Space Prize Roundup: Skybox Imaging and Conrad Foudation, UAV Outback Challenge, Reach for the Stars Rockets, More

NASA Set to Kick Off 2012 OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Video Contest - NASA

Nick Azer's Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup posts, which were on the Lunar C/I blog and then on MyMoonSpace, are now appearing on the X PRIZE Foundation's Staff Blog.  Here's the most recent one:
Lunar Roundup: A Watch-Worthy Week

Weekly Update 9.26.2012 - Space Florida on the latest for the Nanosatellite Launch Challenge (the update is towards the bottom of the page)

The UAV Outback Challenge is happening October 1-3.

Six Kids Win Top Honors in the Reach for the Stars National Rocket Competition - Space for All

Conrad Foundation News - September 2012 - Conrad Foundation - This includes news of a new competition for the Skybox Imaging Out-of-the-Box Scholarship: 

The Conrad Foundation and Skybox Imaging are joining forces to add an additional opportunity for students to win a $5,000 scholarship for answering the question, “If you had access to daily high-resolution satellite imagery and high-definition video of thousands of locations on the planet from space, how would you use that data to change the world?”

Space Prize Roundup: SSR Approaches, Space Pirates Strike Back, Public Sector Prizes Forum, More

I have several updates on NASA Centennial Challenges:

Garver To Attend NASA $1.5 Million Robot Competition June 16 - NASA on the NASA-WPI Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge

The NASA Centennial Challenges are now on Facebook: NASA Centennial Challenges.  They have a few pictures related to the SSR Challenge, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more over the next few days.

Space Florida Announces Nano-Sat Launch Challenge Logo Design Contest - Space Florida

Space Elevator conference registration now open! - The Space Elevator Blog - The conference, to be held at the Seattle Museum of Flight, includes the Strong Tether Centennial Challenge and a robotic climber competition for kids.

The Return of the Kansas City Space Pirates - The Space Elevator Blog - It sounds like the KCSP team is going to make this year's Space Elevator conference even more interesting.  Hmmm ... I wonder how LaserMotive will respond? See more information at the KCSP blog 2012- New Mission: The Dawn of Laser Powered Flight

FAQ-What are the uses for wireless power via laser? - LaserMotive

Here's an article that isn't really about Armadillo Aerospace, another former Centennial Challenge team, but that nevertheless has some Armadillo "ambiance": 'Doom 3 BFG Edition' will deliver the full Doom back catalog plus new levels


Yesterday, the Collaborative Innovation: Public Sector Prizes was held by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Case Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation.  Here are a couple related articles:

Unleashing Innovation and Deepening Democracy Through Prizes - The White House Blog

How the White House is aiming the X Prize model at big problems - CNET interviews Cristin Dorgelo, formerly of the X PRIZE Foundation and now Assistant Director of Grand Challenges in the OSTP


To round things out, I'll catch up on some other prize news:

One moonshot team buys up another - Cosmic Log on Moon Express and Next Giant Leap

Landsat Contest Offers View of Local Landscape Change from Space - NASA - The contest is at "My American Landscape" Contest: A Space Chronicle of Change.

Space Prize Roundup: Night Rover Plans, Sample Return Updates, SFF Biz Plans, Visualizing Science, Data Fusion, SPHERES, more

The Night Rover Challenge is presenting a slide presentation on its main page: Night Rover Challenge - January 2012.  In addition to the main challenge itself, they are planning a number of related events, including an innovation summit, student competitions, educational events, technology expositions and workshops, and more.  Anousheh Ansari is featured as one of the board members, along with a number of other prominent innovators.

Scientific visions that take the prize - Cosmic Log

Space Frontier Foundation and NASA Announce $110,000 in NewSpace Business Plan Competition Prizes - Space Frontier Foundation

List of Competitors
Sponsorship Opportunity from Clearpath Robotics
Proposal Review Complete - all 3 from Sample Return Robot Challenge

Candidate Gingrich Promises Space Coast Voters the Moon - Space News
Gingrich offers new goals but same philosophy in space speech - Space Politics - Prizes are featured prominently in Gingrich's proposal to overhaul NASA and encourage a thriving LEO economy, fast propulsion to Mars, and a lunar base.  Gingrich would also take a close look at alternatives to some of NASA's larger programs, such as the SLS, MPCV, and JWST.

2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest - IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society: 

This year, participants will download three different sets of images (optical, SAR, and LIDAR) over the downtown of San Francisco and each participant will get to choose their own research topic to work with.  Participants will receive a collection of images provided by DigitalGlobe, AstriumServices, and USGS that includes very-high spatial resolution QuickBird, WorldView-2, TerraSAR-X, and LIDAR data.

ERDAS IMAGINE-DigitalGlobe 2012 Geospatial Challenge - DigitalGlobe - This contest uses DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 satellite imagery and ERDAS IMAGINE image processing software.  Winners are to be announced on February 15.

