Crowdfunding Space Prize Teams

As I mentioned in my previous post, NanoSatisfi is funding a cubesat project with a number of prize aspects with a Kickstarter project.  By the time of that post, they had already achieved their original funding goal, and were attempting to reach $75,000 by their deadline of July 15 for additional satellite capabilities (possibly a pair of separate cubesats or a single 2CU cubesat).  This is just an update to note that they are now up to $82,453, and thus have reached their second funding goal.  Here's an update from them on what that means: Update #8: We are deeply humbled and inspired by you!.

During the Climber/Beam Power NASA Centennial Challenge, I often covered the Kansas City Space Pirates team, one of the most prominent teams in that competition.  Now the KCSP team is moving on to a new record-breaking challenge, to keep a small plane flying for 48 hours using beamed laser power, in the spirit of what Climber team LaserMotive achieved.  They are using an Indiegogo Fundraiser to raise funding for this project.  As of this writing, they are at $2,442 with a goal of $6,000.  Here is the actual fundraising page: Dawn of Laser Powered Flight.

Google Lunar X PRIZE team Omega Envoy is using Kickstarter to raise funds for a CNC milling machine: Earthrise Space Inc. Launches Kickstarter Project - Omega Envoy GLXP Teams page.  They have quite a way to go to reach their goal of $200,000.  Many of the funding rewards involve scale models of their lunar rover made using the CNC machine, but the biggest reward, for $10,000 or more pledged, includes having your DNA taken to the Moon.  Naturally that last bit assumes they succeed in getting their rover to the Moon.  Even if they don't, the highest pledge level includes a lot of other unique rewards.  Here is the Kickstarter page: Student Built Lunar Rover Prototype for Google Lunar X PRIZE.  This is also covered at PopSci: For $10,000 on Kickstarter, Google Lunar X-Prize Contender Will Land Your DNA on the Moon.

Final Frontier Design's spacesuit kickstart a success - RLV News on a Kickstarter success for one of the winners of the Astronaut Glove NASA Centennial Challenge

Prize Roundup: JPL National Science Bowl, Beamed Energy Propulsion, Xoie Art, Glove Project, More

Unreasonable update - RLV News

Move Over, Rover: Next Giant Leap Gets $1 Million Grant To Build Hopping Moon Landers - TechCrunch

National Science Bowl ® - Jet Propulsion Laboratory - JPL is hosting the Southern California regional competition on Saturday, January 22.

Beamed energy propulsion update - RLV News - Jordin Kare from LaserMotive is featured in the article.

@pomerantz: You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we'd sure love to give a prize. Some updates to the prize groups at http://www.xprize.org/

If you check out the Exploration Prize Group, you'll see that one of the proposed prize concepts is

Beamed Power Propulsion
Nearly all launches to date have relied on chemical propulsion, carried on board the vehicle, and thereby sharply reducing payload mass fraction. Beamed power offers a radically alternative launch strategy. Payload launch costs to orbit will drop by a factor of 50 or more. The goal is to launch a 10 Kg payload to a 30Km altitude, deriving 100% of its energy from a ground-based beamed power system. The system must also be reusable and repeatable within 24 hours.

The full set of concepts, covering aviation, space and ocean exploration, includes

• Asteroid Deflection
• Beamed Power Propulsion
• Crater Exploration
• Deep Human Submersible
• Electric Aviation
• Lunar Lander
• Ocean Explorer Platform
• Ocean Floor Mapping
• Ocean pH Sensor
• Orbital Debris Removal
• Personal Electric Autonomous Air Transporter
• Reaction Engine
• Suborbital
• Wolfram Physics

Also check out the prizes under development and in concept stage in the Energy and Environment, Education and Global Development, and Life Sciences prize groups.  Some have quite a lot of appeal as space prizes, even though they fit in the other categories.  For example, in the Life Sciences group,

The winner of the Space Life competition will be the first team that can create a single or multi-cellular edible organism that can grow under standard Martian surface conditions.

@flyingjenny: My latest creation: a needle felted Xoie by Masten Space Systems, Lunar Lander Challenge winner http://post.ly/1W6VN
See, here's the @Xprize X on Xoie: http://post.ly/1W6jz

From the winner of the Astronaut Glove Challenge:

@pkhomer: Heading home from HOU. Just kicked off a new glove project for @NASA.

@InnoCentiveCEO: Cool! Our new book is on Amazon for pre order even know won't be out for months! http://amzn.to/hn1o4k

@Prize4Life: Support Prize4Life! Contribute to Mark and Lionel’s fundraising effort for the Grand Traverse ski race! http://fb.me/O1oRkrXt

Fed Prize Authority, GLXP News Galore, Goddard Film Fest Winners, More

@ISS_NatLab: Congrats to Team ZeroBotX for their win at the Zero Robotics Competition! http://fb.me/P921Zhla

@ChallengeGov: BIG NEWS! Congress grants broad prize authority to all federal agencies http://go.usa.gov/rOm #challengegov #gov20

@astrobotic: Astrobotic has joined Twitter! Expect on-the-go updates about all our activities.

