCOR is also shopping a prize around for operational

hardware. (In this instance, a 'steam engine' to operate pumps in

their engines.) Dan DeLong has some interesting comments on their

Prize here.

[edit 11/11/2004 12:18 PST]

There is some interesting discussion of this issue here at

Transterrestrial Musings.

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[edit 11/11/2004 13:10 PST]

Correction: The Prize is in fact fully funded, link and quote in the

comments section courtesy of a reader. Thanks Neil.