Prize Roundup - May 2, 2009

Pete Worden twitters about the CAFE Green Aviation Prize and a related workshop held at NASA Ames:

Busy Sunday (typical NASA Ames workday) 2nd day Green aviation workshop plus planning mtg for cool lo-cost planetary mission

Note NASA- CAFE green aviation prize unveiled yesterday in SF Bay area. Can electric aircraft re-vitalize Geberal Aviation - I think yes

Cool idea from green aviation workshop from 1940 - sailing airships using undersea hydroplane tethered to airship for tacking - neat!

At Green Aviation weekend workshop at NASA Ames. Very hard goal to reduce carbon in aviation. Major new job for NASA!

Here are other recent comments I found to be of interest:

Last nights NASA Town Hall forum - interesting. Big argument about science mission costs. Small and cheap is my view. Others disagree :-(

Ps - Pharmasat is Ames second nanosat (8kg) built in concert with students at Santa Clara Univ. Low cost - $ few millions - not $ billions!

Unreasonable update - RLV News

Here's an update from the Regolith Excavation Challenge twitter:

Rules FAQ has been posted: http://regolith.csewi.org/faq

Anousheh Ansari Wins First Annual NCWIT Symons Innovator Award - MarketWatch

Links: Ocean Now, Michigan Earth Day, Goldman Prize, Convention Center, Queen Mary - Google Earth Blog - Here's the part about the Goldman Prize:

Goldman Environmental Prize - Google has helped produce a multimedia GE 5 Tour which highlights the works of the winners of this year's Goldman Environmental Prize. One winner from each continent receives $150,000 each. The GE Tour is an excellent way to illustrate the location of the winners and the places they are working to help address environmental concerns. Check it out here directly in GE , or go to the Goldman Prize site to watch it in the GE plugin.

NASA Space Launch Initiative 2009 - RLV News