NASA awards $500k to 3 firms in lunar demo data project - RLV News

Google Lunar X PRIZE gets last minute entries before deadline - RLV News

Space Frontier to hold third TEDxMidTownNY event - RLV News - Note that Ted Southern is one of the Astronaut Glove Challenge winners.

Zephyr Aurora: Taking Shape [28] - Team Phoenicia

Winners Announced: 2010 Best of Goddard Film Festival - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Way out of the box... - Unreasonable Rocket

Prize Twitter Roundup: Space Craft and Art, NASA Tournament Lab, Better Gloves, ZeroG, NSRC, New GLXP Teams?

Don't be fooled by the first tweet below; it's from yesterday:

@lasermotive: Tom will be presenting at the First Look Forum this afternoon: http://bit.ly/aA5ygt

LaserMotive not only made the first cut to the final 5, but was chosen as Runner-Up (2nd place) at the First Look Forum. #NWEN

@peterdiamandis: Just landed after an awesome ZeroG flight. Everyone did great! Cameron loved the experience. We raised a bit over $200K to support X PRIZE.

I edited this next tweet to include the whole message rather than let Twitter's character limit cut it off with a link to the rest of the message near the end:

@teamprometheus: Working on new propellant for NSE-6 we will be doing some test rockoon launches this month! NSE-5.1 will be the first rockoon launch. We need to gather data for our flight controller programing. Working on a special coating to get the rocket to fire at 100kft.

Finished Rotor http://fb.me/HgS9mWmB

@nasa_technology: NASA Establishes Tournament Lab For Software Developers http://bit.ly/dhAISE

From the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) site:

NASA and Harvard University have established the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL), which will enable software developers to compete with each other to create the best computer code for NASA systems.

The NTL provides an online virtual facility for NASA researchers with a computational or complex data processing challenge to "order" a solution, just like they would order laboratory tests or supplies.

@nasa_technology: Lending a hand http://t.co/eBoLN7Q MIT research look into why spacesuit gloves hurt astros’ hands. w/ @NASA glove challenge winner @pkhomer

From the MIT News article Lending a hand: MIT researchers may be closer to understanding why spacesuit gloves hurt astronauts’ hands.:

“The study points to a different cause [of delamination] and a different way to deal with it,” said Peter Homer, founder of spacesuit-design company Flagsuit LLC, who is working with NASA and commercial companies to develop gloves for the next-generation spacesuit. “We need to look more closely at what is going on with the MCP joint,” he said, noting that the sizing and fit of the gloves around the MCP joint should be considered more closely in future designs.

Here's a note about the Space Craft Contest for making original art with a NASA theme:

@lori_garver: Crafty? NASA and Etsy team up: http://bit.ly/a7t0ka Rules and how to enter: http://www.etsy.com/nasa/enter.php

@Newspacenews: National Geographic documentary on Virgin Galactic debuts next week. http://bit.ly/8Ztych #space #newspace

Here's some information about possible new Google Lunar X PRIZE teams:

@pomerantz: RT @Rocketeer_UK: UK Lunar X-Prize team: Call for Interest http://tinyurl.com/2fs5c65

@csete @mrdoornbos Puli is not yet fully registered, but we do have a fully registered "Mystery" / unannounced Team - so 23 is right.

Finally, I have a couple more twitter accounts to follow, including 1 for the team Will mentioned:

@PuliSpace: Twitter Bio: Puli Space Technologies is a Hungary based team aiming to land a self-made rover on the Moon. Follow us and get to know how the Puli rockets into space.

@NSRC2011: Hi there-- I'm the Twitter page for the Next Gen Suborbital Researchers Conference to be held 28 Feb to 2 March next year in Orlando!

Space Prize Roundup: Optimus Prime Award, Space Shows, N-Prize Interview, More

Interview with Paul Dear of the N-Prize - RLV News

@pkhomer - Was just visited by Buzz Aldrin! Yup. For real. My head is still spinning!

@NASAGoddard - 3rd-8th graders, make a short video about spinoff tech and you could win the coveted NASA Optimus Prime Spinoff Award http://go.usa.gov/xbk

@doug_comstock - NASA and Hasbro partner for Optimus Prime award. Students do videos how NASA techs 'transform'. http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/optimus/index.php

Here are NASA's main links for the NASA Optimus Prime Award:

Home
Contest Details
Spinoff Technology Choices

@fineri - Spanking new website up at http://www.kiwi2space.co.nz/,thanks to @expertnz for donating their time & resources to make this happen!!choice!