Robots go head to head, 250 miles above Earth - Third annual Zero Robotics competition pits robots against each other on the International Space Station. - MIT News

The Race to Build a Real Star Trek Tricorder - Popular Mechanics

The 19th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race will be held April 13-14.  Registration ends on February 10.

World’s largest rocket contest helps aspiring STEM leaders take off - Aerospace Industries Association

Prize Roundup: Tricorder X PRIZE, Centennial Challenge Mystery, DigitalGlobe Image Contest, Ebb and Flow, More

Here's an interesting tweet that ends with some mystery:  @NASAPrize: 2012 bring it on, Sample Return is set for June Night Rover rules out for public comment soon NSL rules in work and prepping new challenges

YouTube SpaceLab contest selects finalists - Space for All

Plans set for 'Tricorder' contest - Cosmic Log
Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE

The Top Image of 2011 – Announced - The DigitalGlobe blog
Satellite shot of rolling river takes the prize - Cosmic Log - DigitalGlobe's Top Image Contest of 2011 gallery includes a satellite photo of Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida with Space Shuttle Atlantis near the VAB:

Gingrich talks up prizes in Florida - Space Politics

Montana Students Pick Winning Names for Moon Craft - NASA on the new names for the GRAIL satellites

The Crafoord Prize in Mathematics 2012 and The Crafoord Prize in Astronomy 2012 - The Crafoord Prize (link via @jeff_foust)

EXPLORAVISION 2012 - Teaching with Contests
Google launches 2012 Global Science Fair… - Teaching with Contests

Space and Earth's Environment: Night Rover Storing Solar Power, Ocean Robot Challenge, CleanTech Open, Google Earth Models

The Cleantech Open Global Forum included NASA's Night Rover Challenge.  Astronaut Ed Lu was on the schedule after Sam Ortega of NASA's Centennial Challenges.  From the post-NASA part of Ed's bio:

He later ran Advanced Projects at Google, where his teams developed imaging systems for Street View, Google Earth/Maps, and energy projects including Google PowerMeter. He is now Chief of Innovative Applications for Liquid Robotics, which makes autonomous wave/solar powered ocean-going robots.

Liquid Robotics technology includes the Wave Glider, an ocean-faring robot that uses solar panels to power sensors and wave motion for propulsion.  They just launched 4 Wave Gliders on an ocean tour that is intended to break the unmanned ocean distance record while gathering scientific data using several sensors and satellite communications.  They are working with Virgin Oceanic and Ocean in Google Earth.  The PacX Challenge Prize is a competition for scientists to suggest the best science use for the data gathered during the tour.  The winner gets access to data, input on the tour route, and input on the sensors deployed.  Ed's quote for the prize compares the ocean-exploring robots to robotic spacecraft.

Follow robotic wave gliders on a record setting Pacific crossing in Google Earth - Google Lat/Long Blog
Tracking wave-powered robotic gliders across the Pacific - Google Earth Blog

Speaking of Google Earth ...

The 2012 Model Your Town competition is up and running - Google Earth Blog - Competitors can use Google SketchUp or Google Building Maker to create geolocated models of their town to win $25,000 for their local schools.

Prize Roundup: OSIRIS-REx, 8-Band Research, CanSat, Mars Rover Challenge, More

NASA has selected the OSIRIS-REx mission to examine asteroid 1999 RQ36 and to bring a sample of it back to Earth as its next New Frontier mission.  The Planetary Society plans to be involved with the mission, including running some contests: 

As stated in the OSIRIS-REx Concept Study Report, Planetary Society "publishes OSIRIS-REx scientist- and engineer-authored articles; creates radio stories and holds interviews with OSIRS-REx personnel; collects names to be imprinted on a microchip and flown to RQ36 and back; runs the contest to name RQ36; holds a Planetfest at the time of asteroid sampling; and features images of RQ36 on the Planetary Society web site, and runs a 'choose your favorite OSIRIS-REx image' contest." 

The latest Space News has an article about DigitalGlobe's 8-Band Research Challenge, which encourages researchers to find new ways to use the data products of DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite 

in topics such as Land Use/Land Cover, environmental monitoring, coastal habitat mapping, feature extraction and mapping, natural resource mapping and monitoring, or other related disciplines. 

The winning papers are now compiled here (large PDF).

It's a big time of the year for student competitions!  The @Lunabotics competition continues later this morning, the Mar's Society 2011 University Rover Challenge will be held from June 2-4 at the Mars Desert Research Station, and the 2011 CanSat Competition in Texas is planned for June 10-12.

Challenge.gov: Mapping Dark Matter - NASA Watch - Also see the SpaceHack page.

