Sunday, December 20, 2009

Space Prize Acronym Roundup: NSS via SF, SFF, AAS, GLXP, LCPA, NASA, R&D Mag, PISCES, MAAV (IARC team), E.R.P.S. on MSS and NG-LLC, ISEC, C-MITES

This one isn't new, but I don't recall seeing it before: Astronaut Glove Challenge video

While we're at it, here's one from this year's glove challenge: 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge
and here's one from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Hands in Space.

Taking space science to the streets - R&D Magazine Blogs

The Mission Overview - Major Tom Goes to Hawaii - The winning team from the 2009 PISCES Design Competition, from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, gives an overview of their design for a reusable cargo transportation system to the lunar surface.

SFF planning Capitol Hill campaign for February - RLV News - The agenda includes

Increased funding for the Centennial Challenges space prize program

NASA in need of a major overhaul - Houston Chronicle -

... What's needed is a transformation that encourages an entrepreneurial, rather than bureaucratic, culture. ... Google recently put some $30 million in award money on the table for teams able to land a robotic lunar rover on the moon as part of the X Prize Foundation's efforts to stimulate activity in spaceflight and exploration. Responding to the call have been nongovernment teams from Germany, Russia, China, Italy, Denmark, Romania, Canada and the U.S. This should stand as an indicator of where the NASA mission is headed. ... As NASA transitions to a new, younger workforce in the next decade, let us hope it begins rewriting its rules to inspire these individuals to achieve the sort of successes the X Prize winners are achieving ...

Heinlein Award Balloting - SF Site

LunaTrex name now defunct - The Herald Bulletin

The LCPA Extreme Science Program of the Latino College Preparatory Academy includes rocketry (including participation in the Team America Rocketry Challenge), robotics (including participation in the StRUT Competition involving recycling computers), Aeronautics, and many other science and technology fields.

AAS Imagine '09: Google Lunar X PRIZE by William Pomerantz - Slideshare

Here's a new International Aerial Robotics Competition team: MAAV (Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles).

General Meeting #345 - Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society - From the meeting minutes:

Michael suggested we think about a Pogo Mark2 vehicle capable of performing a Conrad Square (up, hover, translate, hover, land). The recently completed Lunar Lander Challenge (won by former E.R.P.S. President Dave Masten’s company – Masten Space Systems) demonstrated just such capabilities. Unreasonable Rockets (a father and son team) got hardware in the air using peroxide. ...

More YouTube videos - The Space Elevator Blog

My presentation at the 2009 EuroSpaceward Conference - The Space Elevator Blog - The slide presentation on ISEC on mentions some proposed ISEC academic prizes starting in 2010. From the blog post:

... Our next major goal is to get these academic competitions up and running. We are very fortunate to have the two modern “fathers” of the Space Elevator, Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson agree to have our academic prizes named after them. We have a team of physicists and engineers ready to review the academic submissions. ...

Design an Experiment for the Space Station! – Deadline February 19, 2010 - Teaching with Contests blog describes the "Kids in Micro-g!" challenge:

The ten regional winners, one national winner and one national runner-up winner will have their experiments conducted by the astronauts on board the space station in the April-May 2010 timeframe.

Here are a couple lists of competitions that include space and many other fields:

Innovation Contests - Extended Business Solution - The links in this one aren't working for me, but search engines like Google's should allow you to quickly find the competitions you're interested in.

Links for Parents and Educators - Contests - C-MITES - Carnegie Mellon Institute for Talented Elementary and Secondary Students