Dr. Bryan Laubscher to appear on the 9/12/2010 Space Show - The Space Elevator Blog

Here's the podcast: Broadcast 1422 (Special Edition) - The Space Show

Just to mix things up a bit, instead of giving you the Space Show link, here's a link from The Space Show's Way Outside The Box Ideas And Plans Blog for Friday's interview of Tim Pickens. One of the subjects is the new Google Lunar X PRIZE team, the Rocket City Space Pioneers:

TIM PICKENS, Friday, 9-17-10

It looks like Armadillo is keeping busy this weekend ... but how did it turn out?

@armadillogadget: after 5 rocket racer runs we are about to pull out for a couple mod tests.

25 minutes to launch...

Space Prize Twitter Roundup: High Altitude Balloon, Wikisat, AstroFingernails, NASA RealWorld, More

Check out the recent NSE-5 video and other information from Team Prometheus. You can see more from their twitter, especially the September 4 tweets:

@TeamPrometheus: I uploaded a YouTube video -- Team Prometheus NSE-5 http://youtu.be/qBsKZLAqkes?a

NSE-6 is a much bigger project! We need all the help we can get. Please donate and help our team get into space!... http://fb.me/C451zTvF

New website going up! Under construction! Check it out. http://fb.me/GeiLeMbJ

NSE-5 flight profile in 3D! http://fb.me/Ff3rCbx4

@nprize: Just noticed Wikisat's video update: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AJf5bgJZPI

@pkhomer: Why they need new gloves: Astronauts' Fingernails Falling Off Due to Glove Design : http://tinyurl.com/37ne7xo via @NatGeoSociety

I'm too late on this one, which is from yesterday:

@SpaceAdventures: Anousheh Ansari speaking tonight at TEDxMidTownNY http://bit.ly/bDDwvx

@dmasten: Got the fiberglass intertank mockup in yesterday. Reassembly of Xoie into Xaero now at full speed. http://twitpic.com/2oh9f3

Here are a some twitter identities I ran across yesterday. I'll find a spot for them in the twitter lists on the top left panel of Space Prizes blog and twitter page:

@RASCAL2011: exciting news coming! not one but TWO! RASC-AL competitions this year. space exploration and planetary rover...more info soon!

RASC-AL: REVOLUTIONARY AEROSPACE SYSTEMS CONCEPTS ACADEMIC LINKAGE

@RWIWChallenge: register 2day & join FREE NSTA Web Sem. 2 learn more about how 2become part of RealWorld-InWorld Design Challenge:http://bit.ly/a9suxO #nasa

NASA RealWorld-InWorld NASA Engineering Design Challenge

Jon Goff is now @rocketrepreneur.

Space Prize Roundup: SpeedUp Update, Spacesuit Flair, Phoenicia Video, more

07/16/2010: Another Hard Start - SpeedUp

A Bit of Goofiness - Team Phoenicia

New Private Spacesuit Unveiled With New York Flair - Space.com:

Two private spacesuit designers unveiled their first steps toward serious attire for future space travelers Friday night in front of a young, hip crowd of artists and tech geeks in Manhattan. ... Moiseev and Southern first combined their talents as former competitors to win a $100,000 second place prize in NASA's 2009 astronaut glove challenge. Now they have expanded their partnership under the name of Final Frontier Design to go from glove to full-fledged spacesuit designed to be worn inside a spacecraft during launch and re-entry.

Here's the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center notice for the event. There's more information and links about the gloves and spacesuit at that site, and at Spacesuit Gloves. For example, check out Lasercut Glove Patterns.

LaserMotive Video – Who We Are, and What Is Power Beaming - LaserMotive

“Vision of the Future” and “Best Presentation of Space” Winners Announced - Space Frontier Foundation

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #26 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

The Lurio Report - July 17, 2010 - RLV News - This includes some information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

Prize Roundup: Astronaut Glove at NASA, Robotic Precursor RFI, NASAMICI Kick-Off, Moon Art, NASA ASK, More

@digitalart: The 2010 NASA Moon Art Contest: Last night I finished casting my votes as a judge in the NASA Life and Work on the... http://bit.ly/aUSd2r

@fineri: Video here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSE4Y7nkT0E , only a snipit of todays work.

