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.

FAA Trouble, YouTube Space Lab, Oil Spill Challenge, Why Do You Explore? Contest, Carmack Prize, More

Today, the Google Home Page features the YouTube Space Lab, so about a billion people should know about it by now.  Just in case that isn't enough, I'll try to push it over the edge with this mention.  The winning space experiment video will be performed on the International Space Station.

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House appropriators tell FAA to focus more on air than space - Space Politics - The affordable space access prize proposed by the FAA is one of the casualties.

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Illinois Team Wins Oil Spill Cleanup X CHALLENGE
Pictures: X PRIZE Contest Seeks Improved Oil Spill Cleanup - National Geographic

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NASA Funded Astronomer Wins Nobel Prize - NASA Watch

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Rocketry Winners Come to Washington - OSTP Blog - White House

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NASA Adds Some Numbers to Green Flight Challenge
AVweb Readers Weigh In on Electric Aircraft, Green Flight Challenge
Green Flight Challenge Winners
Green Flight Challenge – Days Three and Five
Green Flight Challenge – Day Two - CAFE Foundation Blog

The CAFE Foundation PhotoStream has pictures from the event.

NASA Contest Heralds Dawn of the Electric Plane - OSTP Blog - White House - NASA Administrator Charles Bolden

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X PRIZE Foundation Announces Three-Year, Multi-Million Dollar Sponsorship with Shell for Prizes Promoting Exploration of Space, Oceans and Land - X PRIZE Foundation press release - This includes the Why Do You Explore? video contest, with a grand prize of a $10,000 National Geographic Expedition, and 3 other prizes of Airship Ventures flights.

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Amateur Rocketeers Chase $10,000 Launch Prize Offered by John Carmack - Space.com

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

Prize Roundup: Steps to Green Flight, Penn Manor, Oil Cleanup, NewSpace Awards, More

Green Flight Challenge: Six Steps to Synergy - CAFE Foundation Blog

CAFE News: Become a Part of Aviation History – Help Fund the Green Flight Challenge - CAFE Foundation Blog

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #27 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

Penn Manor Rocket Team Beats the World! - Penn Points - The Student News Magazine of PMHS
U.S. Team Wins International Youth Rocketry Challenge - Raytheon

X Prize Contest Coming For Oil Clean Up - EarthTechling
X Prize Foundation to Announce Multi-Million Dollar Incentive Competition to Clean Up Oil - MarketWire:

Who: X PRIZE Foundation
What: Press Conference to Launch the Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE
When: Thursday, July 29, 2010
Where: National Press Club - Holeman Lounge
529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20545
Time: 1:00 PM (ET); Noon (CT); 10:00 AM (PT)

Armadillo posts 2010 Space Access Society video in HD - RLV News

Power-Beaming competition postponed… - The Space Elevator Blog - They anticipate a date somewhere in the March-April 2011 timeframe. The Tether Challenge is still on for the Space Elevator Conference this August 13-15, and so are the Artsutanov and Pearson research paper prizes. Speaking of that conference:
Watch this space… - The Space Elevator Blog:
Coming very soon - a special announcement about the upcoming Space Elevator Conference.

Here are a few tweets from Jeff Foust about awards at the NewSpace 2010 conference:

@jeff_foust: @dmasten recalls being asked what his conpany's ultimate goal is when accepting his #newspace2010 award. "Solar system domination."

Duncan Jones, director of "Moon", accepts his award at #newspace2010: http://yfrog.com/b5mufhj

Congrats to @spacevidcast for the Best Presentation of Space award at #newspace2010!