Update May 29:

Laurentian students win NASA Lunabotics - CBC News

Draft Rules Available for Review! - Sample Return Robot Challenge (WPI)

Prize Roundup: Nanosat Launcher Comment, Make Tech Winner, CAFE and EAA Flight Challenges, More

Student Experiment Microgravity Kit Wins NASA-Make Tech Contest - NASA press release: 

Sponsored by Teachers in Space, a project of the Space Frontier Foundation in Nyack, N.Y, the first "Bring It Back" kits will fly aboard the Excelsior STEM mission scheduled to fly on a Masten Aerospace unmanned suborbital mission later this year. 

Jeff Foust tweets about one of the ISDC 2011 talks:

@jeff_foust: London: NASA's planned $2M nanolaunch prize is a "little light"; estimates it would cost $20-30M to build a nanosat launcher. #ISDC

Also see Jeff's twitter account for tweets on the Google Lunar X PRIZE ISDC session.

3DHawaii expands with private label product and a great trip giveaway - Google Earth Blog

Zephyr Aurora: Taking Shape [45]: More First Small Holes - Team Phoenicia (see more pictures at their site)

Pipistrel’s Four-seat, Side-by-side Electric Airplane - CAFE Foundation blog: 

This unique design has come about by grafting two Pipistrel Taurus aircraft together with a center section which is some 5 meters (16 feet) wide and includes a center pylon housing the electric engine and batteries designed to successfully carry this aircraft to the skies and hopefully to the completion of the 2011 CAFE/NASA challenge, the design bears some similarity to the twin Mustang fighter and even White Knight Two. ... The goal for the development of this aircraft is to enter and hopefully be successful in completing the 2011 CAFE/NASA green flight challenge which is held between July 11 and July 17, 2011 at the Santa Rosa airport in northern California and then also competing in the EAA AirVenture Electric Flight Challenge held at this year’s Oshkosh event just a few weeks later.

Roundup: Lunar Prize Site Map, COMPETES Signed, Space Art, Masten Mud, More

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #39 - Luna C/I

Google Lunar X PRIZE Proposed Landing Sites - EvaDot

LaserMotive: 2010 Year In Review - LaserMotive

COMPETES Passage Keeps America's Leadership on Target - The President signed the America COMPETES Act yesterday, so the Office of Science and Technology Policy reposted comments by John Holdren made when it passed Congress.  Here's an excerpt:

And in a great boost for the cause of generating novel solutions to tough national problems, COMPETES gives every department and agency the authority to conduct prize competitions. Prizes and challenges have an excellent track record of accelerating problem-solving by tapping America’s top talent and best expertise wherever it may lie. The Administration has supported this approach as part of its all-hands-on-deck approach to stimulating innovation, and under COMPETES we can expect a further blossoming of new ideas from citizen solvers across the land.

Challenge.gov in long tradition of giving prizes for solutions to tough problems - The Washington Post

@LRO_NASA: Suuuper cute. Winners of space science art contest for grades 2-4. http://fb.me/CEDznEpZ

@genomics_xprize: Genomics X PRIZE Advisor, Leroy Hood wins $500k prize 4 "for automating DNA sequencing that revolutionized biomedicine" http://bit.ly/dROa4E

Crawley wins National Academy of Engineering’s Gordon Prize - MIT News

It looks like my college dorm's field after a Rugby game:

@MdlRcktScientst: Getting ready to attempt a hold-down test. In the mud. Awesome. http://twitpic.com/3n2w6q

@ConradAwards: Conrad Foundation and Constellation Energy Group give students a new chance to win http://pitch.pe/114727

Prize Roundup: Falcon 9 Congrats, Cansat 2010, Model Your Town, Armadillo Restart, More

Winners of Panoramio Contest of March 2010 - Panoramio's Blog

There are far too many posts and tweets from people in the space prize community on the successful Falcon 9 flight to cover here. I'll just give a small sample of tweets here:

@PTScientists: Congratulations #SpaceX for the first succesful launch of Falcon9 ! :-) It's an important day for the GoogleLunarX-Prize #glxp #space

@PeterDiamandis: Against all the odds, SpaceX has pulled off the 1st Falcon-9 flight. This will herald a new era of private launch at a much reduced cost!

@Way to go Spacex!!!!! - Unreasonable Rocket

@Eurospaceward: August 6-8. 2010, Japan University Futawa Campus, Japan SE Technology and Engineering Competition JSETEC regulations up at http://jsea.jp/

@glxp: Are you 10-17 yrs old? Share your vision of future human space exploration in this art competition: http://bit.ly/drPLu9 (via @lealem)

@TeamPrometheus: I posted 28 photos on Facebook in the album "Ah oh what's this?" http://bit.ly/9OITul

@Doug_Comstock: Discussing technical objectives of next Centennial Challenge prize competitions at NASA HQ today, plan to announce 3 new competitions soon.