Water test set up today. http://twitpic.com/1q88a2

@NASAMICI: Did several test runs today in prep for Mon big kick-off. Still time for undergrads & faculty to register http://nasamici.com/ #NASA

@paulsrobotics: Moonraker on display for the #makerfaire, come see the #omgrobots and learn more about #wpi http://twitpic.com/1q2clw

Calling all mavericks, for a good X Prize cause - SFGate

Sergey Brin talks to XPrize Audience thru Texai Robot - YouTube

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #19 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

TEAM AMERICA ROCKETRY CHALENGE 2010 FINAL RESULTS (PDF) - Team America Rocketry Challenge

Astronaut Glove Prizewinners Demonstrate their Innovations to NASA Spacesuit Engineers - NASA Centennial Challenges:

On Apr. 30, 2010, the winners of the 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge visited Johnson Space Center to meet with NASA space suit experts and demonstrate their gloves in a vacuum glove box. ... We are currently evaluating options for future work with the winners of the Astronaut Glove Challenge.

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) - Exploration Precursor Robotic Missions - Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA - NASA NSPIRES - This is not about prizes, but it may be of interest to prize competitors like Google Lunar X PRIZE teams.

Open-Door Innovation - Andrew Petro, NASA ASK Magazine

Weekend Twitter Update: Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundups, Madrid CanSats, Space Show, Beam Power Competition

@LunaCI: Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #12: http://is.gd/aVlDU Pretty active week around the GLXP :)

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #13!: http://is.gd/bc3Fj

@PTScientists: http://twitpic.com/1cvhky - I've got a cool new Jogging shirt! Thanks #SpaceX :-)

@glxp: "This is not your father's moon": NewScientist article on the state of lunar science http://bit.ly/d1AKUY (thx @iamjem)

@TeamPrometheus: Going back to Calli! With three launch Goals! Lander, Rockoon and Amatuer Altitude record! Not coming back to Texas... http://bit.ly/8XLjJd

Here's a couple Space Show interviews with prize themes (of course the interviews cover a lot of other ground, too):

Peter Homer - March 19th, 2010 (Astronaut Glove Challenge)
Dr. Paul Dear - March 26, 2010 (N-Prize)

The Space Elevator Games are still active:

Vertical no more - LaserMotive

Space Elevator Blog celebrates its 4 year anniversary - Space Elevator Blog

The McGill Space Elevator Team site has a new look. They're in the game for the 2010 competition:

We are currently working hard to finish our climber and power beaming laser system for the upcoming competition scheduled for May 2010. Be sure to visit our blog for frequent updates.

Lunar payloads for sale - Dispatches from the Final Frontier

CMU researchers aim for the moon by developing lunar rover - Pittsburgh Business Times

ECO-MARATHON ULM in Vichy - This is s competition for flying as far as possible using as little energy as possible.

2nd International CanSat Competition - DeSoto: ESA´s CanSat competition.

FAR Testing, Peter Homer on Space Show, Intel Award, Lunar LaserMotive?, Space Entry in Art Contest, more

Here are a bunch of prize-related tweets from the last few days that caught my attention. Note that the date references in them (like "today") are most likely out of date.

The first batch is about some rocket testing by former Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge teams. I wouldn't be surprised if they have more tweets throughout the day. One convenient place you can check is the ngllc-teams twitter list.

@glxp: Rockets! Rockets! Rockets! New blog post: http://bit.ly/cLh1L1 #GLXP

@unrocket: Leaving for far eta 1230

At mojave am pm getting gas and fuel for the truck, 45 min to far

New gps ant mount, both lighter and stronger! http://yfrog.com/6u1obj

Blue Ball is ready, leaving for FAR in 11hrs, time enough to build new non-fragile GPS antenna mount. Off to the metal store....

@wikkit: Headed back out to FAR shortly. Will be camping under the stars guarding my rocket, maybe watch Moon on my laptop under the crescent moon.

@alias_amanda: http://twitpic.com/19mcz6 - Treasure map acquired -- 'X' marks the spot where rockets will be launching tomorrow.

@LaserMotive: In addition to UAVs, we've been having discussions with people interested in powering lunar rovers.

@FLspacereport: Teen Girl Wins $100,000 Intel Science Award with Spaceflight Project. http://bit.ly/bYA8oL

@LBourgeois1: forum.TeamFREDNET.org • View topic - Picorover http://bit.ly/ahy8tJ

@TeamPrometheus: I posted 3 photos on Facebook in the album "Gimbal" http://bit.ly/bOdSb6

jetlab: JPL Wins 'Green Building Award': JPL's environmentally friendly Flight Projects Center received a "Green Bui... http://bit.ly/b4dG9M

@PTScientists: @glxp new headcount we now got 40 Part Time Scientists!

@SpaceShow: Peter Homer, President & Founder of FLAGSUIT LLC, is the guest this morning, 9:30-11:30 AM PDT. Listen live at http://www.thespaceshow.com/.