Art Dula gets the Pioneer of NewSpace award. "How the heck am I supposed to get this into my suitcase?" #newspace2010

Lori Garver's acceptance video at #newspace2010: http://yfrog.com/2obaxyj

Miles O'Brien on the big screen accepting his award: #newspace2010 http://yfrog.com/5mu9dxj

Prize Roundup: Lunar Lander Teams Still At It, Resistance to Prizes, Oil Cleanup Prize, Moon Art

Multi-million Dollar Oil Spill Cleanup X PRIZE Announced at TEDxOilSpill - TEDxOilSpill.com
Official Statement Regarding Oil Spill Clean-up - X PRIZE Foundation - Just to be clear on where that competition stands:

The X PRIZE Foundation is considering, but has not yet developed, a multi-million dollar competition to help alleviate the effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #25 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

2010 NASA art contest winners - Space for All

It's good to see all sorts of activity from former Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge teams continue:

Armadillo Aerospace Mod flight with roll vane - RLV News

More printed Motor Progress - Unreasonable Rocket

New Sponsor: The Graphite Store!
Team Phoenicia Needs You! - Team Phoenicia

@mastenspace: Students: Want to intern this fall with @mastenspace? Applications due Sunday! http://masten-space.com/internships.html

Why is there resistance to prize funds? - Knowledge Ecology International

Twitter Marathon: October 1-2, 2009

Today it's all about a quick compilation of a stack of tweets with no comments from me (other than this introduction). If you don't know who the tweeter is, just follow the opening link.

@bonnova - RT @NGLLC09: Officially announcing a 4th competitor for #NGLLC. Welcome @BonNovA! Details: http://bit.ly/3orl76

@unrocket - First silver tether flight was stable, climbed too high and was aborted. Will try again late today or early fri.

Pressure sensor intermitant short. Killed a/d inputs hard to find and fix in desert going home back fri nighr

@NGLLC09 - RT @wikkit: We ran another full load through the test stand today, in 5 engine runs. Looking really good on a fix for #ngllc problem.

@tedprize - RT @TEDchris - TED Prize winner Sylvia Earle's spectacular new book, The World Is Blue: http://bit.ly/FflGE

@fineri - Working out an engine start sequence, watching video's of various components moving to sort out the timing......

@ARCAspace - ARCA team visited the Constanta, Venus and Fulgerul ships prior to equipments arrival on board. These ships will... http://bit.ly/3aedLj [... be used for the launch of Mission 3. ]

@grncheese - See our lunar regolith excavator in action: http://bit.ly/2WWidF

@paulsrobotics - Workin' hard 24/7 on the @W_P_I entry for the @Regolith_Chal. Students, prof, and alum working together towards $500K prize.

http://yfrog.com/17rrylj our test sandbox

http://yfrog.com/3d22vgj electronics dust cover

http://yfrog.com/14s2rj rear bump switch

@Regolith_Chal - Had an important milestone meeting today and it was a great success. Thanks to teams, judges, and other contributors to this.

@jmcenanly I heard that Charles Bolden mentioned @regolith_chal in a speach recently. Help us carry the message that prizes are helping.

@glxp - Our newest team is on Twitter: @openmoon

#xprize tweetups now happening on Monday in Houston, Albuquerque, San Francisco, and LA. This calls for a hashtag: #XPTweetup

Just got off a telecon with @mmealling and others to discuss media for #NGLLC next week - Masten plans to fly again in one week.

@Pomerantz - RT @glxp: Announcing 2 events next week to celebrate 5th anniversary of winning Ansari X PRIZE: http://bit.ly/OhJ95

@NASAPrize - Lots of ideas for new prize challenges posted at http://bit.ly/2sBodo

@ConradAwards - Upcoming webinar 10/06/07- Josh Neubert The Innovation Classroom. Questions encouraged! @ www.conradawards.org "The exchange" 3:00 PM PT

@Virgin_Galactic - We are working on the format of the SpaceShipTwo unveiling event in December.

@ISPCS - new confirmed: Anousheh Ansari, Space Ambassador CEO, Chairman & Co-founder Prodea Systems, Inc.

Prize Roundup: MoonBots Discussions, SmallSat Conference, Orbital Depots, Tether/Elevator Book, Underwater Vehicle Winners

Check out (and join!) the following discussion in the Google Lunar X PRIZE Community Forums: MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO MINDSTORMS Challenge

MoonBots Robotics Competition Announced - Design News

This reminds me of a fun discussion from a while back on what it would take for a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot to win the original Google Lunar X PRIZE: NXT and Lunar X PRIZE - The NXT STEP Blog

LEGO Picorover Mockup - Team FREDNET at the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams page

The SmallSat Conference in Logan, Utah is scheduled for this August 10-13. On Wednesday, Google Lunar X PRIZE preferred partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will present "Falcon 1 Flight Results and Multiple Payload Integration". In addition, Wednesday also includes the Frank J. Redd Student Scholarship Competition.