Armadillo - 2000ft boosted hop, engine shutdown/restart, safe landing - RLV News

Some Data - Unreasonable Rocket:

As I've said several times this year, I currently have more rocket time than rocket $, I can continue to do interesting things with my leftover LLC hardware, but it does not match the far end goal. The far end goal is a 100Km 5Kg payload rocket that is reusable and can be reproduced for less than 10K.

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #20 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration
Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #21 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

8 Scientists Share $3 Million in Prizes - The New York Times covers this year's winners of the Kavli Prize, including the one in astrophysics.

This is from a few weeks ago: Google announces the winner of their "Model Your Town" competition - Google Earth Blog

The 2010 Annual Texas CanSat Competition is scheduled for June 11 - 13 in Amarillo, Texas.

Cansat 2010 preliminary design - Student Space Programs Laboratory

According to POTROCS,

The CANSAT event this year will be an non rocket event. The CANSAT's will be dropped from a helicopter. This change is necessary because of the wheat harvest in the Wayside area.

Team Phoenicia keeps up its recent surge in posts with pictures:

Material Science Testing
How to Get Purty (part 8)
How to Get Purty (part 7)
How to Get to Purty (part 6)

Multi-Industry Prize Roundup - X PRIZE Vision, CO2 Capture, NewOrgan Prize, Art Auction, Power Beaming Earth Apps

Here are a few prize links that go beyond the space field (although space is a part of some of them):

X PRIZE Foundation Reveals Expanded Vision for Future; Prize Groups Aim to Solve World’s Problems By Targeting Four Key Areas - X PRIZE Foundation

Here are some of the prize subjects where it seems to me that space could play a role, depending on the details of the prize:

Climate Change: CO2 utilization/sequestration, ocean acidification, forest conservation, forest carbon measurement, emissions, climate modeling

Energy Distribution & Storage: transmission and distribution (e.g. smart grid), storage (grid level, end user, community), monitoring and measurement

Ocean Exploration: sensing (e.g. pH, temperature, current), mapping (e.g. floor, marine spatial mapping)

I could see space remote sensing playing a role with forest or other carbon measurements, climate modeling, ocean sensing, and ocean mapping. Power relay satellites might play a role in energy distribution, and there are more conventional energy distribution roles for satellites in telecommunications, environment monitoring, and space weather monitoring.

It would be great to be able to design a successful prize that addresses needs in 2 fields at the same time (like energy/environment and space, or ocean exploration and space), but we will have to wait to see the details of the prizes that make it through the prize development and funding process.

Space (or for the aircraft prizes, "aerospace") would obviously play a role with these:

Space Transportation: beamed power propulsion, hypersonic point to point, solar power satellite

Space Exploration: orbital debris, asteroid deflection

Aircraft Efficiency: electric/hybrid aircraft, alternative aviation fuels

The Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology Prize - Knowledge Ecology International - This is based on a bill, S.2744, that was introduced in the Senate in November 2009.

Methuselah Foundation Launches NewOrgan Prize - Methuselah Foundation Blog:

The first research team to construct a whole new complex organ (heart, kidney, liver, lung, pancreas) made from a person's own cells - one that is functionally equivalent and successfully transplanted - will be awarded the NewOrgan Prize.

A New Methuselah Foundation Prize: the NewOrgan Prize - Methuselah Foundation Blog

Evening with Prize4Life - Prize4Life:

This cocktail party and art showing will be held on May 20, from six o'clock to eight o'clock in the evening at Sotheby's Auction House, 1334 York Ave, New York, NY.

Beaming Power to UAVs, Space Elevators, and Someday, Earth: The LaserMotive Plan - Xconomy Seattle

We're probably most familiar with LaserMotive from the Space Elevator Games and aerospace applications like power beaming involving satellites or UAVs. However, there are some potential applications that are more down-to-Earth, too:

Other uses of LaserMotive’s technology are slightly further out, such as beaming power to disaster relief efforts like communication cells or makeshift field hospitals that might be set up after a massive earthquake or tsunami. And, in principle, the technology also could be used to beam power from the ground to satellites, military bases, or far-off weather stations.

New Website – Coming Very Soon! - LaserMotive

Panoramio and Hubble Photo Contests, Prize Winners Speak Out, Ames Software Award, More

Every now and then I like to include winning and runner-up images from the monthly Panoramio photo contests that strike me as having an "other-wordly" appearance or mood, but I haven't done that in a while. This one is from the December 2009 contest. All of the winners are geotagged, so if you follow that link you can see where they were taken using satellite imagery through Google Maps and Google Earth. The collection the photo above is from includes another geotagged photo, called Spectacular Tree, where a tree seems to be reaching out to grasp the Moon.

