Progress for V Prize Bill

I recently linked to a Spaceports article on a measure on the Virginia legislature in support of the V Prize. Now Spaceports reports that the measure has passed in the Virginia House of Delegates.

2008 Great Moonbuggy Race

Spaceref posts a press release on the 2008 Great Moonbuggy Race.

Rapid Unreasonable Rocket Updates

RLV News catches the latest series of detailed updates from Unreasonable Rocket. My favorite quote:

I apologize to all that this has become the unreasonable helicopter blog.

I just thought that blog title had a nice ring to it. Also, no apologies necessary, as far as I'm concerned. I like seeing people take different paths to solve the space access problem, and if one path leads to an unreasonable umanned helicopter along the way, let's give it a try.

NSS ISDC 2008

The National Space Society ISDC (International Space Development Conference) 2008 plans are apparently coming together, as more is being displayed on the web site. X PRIZE Foundation founder Peter Diamandis is one of the speakers on the list.

Ferris Valyn on Obama's Space Policy

RLV News notes that Ferris Valyn has posted on some problems with Obama's space policy position on Daily Kos, a site that's generally in favor of Democratic candidates (as is Ferris). Ferris is in favor of some of the positions in the document, but he's opposed to what I think he considers the central points, such as support of Ares I/Orion without the Lunar mission, and no mention of COTS or commercial space. Here's what Ferris says about prizes in his comments:

My main complaint is in whats missing - there is absolutely no discussion about the potential for the commerical sector in space. This is where the real excitement within the space community exists - the development of real markets for putting people into space, and having routine access. To be fair, Senator Clinton has not mentioned commerical space either, but as the candidate of change, I would hope that Senator Obama would see this. With the developments coming from the NewSpace industry, we sit on the edge of major developments and changes, much like we saw with the internet in the 90s, and much like people expect with things like stem cell research.

Also missing is the issue of whether prizes will be utlized. The X Prize proved very successful in changing the nature of how we interact with space, and proving that "hobbyists" could become involved. And the Centennial Challenges program has also been shortchanged again this year, and thus I remain concerned.

Clearly all of the Presidential candidates from both parties (as well as most Congressional representatives) have a long way to go in their consideration of commercial space and space prizes.

Some 2008 Presidential Candidate Positions on Innovation Prizes

I decided to surf around some of the U.S. Presidential candidates' websites to see what they had to say about innovation prizes. I've posted some things here and there about prize politics, but most (not all) of it has been Congressional or internal to federal agencies. This was by no means an exhaustive search, but here's what I came up with. I didn't find anything about space-specific prizes, unfortunately. Most of it was generic or energy-related. I didn't find much from Republican candidates (just a debate comment from Huckabee), although prizes can fit in well with Republican economic ideology in that they are sometimes better and cheaper than big government spending at solving problems in a way that at least simulates good features of a free market.

Obama:

energy issues link (similar information on this fact sheet)

Support Next Generation Biofuels

Deploy Cellulosic Ethanol: Obama will invest federal resources, including tax incentives, cash prizes and government contracts into developing the most promising technologies with the goal of getting the first two billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol into the system by 2013.

Huckabee:

blog discussion link (I couldn't find anything more official)

He just mentioned an X-Prize-type deal to get a car that reached 100 mpg. I am ALL for that (although I would prefer that gallons of gas were out of the equation altogether)! We need more of that from government. Government is too expensive.The role for government is to encourage business. I am all on board with a government X-prize. Private businesses can spend 1 bilion much more efficiently than government.

Huck's Army.com forum

America has always been about developing technology and bringing it to market. We need to lead the world with Alternative Energy. I hope Huckabee has specific plans for this. He mentioned in the last debate, offhand, how we could provide, say, a $1 billion prize to the first company that achieves a 100 mile per gallon car. I think he is spot on. But do it more like this: $1 billion goes to the first American company to sell 500,000 vehicles in the American market that get 80 miles per gallon, if done by 2016.

Clinton:

Science and Innovation Speech

I've also called for competitive prizes to encourage innovation. Back in 1957, President Eisenhower, when he met with his Scientific Advisory Committee again, wondered if there were a way to keep people as excited about science as they were about sports and competition. And this was back when reality entertainment meant playing in the neighborhood park. Why not encourage people to innovate through healthy competition?

Innovation Fact Sheet

Direct the federal agencies to award prizes in order to accomplish specific innovation goals. The federal agencies should regularly use prizes to encourage innovation when there is a clearly defined goal and when there are multiple technological paths for achieving that goal. Prizes can attract non-traditional participants and stimulate the development of useful but under-funded technology. Hillary Clinton proposes to make prizes a part of the budgets at the research agencies.

Heinlein Award and Space Lunar Art

ArtsNova Digital Arts and Space posts on the NSS Heinlein Award. The last day for voting for the award is January 15.