A Summer CubeSat Developers' Workshop will also be held there August 8-9. Here's the schedule (PDF). Google Lunar X PRIZE preferred partner Analytical Graphics, Inc. has a talk on Saturday titled "STK and CubeSat's". In addition, Randa Milliron of Interorbital Systems, a part of the SYNERGY MOON Google Lunar X PRIZE team, has a talk on Sunday on "TubeSat".

These are just samples of the diverse presentations in this dynamic and important field.

A team including Jon Goff of Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenger Masten Space Systems recently submitted a white paper on Depot-Centric Human Spaceflight to the "Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee". From the Executive Summary of the paper:

On-orbit storage and transfer of propellants are key capabilities that enable innovative transportation methods for multiple destinations beyond earth orbit, stimulate the commercial spaceflight industry, and allow for sustainable and affordable manned exploration beyond LEO using existing commercial launch vehicles. We find reason to believe that a depot-centric transportation approach will allow NASA’s manned space program to operate in a manner that is exceptionally responsive to the objectives given the Augustine Committee.

Prizes are briefly mentioned in the paper:

A depot-centric transportation network enables and encourages the development of an open architecture—one that multiple commercial and international entities can easily interact with and that is not tied to any one specific destination. ... We can further multiply this effect through the use of prizes and COTS-like programs, as well as more traditional SBIR and Broad Area Announcement solicitations.

At one point, NASA Centennial Challenges was considering a Fuel Depot Demonstration Challenge (PDF) - see slide page 18.

The Space Elevator Games are briefly mentioned in this article: Seeking 'Discouraged' Energy Questers - Dot Earth (The New York Times)

Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Elevator Blog
Review: Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Review - These discuss a new book by Michel Van Pelt on subjects relevant to the Space Elevator Games.

@http://twitter.com/Bob_Richards - Breakfast with TedPrize Winner Jill Tarter b4 her #ISU talk. Would love to see her Wish come true http://bit.ly/3mQa2p

Here's some information about the recent Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - which means "no remote controls". The competition was held in San Diego a few days ago.

12th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - Go Robotics.net

CUAUV - Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle blog - the 2009 winners

Cornell Wins the 12th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - Go Robotics.net

UCF/IST Submersible Team Gets 4th Place - UCF Today (University of Central Florida)

Prize Roundup - June 24-25, 2009

@Regolith_Chal - NASA press release on new agreement with NASA Ames: http://bit.ly/167vhY

From the Ames Research Center press release:

NASA today announced that it has signed an agreement with the California Space Authority, Inc., (CSA) to collaborate on participatory science and public outreach using a simulated lunar surface environment.

Under the terms of a Space Act Agreement, CSA will establish an office at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., in NASA Research Park. This fall, NASA Ames and CSA, along with its sister organization, the California Space Education and Workforce Institute, will host the Regolith Excavation Challenge, a prize competition focused on developing improved lunar regolith handling technologies.

So long, and thanks for all the Moonpies - The Launch Pad - Mike Fabio is leaving the X PRIZE Foundation.

Announcing the 19th Team in the Google Lunar X PRIZE: Part-Time-Scientists - The Launch Pad

Links: Muggers Caught, Tehran Imagery, Ocean Celebration, UNHCR Donation - Google Earth Blog - The prize part of this is in the Ocean Celebration section, which includes awards won by the "Ocean in Google Earth" team:

Bring Back the Beach benefit dinner - Heal the Bay
Ocean Conservation Awards Gala - Aquarium of the Pacific

NAs Live TV - Nebula Aerospace

@fineri - http://twitpic.com/89sgp - Initial sounding rocket layout,looked alot smaller on Rocksim compared to this view on solidworks!

@odysseymoon - Michael Doornbos interviewed Bob Richards about Odyssey Moon yesterday for his Evadot podcast series: http://bit.ly/3nXtH

@OmegaEnvoy - Check out the latest press release and movie by 4Frontiers Corp. on our Expedition Arctic: http://bit.ly/2Djrof http://bit.ly/6LsaU .