Here's a tweet from one Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenger about another one:

@mojaverocketguy: John Carmack says it better than I can (about the proposed NASA budget/direction): http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/25/obama-nasa/

NASA Ames wins a space prize for the NASA World Wind digital globe software used for Earth and other planets:

@NASA_Ames: [News] Ames Wins 2009 NASA Software of the Year Award http://bit.ly/9C7IZ9

Here are 3 separate and interesting Innocentive tweets:

@InnoCentiveCEO: Couple days left to exercise your creativity for NASA: $20K prize for Compact Aerobic and Resistive Exercise Device http://bit.ly/8F388H

Software meets biology. $30K competition for designing software to create plant-based molecular ontology. http://bit.ly/ahbOrx

"Cool" new InnoCentive competition: 50K for Flexible Light Weight High Temperature Fire Partition http://bit.ly/91lQsD

The American Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

Check the NSS link on this one for the winning Hubble images:

@nss: So many wonderful Hubble images submitted..Its hard to choice but we have decided to award 5 lucky winners. #Hubble3D

To the Moon? I think not, Alice…. - True/Slant - Miles O'Brien -Part of his Congressional testimony mentions a well-known space prize:

And when it comes to human beings in space, there is insatiable interest in the effort to open space up to the rest of us. I will never forget the thrill I had covering SpaceShipOne as it captured the X-Prize in Mojave in October of 2004. The excitement in the air was palpable – for a flight that went about as high as Alan Shepard went on May of 1961.

But this time it was one of us.

Space Access'10 update - RLV News has the latest Space Access '10 update, with more presenters with prize connections. Lots of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge teams will be represented.

Apollo 13 - 40th Anniversary Essay Contest - Space for All

LaserMotive To Be Honored at NASA Ceremony - BusinessWire

Moon Society Essay Contest, Prometheus Interview, Innocentive Challenges, Take Back Space, NASTAR Patch, More

@TeamFREDNET Our partners @teamprometheus hit the frontpage on @SpaceFellowship: ... Upcoming Tests, The N-Prize and the #GLXP http://is.gd/655jg

Apollo 13 - 40th Anniversary Essay Contest - Space for All

More 3D models added, with many more on the way - Google Earth blog mentions the "Model Your Town" competition in this post.

Take Back Space 2010 - Space Frontier Foundation - One of the items on their Capitol Hill agenda is "Increased funding for the Centennial Challenges space prize program".

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #6 - Luna C/I

Educate to Innovate: A Student’s View - OSTP Blog

Here are 4 new InnoCentive prize challenges:

@InnoCentiveCEO New InnoCentive $20K Challenge: Small-scale River Turbines for the Peruvian Jungle http://bit.ly/8XGux4

@InnoCentiveCEO New $20K InnoCentive Challenge: Make Water from Lake Victoria Safe to Drink! http://bit.ly/8O785t

@InnoCentiveCEO New $20K InnoCentive Challenge: Design of a Low Cost Rainwater Harvesting Storage Tank in a Wetland Region http://bit.ly/7aP2mI

@InnoCentiveCEO New $40K InnoCentive Challange: Sunlight/UV-light dose indicator http://bit.ly/6WYbcQ Supported by Rockefeller Foundation

The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is at the North American International Auto Show announcing news about the plans for the competition this year. Here's some of the news:

@progautoxp RT @speedwaymedia: Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE Chooses Michigan for 2010 Competition Events http://bit.ly/6UeRLu

@progautoxp RT @MISpeedway: Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize competition to find a 100 mpg(e) vehicle will take place at MIS this summer! #piaxp

@ConradAwards The Conrad Foundation announces 25 finalist teams for the 2010 Spirit of Innovation Awards http://pitch.pe/40915

@NASAWatch ETC's The NASTAR Center Announces Winner of Student Patch Design Contest Outreach Effort #suborbital http://bit.ly/4GnF9X

NASA Innocentive Pavilion, Rocketry Award, Google Map Maker Competition, GeoVation, Selenokhod Interview, PT Scientists Twitter, More

@InnocentiveCEO - New $30K NASA Competition on InnoCentive.com! Data Driven Forecasting of Solar Events. http://tinyurl.com/yejas7r

To expand on that tweet, here's the NASA Innovation Pavilion on Innocentive. Currently, the challenges there are:

Mechanism for a Compact Aerobic and Resistive Exercise Device - $20,000
Improved Barrier Layers ... Keeping Food Fresh in Space - $15,000
Data-Driven Forecasting of Solar Events - $30,000

Electronic Rocketeer December 2009 - National Association of Rocketry: This includes a description of a new prize, the NAR High Power Technology Award:

... a $500 award for the NAR member who has demonstrated the most outstanding innovation or accomplishment in a flight project (which flew during calendar year 2009) involving high power rocketry.