Note: digitalart is the twitter account for Jim Plaxco:

@digitalart: BLUECANVAS Art Contest and New Art: With A Flourish The folks over at BLUECANVAS Magazine are having an art conte... http://bit.ly/b4fzoo

dmasten: An interesting view of today's free flight from @wikkit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsO2YD9KV_I

http://twitpic.com/19ef6k and ready for free flight.

http://twitpic.com/19ee66 good flight. Prepping for free flight.

Heading out for a couple test flights today. http://twitpic.com/19dw2z

@arcaspace: Video journal entry 9 Videoclip from Mission 3 about Helen stage 1 being loaded onto 281 Constanta Navy ship. http://bit.ly/cfGhGe

@progautoxp: RT @PoulsenHybrid: Congrats to the 24 MIT Clean Energy Prize Semifinalist Teams. http://tinyurl.com/yelm8vz Who's your favorite?

Weekend Roundup Part 2 - The Non-Twitter Side

Stephen Hawking to Accept Cosmos Award in Cambridge, England - The Planetary Society - Note that the award presentation was a week ago (the linked press release is from February 24).

Greetings From Space Up in Sunny San Diego! - The Planetary Society reviews the unconference, including photos of people and hardware from Unreasonable Rocket and Masten Space Systems.

Masten Space Systems Update - NASASpaceflight.com - Jon from Masten links to another picture from the unconference in this discussion.

Let's put robots AND humans in space - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Astrobotic's David Gump considers NASA's new budget proposal. Much of the debate over this budget concerns a controversy over whether NASA should use its own systems, commercial systems, or both to give NASA astronauts access to space. This article focuses on a less-debated, but essential, part of the new plan that goes beyond the old astronauts-vs-robotics debate: a new line of robotic astronaut precursor missions to do things like travel to the Moon's surface and demonstrate production of rocket propellant from lunar ice.

NASA Wants to Fund Centennial Challenges at $10 Million Per Year - Parabolic Arc

Bankrupt Sea Launch Gets More Financing – Heinlein Prize Trust Involved - Parabolic Arc

Centennial Challenges gathering… - The Space Elevator Blog

“One of the problems we had last year was wind-induced oscillation…” - The Space Elevator Blog points to some video clips from Bitter Jester Creative, Inc.

Announcing the Artsutanov and Pearson awards - The Space Elevator Blog

Marshall hosts the 2010 Great Moonbuggy Race - Lunar Networks

Ted Southern - Eyebeam Art + Technology Center

You can see more photos of Ted's astronaut glove at his Glove & Hands page. From there you can also get to his other projects.

A wry report on regolith removal - RLV News

Explore Mars, Inc. opens - Space for All:

... We are pleased to announce the formation of Explore Mars, Inc. (exploremars.org). ... In the first half of 2010, Explore Mars will launch a series of technology development challenges relating to Mars exploration, with prizes ranging from $10,000 - $100,000. ... the first of these challenges will focus on in situ resource utilization - technologies that will allows us to "live off the land" on other planets. ... collaborating with Aerojet and NASA's Spaceward Bound, we will be creating the Mars Education Challenge that will challenge educators to design new and innovative Mars curriculum. ... Explore Mars plans to announce details of at least two prizes in the first half of 2010. The Explore Mars team includes individuals such as Apollo 11 Astronaut, Buzz Aldrin; NASA Planetary scientist, Dr. Chris McKay; Space historian, Andy Chaikin; former Biosphere 2 director of science and research, Bruno D.V. Marino; and many others.

Aero Club of Atlanta presents Epps Award - GeneralAviationNews.com:

... Huffman has inspired students who later become astronauts, including two students from Henderson High School, the only known school in the world to graduate two NASA astronauts. ... She is the founder of the SEMAA (NASA’s Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy) LINKS Engineering team and sponsored the Wild Blue Wonders Team America Rocketry Challenge. ...

The latest NewSpace News links to an article by Peter Diamandis, Beam Power team LaserMotive, and information about the 2010 Space Access conference that includes numerous space prize teams.

Johns Hopkins Engineering - Winter 2010 - One of the features in this article is on the JHU Robotics Team. The team participates in the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition and the International Aerial Robotics competition.