@http://twitter.com/jeff_foust - RT @marckboucher: Updates for NASA Power Beaming Challenge available at http://www.spaceelevator.com [delayed to late July/early August]

Note: The recent plan was for the games to start on July 14. From spaceelevator.com:

The Space Elevator games have been delayed until at least the last week of July or first week of August. The games could be further delayed as technical and safety issues are being worked out in dry runs. Stay tuned.

IIIT-H launches into the future, practically - LiveMint - The “scientists” are students of the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, or IIIT-H. And they are working on a trial launch of Mission Gaganyaan, which in 2009 became the first and only Indian entry to CanSat ...

KCC's places fifth in national competition - Kapi'o - Students on the KCC CanSat team competed with 24 other teams at the annual CanSat Competition in Amarillo, Texas from June 10 to 14. ... KCC was the only community college team to launch its satellite.

id Software, home of rocketeer John Carmack, is acquired - RLV News

Funding for Centennial Challenges threatened - RLV News

Senate doesn’t follow House lead on exploration cuts - Space Politics - Also unclear is the fate of some smaller programs, like Centennial Challenges and related innovation efforts that are feared to be on the chopping block despite their small ($20 million) price tag.

Note that the Centennial Challenges part of that set of programs is even smaller - $4 million - in the Administration's budget proposal. The whole set is probably one of the most productive parts of NASA, in my opinion - and the whole bunch is only about 1/10 of 1% of the NASA budget.

Here are some upcoming robot contests:

2nd International Autonomous Robotics Competiton - June 27 - 28, 2009, San Diego County Fairgrounds - A video explains how the competition is set up. Roomba's seem to be popular platforms for the "maze" and "desert" contests. I'm not sure I followed how to use NetBeans and a Java API to program the robot, though.

8th Annual MATE International ROV Competition - "The Next Generation of Submarine Rescue Systems - Massachusetts Maritime Academy -Buzzards Bay, MA - June 24-26, 2009

2009 Global Conference on Educational Robotics™ - Leesburg, VA - July 1st to July 5th - This includes conference sessions, the International Botball Tournament, and the Beyond Botball Tournament (Botball for college students and adults).

UK Micromouse 2009 - ThinkTank, Birmingham - Saturday, June 27

RoboCup 2009 - Stadthalle Graz, Austria - June 29 - July 5 - After Atlanta, USA and Suzhou, China RoboCup will be back in Europe in 2009. RoboCup, the largest and most important event for intelligent and autonomous robots, will take place 2009 in Austria for the first time. Since 1997 RoboCup has been the frontier of research in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Pushing forward the boundaries of what robots are able to do is a major driving force of RoboCup.

Prize Roundup - June 2-3, 2009

Vertica Takeoff and Landing looking up - RLV News - This gives an assessment of the current state of play in this niche, including the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

@cswiki - List of suborbital launch vehicle companies/teams now at full compliment of 11 at http://tinyurl.com/n8h8df. Next up, orbital LV companies.

The list now includes even more Lunar Lander Challenge teams.

Masten Space makes 60 sec tethered test flight - RLV News

A Very Successful Lunar Lander Eggs Prize - Omega Envoy at Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams page (discussing a contest they held at the 2009 ISDC)

SYNERGY MOON Launch Providers Speak at LA Adventurers' Club - SYNERGY Moon at Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams page

To The Moon, By Way Of MIT - Red Orbit -

Another forward-looking project is one led by former astronaut Hoffman, who is working with a team including MIT students that plans to compete in the Google Lunar X-Prize Competition. ... The MIT team's approach involves using a unique "hopper" design. The craft would land, like the Apollo module, using a retro-rocket to control its descent. But then it would re-light the rocket, rise a short distance and move across the surface before making a second landing.

The article also discusses the Giant Leaps Apollo celebration at MIT with many prominent speakers and interesting-sounding events.