Also see the competition information on page 19 here: NAR This is Rocketry (2009) (PDF)

Here's a new twitter account I'll be adding to my Twitter list:

@PTScientists - New post at GLXP. Check us out at the 26C3! http://tiny.cc/8ZLRS

@csf_spaceflight - Centennial Challenges, Spaceport Infrastructure, and Suborbital Science to Receive Funds from NASA & FAA: http://is.gd/5xA0K

@ikluft - Scientific American article on #DARPA Network Challenge, focus on MIT + GTRI, other teams similar http://is.gd/5xHKF

@tedprize - Search for extraterrestrial life gains momentum around the world - http://bit.ly/8OoFzQ

Briefs: Team Selenokhod; 2009 space review; GAO on ISS - RLV News

Google Map Maker Global Competition - Google:

Add the most universities, schools, hospitals and medical clinics with high quality into Google Map Maker, and your efforts will win $50,000 for UNICEF's work empowering young people through technology in your homeland.

The winner also gets a VIP UNICEF tour, a trip to the Google Super Mappers conference, and their content added to Google Maps.

Links: GeoVation, Greenhouse gas world graph, Tiger Woods home - Google Earth Blog - This link collection includes:

GeoVation: GeoVation, the Ordnance Survey-supported community aiming to promote innovative uses of geography, launched its competition in October by asking people to think of how mapping could help address some of the world's big challenges. ...

From the NASA Aeronautics Design Challenges/Competitions page:

NASA Aeronautics 2009-2010 Student Competition Focuses on Rescue Rotorcraft
High school and college students are invited to explore how rotorcraft can be even more effective in rescue operations. ...

To meet rescue and firefighting requirements, the vehicles should be amphibious, carry 50 passengers, and gather/expel water. The University level involves a design; the high school level involves either a design or an analysis of capabilities.

Prize Roundup: Red Balloons, Patches, Elevator Conference, Google Earth Town Models, Mars Pathfinder Innovation, More

Eurospaceward Space Elevator / Lunar Industrialization Conference

@SEGames I'm here at the 2009 EuroSpaceward conference. Among other topics, we'll get an update on the US and Japanese Space Elevator Games.

@SEGames Jordin Kare (from LaserMotive) and Martin Lades (from KC Space Pirates) are here and will also speak.

@SEGames I'm live-blogging the conference at http://www.spaceelevatorblog.com/

There's a lot more from SEGames twitter - the tweet from a couple minutes ago says Jordin Kare is speaking now. I don't have a hash tag for the conference, but SEGames, Eurospaceward, Ben Shelef, and some of the teams are at my Space Elevator Games Twitter List.

EuroSpaceward Conference - and the future of Space Elevator Development - The Space Elevator Blog

In Luxembourg… - The Space Elevator Blog:

... I’ve been chosen to judge a coloring contest - “How do you Imagine Life on the Moon?” - an event held as part of the EuroSpaceward conference. ...

Conference - Day 1 - and we’re underway - The Space Elevator Blog

As with the SEGames twitter, I've just selected a few of many posts. Check out The Space Elevator Blog for more.

DARPA Network Challenge (Red Balloons) - today!

@ikluft about 2000 people registered for #DARPA #NetworkChallenge - don't forget to have fun! http://stratofox.org/redballoon

@ikluft I made a Twitter list of #DARPA #NetworkChallenge participants that I know of (41 so far) http://is.gd/5cUvW

Update on DARPA Network Challenge: @ikluft Congratulations to MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team for winning. We had 5 right 2 wrong #DARPA #NetworkChallenge

@ikluft updated Stratofox's #NetworkChallenge page: added "How we did" section, credits http://stratofox.org/redballoon #DARPA

N-Prize

@TeamPrometheus 2 Tiny Satellites just arrived at the Rocket Ranch! Photo's tomorrow! http://bit.ly/8lo1ij

More Prizes and Competitions

Model Your Town - Google Earth Blog:

Google has just announced their first-ever "Model Your Town" Competition.

The goal is to get smaller cities to work on building their town in 3D. While every town will likely see their models in Google Earth, the winning town will win $10,000 for its schools, a Google-sponsored party, a video profile of the winning team and some other goodies. ...

See the Google Earth Blog link for a video with some examples of town models in Google Earth.

SGAC together with the UN-SPIDER have designated a winner of the “Disaster Management in the Caribbean” poster competition - Space Generation Advisory Council

NASA Student Launch - Space for All

NASA Moon Work Design Contest - Space for All

@collectSPACE Picking a patch for the program: NASA's employee contest to design a patch for the end of the space shuttle program... http://bit.ly/7iaiO4

Mission to Mars and Red Planet make John Scalzi’s list of worst SF films of decade - Marooned: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror books on Mars - From the Scalzi piece:

The year 2000 saw two competing Mars flicks, which struggled fiercely for the title of Most Likely to Set Back Manned Exploration of Mars by 50 Years. ...

