Prize Roundup: Student Launch Initiative, Weightless Objects, Visioneering, More

Other than a burst of posts about Space Access '11 (see much more about that conference here), I haven't written much here at Space Prizes in the last few weeks.  This is due to a combination of getting ready for a new addition to the family, lots of visitors, and other activities unrelated to blogging.  I wouldn't be surprised if the posts here continue to happen at a slower rate than before.  In the meantime, here's a roundup:

The Student Launch Initiative is taking place this weekend.  The following tweet has a key hashtag and video link, but there's also lots more from SLI_1milehigh:

@SLI_1milehigh: 47 teams are competing today, including 17 middle/high schools and 30 college/univ ( #Watching_Rockets_Launch live at http://ustre.am/rrlz)

The deadline for the next tweet is now in the past, but there are still ways to get involved.

@gozerog: Last day to submit your entry into the 2011 Weightless Object Contest. Click here to enter http://bit.ly/fKSS6C

From the site: 

Submit one photo of an object you would like to see weightless by April 15. ZERO-G will select the Top 5 entries and publish them on ZERO-G's Facebook page on April 18. Then it's up to ZERO-G fans to select the winning object. The winner will be announced on April 22 and the winning object will fly on an upcoming ZERO-G flight. 

The next one is from April 15, so it's well under way now:

@peterdiamandis: Kicking off a three day X PRIZE board meeting. We have 100 CEOs and philanthropists gathering for a Visioneering brainstorm of future prizes 

You can see more about this at the twitter hashtag #visioneering

@nss: New review of Ansari's biography by Cliff McMurray: http://www.nss.org/books. Use Amazon links to benefit NSS. 

National Space Society Announces Space Pioneer Award for Business Entrepreneur to Be Awarded to SpaceX - National Space Society

@morpheuslander: @VAXHeadroom We are partnered with Armadillo Aerospace, one of the NGLLC winners. Having me at JSC allows rapid testing and iteration. 

LaserMotive to Exhibit at SPIE - LaserMotive 

Join our mailing list - Sample Return Robot Challenge 

NASA Releases Status On Open Government Initiatives - SpaceRef - You can see the status of the initiatives at the NASA Open Gov Status Dashboard.  Many of the items on the dashboard concern the NASA Centennial Challenges. 

2011 Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards - NASA Watch 

NASA Make Challenge Webcast - NASA Watch

I've posted a number of times on Google Earth prizes, on ocean prizes, and on Virgin Galactic's work to take the Ansari X PRIZE win to the next level.  This next link isn't about prizes, but it does mix up those other 3 interests of mine in a new way, so I'll let this post take a quick step outside of the prize world for a second to link to a post about Virgin Oceanic: 

Diving deep with Richard Branson - Google Earth Blog 

Saturday Testing... - Unreasonable Rocket 

Armadillo working on Mod vehicle
Briefs: Iridium Next on Falcons; Catch a Ride with Rocket City Space Pioneers
Briefs: PWR joins Rocket City Space Pioneers; Morpheus update
Briefs: Moon Express; Colorado rockets; Southern space gloves - all from RLV News