Briefs: Laliberte confirmed; GLXP LunaTrex team - RLV News

IEEE Spectum space podcasts - RLV News - One of the podcasts is on the Carnegie Mellon University entry in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

'Nascar in the Sky' Still Taxiing - Forbes covers the Rocket Racing League during a tough business environment.

Team agreement updated with new deadlines - Reglolith Excavation Challenge

@segames - Back in bay area. Dryden have located cable parachute for us. Have another volunteer, have to pull the trigger on major items tomorrow.

In Lancaster, more meetings tomorrow at the base - detailed planning of test procedures, airfield briefing.

Met with Aris's crew today, went over plans and options. Saw the helicopter, pictures soon on the blog (http://www.SpaceElevatorGam...)

Status Report - Engine 58, Cables, Parachutes - Space Elevator Games

junk - Space Elevator Games:

As explained before, when preparing the games, we need to coordinate our lasing activities with the Laser Clearinghouse, so we know that we don’t accidentally illuminate a satellite. By the time our laser beam reaches orbital altitudes (let’s say 200 km) it is very dispersed – about 200 meters across – but it can still pose a risk to sensitive downwards looking optical equipment (wink wink nudge nudge). The Laser Clearinghouse is a Department of Defense service whose purpose is to coordinate lasing activities above the horizon, so that commercial lasing activity is not impeded. ...

I'll also note that the site lists the Tether Challenge as being held on 8/13 in Seattle, where the Space Elevator Conference is being held. I haven't heard of any contenders this year, though.

@glxp - The bad news: I've had a crazy busy day. The good news: we've got some exciting news for you all very very soon.

Yikes. Been in #i2i all-hands meetings this afternoon. I come out and the skies are dark and there's thunder. In Los Angeles!

Also, you should start following @i_2_i ... why? Because yours truly will be tweeting from it next week from the United Nations.

@PeterDiamandis has some ideas to cure his plane travel woes:

5 cities in 2 days... mega tired of planes... now a 3 hr ground delay @ Dulles! teleportation x PRIZE??

and... yes i do delegate... and we have brainstormed a hypersonic X PRIZE

nickyjor - RT @glxp: Just had a great webinar with our #GLXP teams on blogging and online outreach. Can't wait to see what they post in the next week.

Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE Announces Hire of Senior Director Eric Cahill - X PRIZE Foundation press release

Robot of the Week: Nereus, underwater robot reaches bottom of Mariana Trench - The Launch Pad -

The X PRIZE Foundation is proud to be exploring new incentive prizes that could drive innovation very similar to the Nereus voyage. While over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, only 2% of the ocean's depths have been explored. The economic potential from mineral, fuel, biological, and medical discoveries should not be underestimated.

Healthcare X PRIZE - Additional Questions and Answers - Healthcare X PRIZE blog
Measuring Health Value - Shifting the Paradigm - Healthcare X PRIZE blog

Cleanup Prize

X Prize Founder Peter Diamandis Targets Breakthroughs With More Incentive Prizes - Xconomy San Diego - This article broadly covers the X PRIZE Foundation, but with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, the potential Ocean X PRIZE is given special treatment. The Ocean Exploration and Ocean Mapping prizes I've mentioned before are featured, but there's one ocean prize under consideration that I hadn't heard about before, at least at this level of detail:

—Ocean conservation. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a region of the Pacific Ocean where plastic trash accumulates into vast masses of unsinkable drifting litter. The X Prize Foundation is considering a prize that would spur the development of innovative ways to “heal” such garbage patches.

Maximizing Ocean Progress with Prizes

Following up on my two recent ocean-themed posts about 2009 TED Prize Winners including a prominent ocean explorer, the recent MIT Ocean X PRIZES Workshop, and an announcement planned tomorrow (mentioned in both posts I just linked) that probably involves ocean-related features of Google Earth, here's more about the MIT workshop. It's all from Maximizing Progress, a blog with strong MIT content that summarizes itself with the following: Exponential Innovations Everywhere - Joost Bonsen's Opinions on Money, Ideas, and Talent Enabling Liberty, Prosperity, and Vitality for All.

