Space Prize Roundup - October 9, 2008

I only have time for a quick post today.

Briefs: Garriott interview; GLXP teams; - RLV News - One commenter in the Space.com article post suggests a (possibly impractical, but fun-sounding nonetheless) way to go the Falcon 9 route instead of Falcon 1.

Ken Davidian moves to FAA Commercial Space Transportation Office - RLV News - The NASA Watch article consists of Ken's sendoff email.

NG-Lunar Lander Challenge at Las Cruces Airport, Oct.24-25 - RLV News - According to a GLXP Teams post, members of Team LunaTrex plan to go to the ISPCS and hope to see the Lunar Lander Challenge the following weekend, so they may be in luck.

X Prize Founder Is Congress Keynoter - ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) News - link from X PRIZE Foundation news ticker - Peter H. Diamandis, founder of the $10 million X Prize competition for private-sector spacecraft, will present the keynote address at the 2008 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition next month in Boston.

The event will also feature the ASME Student Design Competition.

2008 ASME Student Design Competition: WINROBO - The 2008 competition challenges student teams to design, build, and demonstrate a robot which will wash a residential double-hung sash window autonomously, that is, without human intervention beyond placing the robot on the lowest window pane and turning it on, or under remote control of an operator “inside” the “building”.

I'll also show the 2009 one since it's an all-out space one:

2009 ASME Student Design Competition - MARS ROCKS! - Given the spectacular success of Phoenix Mars Lander’s space exploration (including retrieval of soil samples), NASA would like to include on its next mission a radio-controlled vehicle to retrieve small rock samples. This device could be controlled from the spacecraft if the mission is manned, or from Earth on an unmanned mission. The purpose of collecting the rocks is to discover if life ever existed on Mars. If it did, the life cycle of Mars may be used to learn important information for us here on Earth.