Working on Blue and.... - Unreasonable Rocket

Volanz Aerospace Thanks Secor Strategies - Secor Strategies

Conrad Award Scholarships, Brain-Computer Interface Workshop, ISS Formation Flying, Lunar Sample Return, More

@TeamPrometheus SS2S recived the parts we made for the protoshot mark III! http://bit.ly/7tMsdk

@PeterDiamandis here at MIT X Prize event with my friend Bob Metcalf brainstorming BCI prizes

See many more tweets on the Brain-Computer Interfaces MIT X PRIZE Lab workshop at #bcixprize

@progautoxp If you will be @ #NAIAS next week stop by the #PIAXP booth. Learn more about the competition & meet qualified teams. Drive the cars too! #FB

@spacecom Scaled Composites’ Peter Siebold Wins Iven C.Kincheloe Award: Peter Siebold (Photo: Scaled Composites) Cal Poly gr... http://bit.ly/8RM13z

@NASA_Ames DARPA looks to use SPHERES (formation flying test on ISS) for crowdsource experiment http://is.gd/5RwXl

The previous tweet is on a Wired Danger Room article. From DARPA's RFI linked in the article:

DARPA seeks an open-innovation approach to the development of algorithms for the control of the Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage, and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) that operate inside the International Space Station. ... DARPA is interested in novel, out-of-the-box ideas for involving vast groups of people in SPHERES algorithm and software development, and potentially operations. Such concepts may involve, for instance, competitions, prize awards, massively-distributed collaborative development, viral campaigns, prediction markets, new ventures ...

An Excellent Scholarship Opportunity for Spirit of Innovation Awards Participants - Spirit of Innovation Awards blog

MAKE visits MicroRAX HQ - Make blog - Beam power team LaserMotive is part of the story here.

Secor Strategies Sponsors & Helps Coordinate NASA Astronuat Glove Contest - Secor Strategies blog

Notional Next Rocket... - Unreasonable Rocket

Google Lunar X PRIZE teams will want to keep an eye on this as the 3rd New Frontiers mission is selected:

New Frontiers Candidates Selected - Future Planetary Exploration blog - One of the candidates is a lunar sample return mission.
More on MoonRise New Frontiers Proposal - Future Planetary Exploration blog
Moon Mission In Running For Next Big Space Venture - Moon Daily

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

Late in the Astronaut Glove Challenge Day - Winners!

Here's a twitter list for the Astronaut Glove Challenge:

twitter.com/spaceprizes/astronaut-glove-challenge

Alternately, you could just go to twitter and search for some variant on the challenge name.

As I'm finishing up this post, I see Doug Comstock posted the following a couple minutes ago!

@Doug_Comstock: Peter Homer wins $250k 1st prize and Ted Southern wins $100k 2nd prize in Astro Glove Challenge. Congrats to both for a great competition!

@NASAPrize: testing all done judges will meet to determine scores

Peter Homer's glove passed burst test reaching 20 psi with no leak

Ted's passed reaching 17 psi

You can see some pictures from some of the other tweets.

Astronaut Glove Challenge underway - RLV News

Designing Astronaut Gloves - MIT Technology Review

NASA challenges inventors to improve space gloves - Florida Today

Astronaut Glove, LEAG Meeting, MoonBots, more

@NextGiantLeap Good luck to @pkhomer this Thursday, re: the $400K Astronaut Glove Challenge! http://bit.ly/2blddB

From the linked NASA IPP press release:

At least two competitors are expected, including Peter Homer, the winner of the competition held in 2007.

@selenokhod I uploaded a YouTube video -- Selenokhod at TvRoscosmos http://bit.ly/4xRqWW

@MoonBots: We're having a MoonBots planning call right now! Moonbots will be back!

Tentative Dates - 2nd International CanSat Competition in Madrid

Its Time To Push NASA Prizes Even Further - NASA Watch on a post from the JSC Advanced Planning Office Blog

Here are some Google Lunar X PRIZE team members presenting at the Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG 2009) (PDF) being held November 16-19:

Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 1:15 p.m. Panel: Robotic Lunar Rover Prospectors
Whitaker W. (Carnegie Mellon Institute)

Poster Session: Cohanim B. Joyce M. Mosher T. Tuohy S. Cunio P.
TAKING THE NEXT GIANT LEAP. (PDF)

Poster Session: Richards R. D.
ODYSSEY MOON “M-1” MISSION OF OPPORTUNITY– ENABLING SCIENCE, EXPLORATION AND COMMERCE. (PDF)

These are just the ones I noticed; I wouldn't be surprised if there are more there.

Update:

Briefs: EVA interviews Next Giant Leap; White Label Space team - RLV News

@VerySpatial GAW Contest - What country is the home to Lake Nasser? DM your answer by 11:59 PM PST for chance to win.

@bonnova New video: 106 sec. rocket engine hot fire http://bit.ly/3lCmGM

@LaserMotive Discussions have begun on holding the next phase of the competition. We will be there!