Deep Dive ~ X-Prizes for Ocean Exploration? - This was before the workshop. In addition to general information like the workshop flyer had, it mentions the participation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Aquatourism ~ Emergent Oceanic Eco-Industry -

At MIT's IAP X-Prize Workshop I was delighted to see for the first time Graham Hawkes speak about his Deep Flight family of submersibles. These currently luxury devices (~US$1 to 3M each) will soon enable aqua-limo services and ultimately be a class of readily accessible toursubs, thus transforming the aquatourism sector. ... Graham Hawkes is the creator-engineer, a multi-company entrepreneur, most recently operating both Precision Remotes and Hawkes Ocean Technologies.

Precision Remotes is in the business of remotely operated reconnaissance, surveillance, and weapons systems. They depict scenarios where critical infrastructure is defended with remotely-operated, armor-protected machine guns, and forward military bases add a layer of remotely-operated machine or sniper guns to their defense.

Hawkes Ocean Technologies offers the mentioned Deep Flight submersibles. From their web page:

Deep Flight Challenger Deep Flight Challenger was built to enable adventurer, Steve Fossett, to set the ultimate solo dive record for all time (37,000 feet). Unfortunately Fossett perished in a plane crash before he could dive the submersible to record depth. Hawkes Ocean Technologies is now the only organization in the world that has full ocean depth technology.

Deep Flight Super Falcon Now available for sale to private owners. The first full productionized submersible capable of sub-sea flight. HOT is currently building a Super Falcon for Tom Perkins, founder of Kleiner Perkins Venture Capital. Perkins owns the largest privately-owned sailing yacht, S/Y Maltese Falcon. ...

Getting back to the Maximizing Progress posts on the workshop:

Ocean X-Prizes ~ Exploring Possible Challenges -

Organized by Erika Wagner, who runs the MIT X-Prize Lab, and Jaison Morgan from the X-Prize Foundation, this session brought together a couple dozen students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs, journalists and other oceans enthusiasts. ... We split into four idea teams and in the end, proposed two preliminary concept themes:

Treasure Quest -- Discovery and mapping of wonderous ecological, geological, and archaeological marine riches, and
Blue Space Race -- a Tour de Oceans competition via Formula One-like manned submersibles in the briny deep

Maximizing Progress is a potential source of more innovation prize and competition information. Here's the current post:

Energy Innovations ~ MIT Yunus Challenge 2009 -

This year the theme is... "innovative small-scale energy storage solutions to help alleviate poverty. Solutions must address the needs of people living on less than $2 per day. ..."

In "My Activities", the first item Joost mentions is the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

2009 TED Prize Winners and Event

Meet the 2009 TED Prize winners - Two of the three winners fit with the space and related themes usually covered in this blog. They include Sylvia Earle (oceanographer and explorer, former Chief Scientist of NOAA) and Jill Tarter (Director of the Center for SETI Research).

The Three Winners of the 2009 TED Prize - ... in more detail

Each wins $100,000 plus "One Wish to Change the World." Their wishes will be unveiled at TED2009 on February 5, 2009.

The 2009 TED Prize Live from the TED Conference - Special introductions by: Quincy Jones, Al Gore, and Richard Branson ... - A number of cinemas and similar venues across the country are going to feature the presentations in a simulcast (the in-person event gets over 1000 attendees but sells out).

trailer for the 2009 winners

As I recently mentioned, Sylvia Earle also recently held an MIT X Prize Lab workshop on "Deep Diving" ocean prizes. She is also part of an announcement about Google Earth planned for February 2 (that's 2 days from now, and only 3 days before the TED event -- but I have no idea if these are at all related). From the Google Earth Blog announcement link:

Google has sent out an invitation to the press, including Google Earth Blog, for a "Special announcement about Google Earth" on February 2nd in San Francisco. And this event looks like it could be the biggest announcement since Google Earth was released! Speakers include: former Vice President Al Gore, CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, VP of Google Marissa Mayer, and Director of Google Geo John Hanke. Wow! ...

Another clue for this announcement was some other speakers for the announcement: Sylvia Earle - Explorer-in-Residence for National Geographic Society; Terry Garcia - EVP for National Geographic Society, and Greg Farrington, Executive Director for California Academy of Sciences. The last one isn't surprising because the invitation says the announcement will be held at the California Academy of Sciences.

