Popular Mechanics on Change in Entrepreneurial Space Industry

RLV News points us to an article in Popular Mechanics on how the National Space Society ISDC conferences have been changing from "bold talk and dreams" to "getting down to business" over the years. This is in part because of the change of focus from trying to get Congress to fund the dreams to the existence of a growing group of space entrepreneurs and suppliers that have more realistic business plans and funding. (Space Prizes question: But are the plans realistic enough? Is the funding enough? Space isn't easy.) The current atmosphere strikes the author as similar to that of the early computer and nanotechnology industries.

The article gives a lot of credit for the current entrepreneurial space vibrancy to the Ansari X PRIZE and the Lunar Lander Challenge. Although we shouldn't forget other factors, like regulatory barriers being lowered or removed, a generation of Internet pioneers feeling like space is the next big challenge to overcome, NASA cracking the door a bit on purchasing from commercial suppiers and using the COTS approach, and a generation of lessons learned the hard way by the earlier space entrepreneurs, prizes certainly have had an important role.

NSS Chapters on Banner Contest Winners

Earlier I posted on the National Space Society Banner Contest, and the winners of the contest. Now the NSS Chapters News has a writeup on the winners.

SEDS Space Art Contest

Artsnova Digital Art and Space returns from the ISDC, and posts about the SEDS Space Art Contest that was announced there. Here's a link to the competition site that's being set up.

ISDC Centennial Challenges Interview

Space Task Force has a (voice, not text) interview with Centennial Challenge's Ken Davidian at the 2007 ISDC. The interview covers the Lunar Lander Challenge, the Regolith Challenge, the Astronaut Glove Challenge, and the Space Elevator Games (Tether and Beam Power Challenges).

If all of the Lunar Lander Challenge money is won at this year's X PRIZE Cup, Ken would like to have some kind of follow-on competition for the X PRIZE Cup. Of course the Challenges will need additional funding to allow something like that to happen, and they haven't gotten any for a long time. NASA is asking for $4M this year for Centennial Challenges, but it remains to be seen how the budget will work out.

Ken noted that although the Challenges aren't an "outreach" or "educational" program, the outreach just happens by itself. People are just interested in seeing real hardware flying and operating. Also, the Allied organizations are all adding educational components to the prizes they manage.

Videos from ISDC 2007

Here are some videos from the ISDC, reached from instructions here. There are a lot more videos in the series; I'm just linking to ones that appeared to be prize-related (ie the ones I watched). Follow the instructions linked above to find the rest of the videos.

Armadillo representative with Pixel in the background

Michael Mealling from Masten Space on "Why Space"? An overview of Masten's business is also included.

ISDC exhibit hall overview, including a look at the Centennial Challenges display

Interview with Robin Snelson, known here as the blogger at the Lunar Lander Challenge blog (since moved on to other efforts), but who apparently also at one point worked with the X PRIZE

ISDC prizes and awards - descriptions of various NSS awards presented at ISDC, including videos of the actual trophies and other prizes - Wernher von Braun prize for inspirational team leader of a space project, Gerard K. O'neill Award for space settlements, and space pioneer awards, such as the award for the Student Space Settlement Design contest

Space Settlement Design Award winners (in Spanish)

James Patrick Baen Memorial Writing Contest Winners

One of the prize events at the National Space Society's 2007 ISDC was the James Patrick Baen Memorial Writing Contest. The winners from this contest have now been announced. Forbidden Planet International has a post on the winning stories, and also provides a link to this press release on the contest. The Science Fiction Book Club also has a short post on the winner. The grand prize winner was Mike Wood, for the story "A Better Sense of Direction". This story will be published in Jim Baen's Universe, an online science fiction magazine. Judges include the well-known SF authors Mike Resnick and Eric Flint, as well as Baen Books editor Toni Weisskopf.

Note to future authors: the site that announced the winners also states that they intend to make this an annual event, so start writing!