In my ongoing twitter management quest, I've updated some twitter searches at the top left of the Space Prizes blog to use Twitter Lists, and added some new lists. Some are links to other peoples' lists. The ones I've made are:

Space Elevator Games
Regolith Excavation Challenge
More Google Lunar X PRIZE
X PRIZE Foundation Space
X PRIZE Foundation Other
More Prizes
Commercial Space
NASA
Space Media
General
Digital Globes, Remote Sensing

LCROSS Results, Patch Contests, 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge, SEDS Conference, Recent Elevator Games

Space Fellowship hosts alternative Google Lunar X PRIZE Forum - Space Fellowship

Most Valuable Real Estate in the Solar System: Water on Lunar South Pole - Peter Diamandis at The Launch Pad:

I’m particularly excited for all of the teams building vehicles for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. ... Think of these vehicles as a low-cost ‘prospectors’ looking for information and valuable data, as well as the companies constructing the shovels and picks on the bleeding edge of this potential boom.

LCROSS Changes the Game, Discovers Significant Amounts of Water on the Moon - The Launch Pad

NASA offers $400,000 for super space glove - Network World - I haven't heard any news about competitors this year, but this may be a hint:

NASA said the competition will test gloves from at least two contestants that will measure the gloves' dexterity and strength during operation in a glove box that simulates the vacuum of space.

NASTAR Suborbital Scientist Training Program Patch Contest - NASA Watch

Last patch for the last Shuttle flight - Space for All

SEDS SpaceVision 2009 at Univ. of Arizona - RLV News - The conference includes a number of speakers with prize connections, such as Ben Brockert (Masten Space Systems), Bob Richards (Odyssey Moon), Ken Davidian (former NASA Centennial Challenges manager), Peter Diamandis, and Richard Garriott (who used a competition as part of his space flight).

Going from lunar landing to suborbital flight - RLV News - Unreasonable Rocket considers what's needed for the next big step.

The three caballeros… - The Space Elevator Blog

LaserMotive’s first prize-winning run - The Space Elevator Blog - It includes the key video.

Press Release and Tech Discussion of Competition Results - LaserMotive:

“Now that we have dramatically demonstrated the capabilities of laser power beaming, we will be going on to new projects,” said Dr. Jordin Kare, chief engineer for the project. “We look forward to working with NASA and DOD, as well as with our industrial partners, to develop laser power beaming systems for aerospace and military applications. We also hope to develop commercial products based on our technologies. We will be evaluating several possible markets over the next few months.”

SketchUp Building Contest, Innocentive and Yet2.com JSC contract, RASC-AL and Astronaut Glove open, space lit research contest

Links: Building Design Competition, Google Wave - Google Earth Blog - From the blog: Hasbro, the company behind Monopoly City Streets, has just announced a competition to let users design buildings that might appear in the game. Between now and October 6, design your building using Google SketchUp and then upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse. ...

Cheap Contest - John Hare at Selenian Boondocks issued a $100 orbital mechanics literature search contest. So far Bob Steinke of SpeedUp has sent in an attempt at winning the contest.

What Is Open Innovation at JSC? Update - NASA Watch - Here's an excerpt from an update to this post: JSC has made two contract awards: one to Innocentive, Inc. and the other to Yet2.com.

NIA and NASA Announce Student Engineering Competition - press release about RASC-AL on SpaceRef: Students can choose one of four themes for their project: a lunar outpost design that will help reduce risk for future human missions to Mars; technology -enabled human Mars mission; novel concepts to engage the general public in human exploration missions; and architecture approaches that provide cost-effective exploration with minimal infrastructure.

Centennial Challenges 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge - Justia.com Regulation Tracker: The 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge is now scheduled, and teams that wish to compete may now register. ... The 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge is being administered by Volanz Aerospace Inc. for NASA. ... The 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge will be held on November 18-19, 2009. Location: The 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge will be held at United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in Kennedy Space Center, Florida (near the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center).

Prize Roundup - June 26-27 - MoonROx and Sandbox, Nanotech, EurekaFest, Astronaut Glove, Space Map, Pirate Show, Green Racing for Green $, Lego Team

This post features the June picture (and Orbital category winner) from the 2009 Space Settlement Calendar resulting from the 2009 National Space Society calendar contest.

In my previous post, I gave a quick link to the announcement, but here's more on what's happening with NASA Ames and the Regolith Excavation Challenge, and what the implications are: Best. Sandbox. Ever. - The Launch Pad

From the Foresight Institute:
2009 Foresight Institute Feynman Prize for Theoretical and Experimental Molecular Nanotechnology - Submissions/nominations are due June 30, 2009
2009 Foresight Institute Prize in Communication - Submissions/nominations are due June 30, 2009
Foresight Institute Distinguished Student Award - Submissions/nominations are due August 22, 2009

In other nanotechnology prize news:

WORLD-RENOWNED NANOTECHNOLOGY EXPERT PROVES THERE IS BIG POTENTIAL IN THE SMALLEST OF MATTER - Lemelson-MIT Program - Professor Chad Mirkin Awarded the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for Revolutionary Advancements in Nanotechnology - (link from Cosmic Log):

A prolific inventor and entrepreneur, his innovations have the potential to transform the future of medical diagnostics and patient point-of-care and to ignite change across many industries from semi-conductors to healthcare. ... Mirkin, the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University (NU), will accept the prize and present his accomplishments to the public at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the Lemelson-MIT Program’s third-annual EurekaFest, a multi-day celebration of the inventive spirit, June 25-27.