Here's some information about Terry Garcia:

Prior to joining the Society in 1999, Garcia was the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In this role he directed and coordinated U.S. coastal, ocean and atmospheric programs, including the National Ocean Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the National Weather Service and the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.

He's also involved with Scotland's ~$20M Saltire Prize for marine renewable energy:

The National Geographic Society's head of global missions, Terry Garcia, was announced as one of the first members of the international prize committee, along with Scotland's chief scientific adviser, Prof Anne Glover.

This announcement will be at the California Academy of Sciences in a place I like, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Sylvia Earle - This YouTube video is from a talk by Sylvia Earle in September 2008 at the Zeitgeist Google Partner Forum. The talk includes a Google Earth tour of the fragile oceans. It ends with some brief comments about Ocean X PRIZEs (Peter Diamandis was making a presentation there the next day) and crewed exploration of the ocean depths.

Ocean Engineering at the MIT X PRIZE Lab

It's a bit late to actually go to this unless you're Marty McFly, but it sounds like it must have been an interesting workshop. Hopefully the X PRIZE folks let us know how it went:

X PRIZE Lab “Deep Dive” Ocean Prizes Workshop
MIT Center for Ocean Engineering (another view)

Spotlights -->
X Prize Lab - Ocean Prizes IAP Workshop
Register Today!

January 7-8, 2009

Join us for an exciting and interactie workshop looking at how prizes could open up the oceans for revolutionary new exploration and science.

If you are interested in the deep sea, exploration, oceanography, autonomous vehicles, manned submersibles, marine biology, marine chemistry, new frontiers, innovatio, incentives, or just stimulating conversations, register today.

The panel will include: Graham Hawkes, Sylvia Earle and David Gallo!

Big Google Earth Announcement with Al Gore and More - Google Earth Blog - Sylvia Earle is also part of this announcement. If it's a big announcement on Google Earth, it's sure to be interesting, and if it's dealing with the oceans (which seems pretty likely) even better. Will there be any prizes in the mix? I have no idea.

X PRIZE Lab at MIT notes that the Spring 2009 class is on Bionics.

Here's the Fall 2008 Syllabus and the class page on X PRIZE Workshop: Grand Challenges in Energy. There are some impressive instructors for that class.

Prizes Under Consideration

Welcome to Prize Development - Asher Spittler, Project Manager, Prize Development - neXt PRIZE

The X PRIZE Foundation's neXt PRIZE blog has been keeping a steady stream of posts going. Check it out. Here's an excerpt that shows what kinds of prizes they'd like to offer. Some of them are news to me:

We have several prizes in development at the moment and about once every few days, I (or someone else from Prize Development) intend to blog about what is going on within our pipeline. Currently we have prizes in smoking cessation, longevity, tuberculosis detection, vision restoration, health care informatics, a bionic prize, global development, energy, alternative aviation fuels, biofuels, and an exploration prize that will explore, conserve, heal and help map the ocean floor.

Live Underwater Video Streaming

TodoCast™ Brings Live Webcasting of Underwater Videography to 11th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - ToDoCast press release:

TodoCast™, the innovator of the world's first affordable, portable, live satellite-to-web video streaming system, today announced the success of live underwater video streaming at this year's 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition held earlier this month. ...

Diverse Autonomous Robot Student Competitions

I mentioned the AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition at the bottom of this post a couple weeks ago. To follow up:

Scientific hopefuls dive headfirst into challenge - Gizmos duel in underwater robotics bout - Peninsula Beacon News - This covers the Underwater competition, and mentions the surface competition that should be being held now (Aug 7 - 9) at the same location this year.

Here's a press release on the winner of the competition, the University of Maryland. Now they're getting ready for the Autonomous Robot Speedway a bit closer to home (at the College Park campus). It sounds like they must have had a lot of fault tolerance with the various challenges they overcame.

They used the Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NBRF) and the University Space Systems Lab during their testing.

Here's the Robotics at Maryland winning team site. It includes lots of posts (including some from the competition), pictures, and videos.