Paul Spudis at the ISDC

Space Politics has a post on a talk by Paul Spudis at the NSS ISDC. The theme was the Vision for Space Exploration, and especially what is going well and what isn't with the large lunar component of that vision. There are a number of comments on the summary of the talk, and Paul has provided a link to his slides from the presentation. A review of the slides will show that it advocates an implementation of the VSE that follows more of the points in the original VSE and the Aldridge Commission, including a series of lunar robotic precursors (not just 1), serious involvement of commercial space throughout the program (not just in a couple isolated instances), and use of prizes (slide pages 15 and 18).

For more, here's a link to Dr. Spudis's blog. His current post discusses the ISDC and the Space Politics discussions. Here's the Aldridge Commission report, which he participated in - and yes, it recommends a much larger prize program, as well as comprehensive involvement of commercial space in the VSE.

More on Armadillo at ISDC 2007

Space.com has more on John Carmack's ISDC 2007 talk. Some of the most interesting points (just read the whole article if these sound interesting):

- Pixel has flown dozens of times since the 2006 Lunar Lander Challenge.
- There seems to be some commercial and government interest in using Pixel to house instruments.
- There are thoughts of using the platform for "Space Diving", or very high altitude skydiving.

Space Liberates Us! and the Lunar Lander Challenge

Space Liberates Us! blog has a number of recent posts, including some from the ISDC, with a Lunar Lander Challenge angle.

First, in one post from the conference there's a picture of Pixel from Armadillo Aerospace.

Next, there's a post on John Carmack's talk at the conference. The post notes that Armadillo intents to bring 4 functioning vehicles to the Lunar Lander Challenge at the 2007 X PRIZE Cup.

Finally, an earlier post notes that the blogger from Space Liberates Us! (Matt) is going to have an internship with Masten Space Systems, another Lunar Lander Challenger. He gets a congratulations from Will Pomerantz from the X PRIZE Foundation in the post's comments.

NSS Space Finance Award

The NSS Space Finance Award was supposed to be presented on May 24 at the ISDC conference's Space Venture Finance Symposium, but I haven't been able to find out who won the award. I will post an update if/when I find out.

Wernher von Braun award

Along with some other posting from the National Space Society ISDC 2007, Instapundit reports that Steven Squyres, of Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity fame, won the NSS's Wernher von Braun award (Instapundit link originally provided by Transterrestrial Musings, which also provides some other ISDC-related links).

ISDC 2007 started

The National Space Society's International Space Development Conference (ISDC) 2007 has started. This includes some topics related to space prizes as well as numerous other interesting space topics. I'm not there this year (I have been to some in the past, before starting this blog) and won't be sending updates during the conference, but I will try to provide a summary or links related to space prizes if the information becomes available from other sources.

For now, anticipate the following (this is just the prize-related material, which hardly scratches the surface):

According to Personal Spaceflight, there will be a Sunday afternoon session devoted to Centennial Challenges and the X PRIZE Foundation (hey, maybe I would have gone if I knew about this, but I didn't notice it on the schedule).

Sunday, May 27: NSS/Ames Space Settlement Contest Winners (from the ISDC program)

James Patrick Baen Writing Contest

Arts in Space Awards

I'm not sure who will be posting on the event, but it sounds like Jeff Foust at Personal Spaceflight (and other sites), Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log, and Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings (all linked on the right) will be there and presumably posting. There are enough sessions and tracks that you will probably want to check multiple sites.

Arts in Space awards

The National Space Society's ISDC 2007 conference has an Arts in Space program. Among other things, this program includes the "Leonardo Da Vinci Space Art Awards" ceremony. There are a number of award categories, including "Space Art Life Dedication", "Space Art Advocate", Space Art Organization", "Zero Gravity Art", "Annual ISDC Artonaut", "Space Art Scholastic and Curatorial Awards", and "Special Space Art Award".

science fiction writing contest

Here is a science fiction writing contest. The winner will be paid and published in Jim Baen's Universe, and will be honored at the National Space Society ISDC (International Space Development Conference) in Dallas. Don't expect to win if you write a story set in some kind of science fiction disutopia, since the contest is for realistic, somewhat near-term achievable, and positive depictions of space settlement.