EurekaFest has a lot of other activities, too. Here are some more pointers:

2009 winner of the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability
2009 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize Winner
Joel Selanikio ~ Lemelson-MIT Sustainability Hero - Maximizing Progress

Here's something from the MoonROx Challenge Team Agreement:

The CHALLENGE, and the opportunity to win the prize purse, expires on June 1, 2009. ...
CHALLENGE will be conducted through June 1, 2009, unless extended at CSEWI's discretion.

So, what happens next? Is it extended, are the rules changed, does the money go to another prize, or does the Treasury keep it? I don't know.

Celebration for "Reach for the Stars Rocket Contest" winners - Space for All

KC Space Pirates to appear on the Science Channel - Space Elevator Blog
Testing Results - Space Elevator Blog - This gives pointers to some of the recent posts on the Space Elevator Games site.

This may or not be news, but it's the first I noticed it. The Centennial Challenges site shows where the 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge will be held: November 2009 → MIT Campus, Cambridge, MA → 2009 Purse $400K

Friday Funday Space Map Wrapup - The Launch Pad - The map shows where a lot of space activity is, including prize teams and organizations, Launch Pad followers, and others.

Racing Goes Green - Cosmic Log
On the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE: Fox said the detailed rules and schedules for the competition ahead - including on-the-road semifinals and finals - should be announced sometime in the next few weeks

Here's one of the links from the Cosmic Log article: MICHELIN EMBRACES GREEN RACING WITH MICHELIN® GREEN X® CHALLENGE

@teamfrednet - You can read more about our #GLXP Lego Mindstorm project at http://bit.ly/13L9XI

Exploring journalism's future - MIT News - In order to encourage interaction and collaboration among the conference participants, the Knight News Challenge sponsors announced early on that they would offer additional grants of $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 to the top three proposals submitted by attendees, involving collaborations between groups that have not previously worked together.

Space Suit Design: Function and Fashion

Outer Space Suits - Burda Style - Open Source Sewing -

The other week when I was looking for some information on gloves I came across a curious announcement, the 2009 Astronaut Glove Challenge, to "promote the development of a highly dexterous and flexible glove for space and planetary surface excursions". What inspires space suit designers? And is there any inspiration that we can draw from them?

Space Fashion Design Contest - Space for All -

In an exciting departure from the typical luxury fashion shows during its semi-annual New York event, one of the runway shows to be presented during Couture Fashion Week this season will be Space Couture, a sampling of the highly creative winning designs of a series of competitions. This inventive fashion show will be held on Sunday, February 15, 2009 at the world-famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

Couture Fashion Week - Fashion Calendar -

Location: The Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue (between 49th & 50th Streets), New York City ...
Sunday February 15, 2009 ...
8:30 p.m. - CRISTINA NITOPI MENSWEAR SPACE COUTURE Performance by Violinist Jane Hunt

SpaceFashion.org - The Official Space Fashion Site

Centennial Challenges (especially NG LLC) Update

I'm not going to try to make a big round-up post for the last couple days of Centennial Challenges (mainly Lunar Lander Challenge) news, since I'm a bit short on time. Check HobbySpace/RLV News for a good overview. Here are the ones that seem like the important ones to me:

Briefs: NG-LLC articles; NASA Innovative Project Partnership - RLV News - This includes, among other relevant links, a Space VidCast interview of NASA Centennial Challenge's Andrew Petro. The interview covers most of the Centennial Challenges; I think only MoonROx and General Aviation Challenge were left out. It also covered other commercially-oriented work that NASA IPP does. He notes that they have some ideas for new prizes for next year ... but of course they'd need to have money to fund them. The interview was around half an hour.

An open source lunar lander - RLV News - In addition to the thought-provoking main subject of the post, there's a a link to a detailed recap of recent events by John Carmack. Among other things, he invites TrueZerO to the aRocket forum.

TrueZer0 wrap-up - RLV News - Hopefully they'll be able to continue with the LLC next year. There's a lot of global media and blog coverage of the 2008 LLC - I see it swamping my In Box each day. I've only linked to a small part of it these past few days. Hopefully this coverage translates into more sponsorship opportunities for them, and for the other teams.