The press release also mentions another UMD win: Project TURTLE Wins NASA Competition - From the PR:

A team of aerospace engineering students won first place in the undergraduate division of NASA's Revolutionary Advanced Systems Concepts - Academic Liaison (RASC-AL) student design competition in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Project TURTLE (Terrapin Undergraduate Rover for Terrestrial Lunar Exploration).

Miltary Prize Month

A lot of prize events are going to happen in the next couple weeks. In addition to the Regolith Excavation and General Aviation Centennial Challenges, there are a lot of people and teams that have been involved with space prizes at the Oshkosh AirVenture air show. I've mentioned all of these recently, but that's just the beginning.

A number of military innovation prize events are planned soon. The UK MOD Grand Challenge for autonomous or partly autonomous systems to help troops monitor threats. This PDF presentation shows the final challenge extending from August 4-24 at Copehill Down, an urban warfare training village.

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX autonomous urban robot competition has its final event scheduled in August.

It's also a big time for student autonomous vehicle prizes. I've already posted on some of the 2008 ones recently. Here's what's coming soon:

AUVSI International Aerial Robotics Challenge - July 28-Aug 1, at Fort Benning, GA - $80,000 in prizes are available.

AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - July 29 - Aug 3 - The public is welcome and it's a free event. From the Public FAQ: The Competition will be held at the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center's Transducer Evaluation Center (TRANSDEC) pool located on Point Loma, San Diego. More acronyms will be available at the Competition site.

Ocean Exploration

Peter Diamandis talks about the ocean exploration prizes under consideration.

Whether robotic or human-piloted craft result from the prize(s), these strike me as having as much or possibly even more potential than the space prizes.

Certainly there's a great deal of intrinsic economic and scientific value in exploring the Earth's oceans. In addition, some of the skills we would learn as we explore them would be highly applicable to space (and I don't mean just oceans under icy moons), whether it's advances in vehicle subsystems, instruments, extremophile science, and so on. Many of the details would be different, but just as scientific study of the other planets helps us understand the Earth, and vice versa, the NewSpace and NewSea industries should be able to complement each other.

Future X PRIZEs

I'm not sure if this is new or not, but the X PRIZE Foundation has a lot more information on their future X PRIZE plans than I've seen before on their web site. I've posted on some of this already based on XPF lectures and articles, but without nearly as much detail. I don't know how many of these will ultimately become actual competitions; some of them clearly at least have initial funding for prize development.

Exploration - No new space prizes are listed here, but they have

received a grant to explore an Ocean X PRIZE Suite. The suite will likely focus on any or all of four target areas:

oceanographic research, exploration, conservation, and healing. Some of these sound like they belong in the energy/environment suite as much as the exploration one, but there's nothing wrong with addressing 2 areas at the same time. In fact I'd like to see some space prizes that overlap with these other areas.

Life Sciences - This mentions a Human Longevity X PRIZE, but most of the section covers the Cancer X PRIZE Suite, which I'll discuss in a separate post.

Education - They are investigating education prizes that might involve learning technologies or city competitions. Their inspirations range from the FIRST Robotics Competition to Expeditionary Learning. One approach I might take, instead of something like an educational software tool prize, is an X PRIZE (or numerous smaller prizes) that students can try to win like FIRST, TARC, Cansat, and so on. The prizes of course would be designed to require the competitor students to learn a lot.

Global Entrepreneurship - From the site:

The X PRIZE Foundation has secured grants to explore a Village Utility X PRIZE. ... The global competition would leverage technology-based innovation to develop more effective ways to deliver power, water and connectivity to communities in need in the developing world.

Energy and Environment - Again from the site (I hope they find a synonym for "develop"):

The X PRIZE foundation received a grant to develop a prize to develop and promote widespread adoption of clean aviation fuel. We’re also developing a partnership for second generation small scale distributed biofuel production technologies.

Google Ocean?

The Google Earth blog mentions the possibility that Google Earth will get support for ocean mapping: Rumor-mill: Google Ocean in the Works.

Here's the CNet article that explains the possibility: Google diving into 3D mapping of oceans.

I wonder if the possible deep ocean X PRIZE will help in the collection of the types of data that would be useful in Google Ocean?