Sci-Fri: NASA and Microsoft launch Martian website, use crowdsourcing to map Red Planet - Marooned: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror books on Mars - The Be a Martian! site includes the 2009 Pathfinder Innovation Challenge. Here are the contest rules (PDF). I couldn't figure out specifically what the various categories of contestants were meant to do from the rules, but the Participation Guide (PDF) explains it. Here's the summary:

... The Inspiration League invites Entrants 14 years and older to develop an episode for "The Martians" video series. Join the Scholarship League if you're over 14 and would like to build a compelling and exciting interactive web application for students and the rest of the world to learn about rocks on Earth and Mars. Entrants over age 18 in the Global Cooperation League will develop fun web games that crowd-source the task of finding and labeling interesting objects in an enormous set of images acquired by the Mars rovers. The Intelligence League challenges Entrants over age 18 to accomplish the same task with autonomous applications that can rapidly detect and label these interesting objects.

Where to find Lunar Lander Updates; Space Elevator Prep, ARCA, Google Earth/Sketchup Contest, More

Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge

There's been a lot of activity with the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge that I haven't kept up to date on in the Space Prizes blog over the last few days. Although I have been watching the events, I don't have more to add to the excellent coverage already available. Some good places to keep up to date include RLV News, the X PRIZE Foundation's The Launch Pad, some of the twitter accounts at the twitter list I set up (for example, accounts under the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge and X PRIZE Foundation headings), and the NGLLC twitter tag. If those aren't enough, these point you to more information sources. Note that the RLV News and Launch Pad links are to specific posts; they have many more and more will probably be on the way.

Space Elevator Games

Only 5 more days… - The Space Elevator Blog (and that was a couple days ago) - In addition to setup for the games, this includes a number of links to posts at the Space Elevator Games site.

KC Team Competes to Build an Elevator to Space - fox4kc.com

@lasermotive - The truck has stopped for the night, almost halfway to Mojave.

Google Lunar X PRIZE

Helen loaded onto ship - ARCA at the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams page

Here's another Google Lunar X PRIZE Forum.

Other Prizes

Your 3D buildings arrive in Google Earth and Shelter Competition winners announced - Google Earth Blog

MIT Elevator Pitch Contest ~ Finale Thurs 10/29! - Maximizing Progress

U.S.-European Space Cooperation: Go Boldly, and Go Together - The German Marshall Fund blog proposes that NASA and ESA join forces to offer major space exploration prizes. The space agencies would also continue to fund science missions. The government would also provide common launch facilities and space communication networks for the private explorers.

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: Best Ideas, Google Earth Climate Change, Michigan Tech Nanosat Team, Heinlein SF Award, More

Climate change tools for Google Earth - Google Earth Blog:

... In addition, they're asking you to submit your own thoughts and questions on climate change to their channel, and some of these videos will be broadcast on screens around the conference in December. The top rated video submissions will win a trip to Copenhagen, so submit your videos and see if you can win the prize.

To the Moon, Rover! - UCF Today

Seems like yesterday... - RLV News on an important anniversary

New USST Video on YouTube - The Space Elevator Blog

Ten Best New Space Ideas - Matt Wronkiewicz's Weblog - Number 8 is X PRIZEs.

InnoCentive ~ Innovation Marketplace For Ideas - Maximizing Progress

Tech Tour Day Three: A Tour De Force At MTU - WWJ News Radio:

... I met with four members of the Michigan Tech Aerospace Enterprise team, who are designing a small Earth satellite that will help authorities track dangerous space junk. ... the Aerospace Enterprise is competing in the United States Air Force's Nanosatellite competition. The program has 11 student teams around the country design a small, affordable satellite with space-to-space imaging that will track other satellites and space debris, as well as contain a model to calibrate the ground-based telescopes that monitor space junk. ... The Aerospace Enterprise is also working on the High Altitude Autonomous Research Platform, an autonomous glider designed to take pictures up to 35,000 feet, and the Cansat Project, a university competition that sees the students design and build a rocket payload that must return to earth at a determined speed, right itself once it lands, and transmit data all the while.

Here's a link to the MTU Aerospace Enterprise team, and here's one for the University Nanosatellite Program

Space Tourism - Taking Off? - The National Space Society of Phoenix

BSFS Heinlein Award - Science Fiction Awards Watch: The winners of the 2009 BSFS Robert. A Heinlein Award are Joe Haldeman and John Varley.

Also see posts on the same topic from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and Locus. As Locus notes: The award is for "outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space."

@planetarytv - I uploaded a YouTube video -- PTV - Team America Rocketry Challenge 2010 http://bit.ly/1PnXHo

An Update on Design Judging - X PRIZE Cars

Panoramio Winners, SpaceX OrbComm and Next Giant Leap, regolith simulant, lunar SBIRS, Garver at ISPCS, TARC open, Phoenicia Art

Links: New Earth API Docs, Fire Shot, Where 2.0, Panoramio Winners, New SketchUp, Belgrade News - Google Earth Blog - This includes a link to the June 2009 Panoramio Geotagged Photo Contest Winners. As usual, I like to pick one that strikes me as having a "space feeling" in one way or another, and that's the one you see here. Follow the link to see expanded views of all of the pictures and their locations in Google Earth/Google Maps.