In looking through some of the other posts there, I noticed this NASA student contest for art related to "Life and Work on the Moon".

Clear Prize for Aviation Security Innovations

Wired posts on a %500,000 prize from Clear for airport security technology innovations. Rather than improved security, their goal is for faster processing through security checkpoints. Presumably the faster processing would have to at least keep security the same as it is without the innovation. In addition to the cash prize, Clear will commit to a contract for business. An industry event will be held on Feb 13 for the prize.

2008 General Aviation Technology Challenge

They were hinting about this earlier, and now it's official: a couple weeks ago the CAFE Foundation posted that they'd updated the Personal Air Vehicle Challenge for 2008. The competition has been renamed to the General Aviation Technology Challenge, and now includes a "Green Prize". From the site:

The new prizes will be:

• The Community Noise Prize ($150,000)
• The Green Prize ($50,000) (MPG)
• The Aviation Safety Prize ($50,000) (Handling, eCFI)
• The CAFE 400 Prize ($25,000) (Speed)
• The Quietest LSA Prize ($10,000)

The rules also show a few more prizes:

Individual "Showcase" Prizes: Winner of each of the following five prizes will receive US$ 3750.00:

1. Quietest Cabin Prize
2. Best Angle of Climb Prize
3. Shortest Takeoff Prize
4. Best Glide at 100 mph Prize

There are a lot more details about the 2008 competition here and here.

Automotive X PRIZE Looking for Host Cities

AutoBlogGreen has a couple of posts today about the Automotive X PRIZE. The first is on 7 teams planning to attend the Detroit Auto Show, and the second is on the AXP folks looking for cities to host the AXP race. A Host City RFP is planned.

Legal Aspects of Intercontinental Suborbital Flight

Spaceports posts on some Virginia General Assembly activity that could potentially help the V-Prize for a suborbital flight from Virginia to Europe. This sounds like it could be a great prize competition if they manage to overcome the difficult funding hurdle that such a grand challenge warrents. You can get an idea of some of the things the V-Prize Foundation is up to by reading the resolution linked above.

Numerous Regolith Challengers Registered

The California Spaceport Authority, via Matt's blog, announces that they now have over 10 diverse teams registered for the 2008 Regolith Excavation Challenge. An upcoming CSA newsletter will spotlight 2 of the teams. While I wait for that, I thought it would be interesting to check out old versions of the newsletter. The first page I checked featured the 2007 Regolith Challenge, and here's the conclusion. If the PDF seems too small, I found that the numerous pictures hold up well to zooming in a bit.

Regional FIRST Robotics Competition

Spaceref posts a press release about NASA and the FIRST Robotics Competition. There are more FIRST links at the Oregon Space Grant Consortium, and the Glenn Research Center has a page for the Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics Competition.

First Google Lunar X PRIZE Compilation of the Year

In the spirit of compilations (and quickly catching up on posting after my time off), here are some collected updates on the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

• Is this rover going to the Moon? (From Hacked Gadgets DIY Blog).
• Popular Mechanics has 9 questions on robotics for Matthew Mason, robotics expert from CMU. The Lunar X PRIZE is only mentioned briefly (as is the DARPA Urban Challenge), but it gives some perspective on how CMU, and perhaps therefore the Red Whittaker Lunar X PRIZE team, sees robotics.
• The Space Fellowship has an interview with Interplanetary Ventures. (link from RLV News)
• The Space Show has an interview with Odyssey Moon's Robert Richards.

First Lunar Lander Challenge Compilation of the Year

There's been a lot of news and posting related to the Lunar Lander Challenge teams lately. Here's what I've seen compressed into one post:

• SpeedUp posts on a recent pressure test, and comments on weight-saving measures that can be used if needed.
• RLV News points to an Unreasonable Rocket post on valves, controls, and the helicopter with a lot of pictures to show you what the hard work is like.
• RLV News comments on another William Pomerantz X PRIZE Foundation post, this time with a lot of details on Acuity, one of the quieter teams as far as LLC Internet posting is concerned. This one also covers 2 more posts from Unreasonable Rocket - 1 on a typical rocketeer evening and another on a different evening.
• RLV News also has the latest update from Masten Space Systems, including several job openings at the company, lots of details on their design and planning decisions, and contracts. The LLC is mentioned, but it's not clear from the main post whether they're planning to compete in 2008. However, Jon has a comment about that in, well, the comments section: "If we can get this new engine debugged and operational, and if we can get the vehicle ready to fly early enough in the year, we’ll probably take a shot at competing this year."

Somewhat related is this article (and this one) from the Alamogordo Daily News on N.M. state funding, the New Mexico spaceport, and the X PRIZE Cup.

Also, as planned, the winners of the 2007 Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award that was part of the 2007 X PRIZE Cup will be honored at NASA Headquarters. It looks like the Conrad Scroll will be sent to the ISS, too.