Thursday, March 29, 2012

Prize Roundup: Tricorder Prize guidelines, Heinlein Centennial Retrospective, Gerst on Zero Robotics, Finer Rockets, Space Awards, Innovation Summit, more


This is supposed to be another catch-up post, but it turns out that most of it is fairly new, considering the time span of the gap I'm filling in.  I still plan one more catch-up post.  That will be on aviation prizes.

Competition Guidelines Are Live! - Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE - This is a draft version, and it's available for comments.

Here's a detailed, personal review recently posted by the Heinlein Society of the 2007 Heinlein Centennial, including some prize-related content such as a Heinlein Prize Trust presentation and a talk by Peter Diamandis:

Heinlein Centennial – Day One
Heinlein Centennial – Day Two
Heinlein Centennial – Day Three
Heinlein Centennial – Day Last +1

Statement of William H. Gerstenmaier Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations National Aeronautics and Space Administration before the Committee on Science, Space and Technology U. S. House of Representatives (PDF) - This includes a section on the Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge competitions.

Zero Robotics Autonomous Space Capture Challenge - The start date was March 28 (yesterday), and it continues through April.

Rockets - Iain Finer keeps us up to date on 100kft Carmack Prize and other rocket work on the new blog The Sky Is No Longer The Limit.

Stephen Hawking Accepts Prestigious NSS Award on Society's 25th Anniversary - National Space Society Blog

NASA's Twitter Account Receives Award - NASA Watch

International Space Apps Challenge - NASA Watch

National Air and Space Museum’s Trophy Awarded to Burt Rutan and the Cassini-Huygens Flight Team - Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

2012 JSETEC is in the works - The Space Elevator Blog - JSETEC stands for the Japan Space Elevator Technical and Engineering Competition.

The 2012 Conrad Foundation Innovation Summit Schedule of Activities at NASA Ames covered the aerospace part of the competition today.  That includes finalist presentations, a chat with Naveen Jain (one of the founders of Google Lunar X PRIZE team Moon Express), talks by Pete Worden and Rusty Schweickart, and more.  Friday is Clean Energy Day, and Saturday is Health and Nutrition Day.