@SpaceX_Media - ORBCOMM AND SPACEX REACH DEAL TO LAUNCH SATELLITE CONSTELLATION

@NextGiantLeap - Orbcomm deal to buy 18 Falcon 1e launches finalized http://bit.ly/1ae6bb

NGL partner Sierra Nevada Corp is building the Orbcomm Gen2 satellites. NGL lander based on Orbcomm bus.

@Regolith_Chal - The regolith simulant testbed was installed yesterday, doing some finishing touches today.

@glxp - Do want: my own lunar sandbox. Turns out you can buy lunar/Mars simulant here: http://bit.ly/fTqO2

@SoldTheMoon - I'm locked to the keyboard prepping SBIRs. NASA deadline is Thursday. Exploring lava tubes, rugged drive trains.. all great!

Surge effort by Alex Gutierrez and our CMU friends resulted in six SBIR/STTR submissions to NASA this afternoon; winners named in Nov.

@ISPCS - Just confirmed- Lori Garver, Deputy Administrator, NASA, will speak at lunch on October 22 during ISPCS

@wikkit - I ran into Scott Zeeb of TrueZer0 at the donut shop this morning. He said he's making progress on their new biprop engine design

Team America Rocketry Challenge Registration Opens - Rocketry Online

My weekend with the Stainless Bully... - Unreasonable Rocket

Here are several updates on fundraising and team goals from Team Phoenicia:

An Artful Lift-off: A Offer of Help
A Second Artful Offer
Should We Stay or Should We Go Now? (in reference to next February's Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Boulder, Colorado)
More Tank Yous

Prize Roundup: SketchUp Contest, FundingPost Pitch, ChallengePost, Lunar Challenges, Elevator Update

Links: Picasa Street View, Cool Screen, ArcExplorer Earth, SketchUp Podium Prize - Google Earth Blog:

SketchUp Podium Contest Winner - SU Podium is a third-party plugin application for Google SketchUp that lets you create photo-realistic renderings from SketchUp scenes. They held a contest recently and the winner got featured in this SketchUp Blog post. Pretty cool how the winning artist created the scene.

@pkhomer (Peter Homer - "Astronaut Glove Guy") - I entered the @fundingpost Pitching Across America competition! Info at: http://www.FundingPost.com - wish me luck!! Please RT!

@AlanStern - 1st meeting of the next-gen Suborbital Applications Researchers Group today! Wondering what Van Allen's V-2 science panel hoped for in 1946.

@wikkit (Ben Brockert of Masten Space Systems) - Static tested rev 3 aluminum engine today. Nine 4 second runs and one 20 second firing, to make sure it's working well. Ran really nice.

Armadillo's Level 2 LLC attempt coming soon? - Personal Spaceflight

Here's a look back at QuakeCon 2009, "4 Days of Peace, Love, and Rockets". You may recognize someone there in the pictures.

Another Long Day. - Unreasonable Rocket

@Bob_Richards - A group of @SingularityU students won “Best Money Making App” in Yahoo iPhoneDevCamp Hackathon http://bit.ly/gpj6X - The link is to a Singularity University blog post titled "5 Tips to Winning a Hack-a-thon Competition". That post has a link to the competition itself, too.

@glxp - Kudos to Excalibur Almaz, which includes several people who work with / advise Google Lunar X PRIZE team @OdysseyMoon: http://bit.ly/1OYM8

Future Visions, Near and Far Sighted - Photonics.com - The MoonBots competition is part of the story at NIWeek 2009.

Mark Bentley - Team Scientist of White Label Space - White Label Space

Briefs: Space elevator update; Space elevators in Japan - RLV News

Status Update, August 2009 - LaserMotive

Here's an interesting ChallengePost: SU/ISU Lunch Bot at NASA:

Design and build (for under 10^4 - $10,000) an unmanned 'lunch getter robot' than can successfully navigate the yellow line/obstacle course that joins the Arthur C Clarke hall to the Peter Diamandis Hall, collect a lunch, and return it safely and quickly to the Arthur C Clarke Hall for consumption and upload a video/photo report to the web or Youtube. The robot should be unmanned, and operate udner its own power and control without human control/intervention.

The Next Few Days

I'll be travelling for a few days, so posting will be light, or perhaps stopped. I do expect to do some swimming, but I won't be at the shore depicted by this Panoramio honorable mention from March. The link includes all of the winners from that month, and as usual you can expand the pictures or drill down to the satellite/air photo imagery in Google Earth or Google Maps to see where they were taken. By the way, this one was not taken from the surface of Titan.