Lunar Lander Challenge Somewhere in New Mexico this Fall

RLV News reports some hints about this year's Lunar Lander Challenge, and shows how Unreasonably Strong people get when they eat their spinach.

Long Term Thinking

Peter Diamandis is scheduled for a talk at the Long Now Foundation on September 12. The subject is "Long-term X-Prizes".

Personalized Technology

The X PRIZE Foundation's Tom Vander Ark discusses making a difference to a graduating class, and personalized technology in important areas the Foundation is working on like energy, medicine, education, and exploration:

Over the next few months the X PRIZE team, board, and advisors will be fleshing out the vision and strategy in each of these areas as well as global development and exploration. We’d love to hear from you.

• What’s your vision of a different and better world?
• What kind of breakthroughs will most benefit humanity?
• What areas of research and development are under funded or stuck?

TekScout

I've mentioned Innocentive a few times on this blog. It's a business that acts as a matchmaker for organizations that have problems, typically of a science or engineering nature, to solve, and people who solve the problems. Each problem comes with a cash prize that's awarded to the problem solver.

The TekScout Open Innovation Network seems to operate on similar principles. It has problem categories like "Life Science, Chemistry, Math and Computer Science, Physical Science, Engineering and Design, and Alternative Energy/Sustainable Products". That's an organization fairly similar to the Innocentive one. It does seem like the prize amounts tend to be relatively high on this one, with prizes over $100,000 being common. They allow a model that sounds a bit like COTS where payments can be made as milestones are reached. It looks like there's flexibility to make arrangements similar to the prize competitions of this blog or closer to more traditional models.

Lunar Concrete

Utah State Today presents the school's Lunar Ventures 2008 team. Their business plan involved

Lunar Concrete, a proposed product that would eliminate the infamous dust hazards on the lunar surface, while dually decreasing the amount of water required for concrete formation on Earth.

GLXP Respect for History

Cumbrian Sky wants to make sure the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams preserve the historical value of sites like Tranquility Base while going for bonus prizes.

Astrobotic Pictures and Unreasonable Jet Vanes

RLV News awaits an announcement on this year's X PRIZE Cup and Lunar Lander Challenge plans ... no word yet, but the wait is not in "vane", as you'll see in the video in this post from Unreasonable Rocket.

Also, the Google Lunar X PRIZE site has 3 more pictures posted from Astrobotic. I'm not going to send you there, but instead to where you'll find yourself if you keep clicking on the pictures: the latest Astrobotic Picasa Web Album. There you'll see the full collection of 14 photos, and be able to get closeups of the pictures more quickly (via photo downloads or slideshows).

Don't neglect the GLXP Teams site version, either - there are comments on those pictures.

See the Swashbuckler "Conan and the Space Pirates"

The Space Elevator Blog has the Conan O'Brien interview of Kansas City Space Pirate Brian Turner, which covered aspects of both power beaming and strong tethers.

Space Ship One book by Dan Linehan

Apparently based on a purchase I made for a space science class on outer planets, Amazon.com thinks I'd be interested in pre-ordering Space Ship One: An Illustrated History. I can't say much about it since I haven't read it, but if you're interested you might want to get to Amazon through one of the other space sites that happens to have an Amazon link.

Innocentive Pavilions

Innocentive has a "Pavilions" prize category that includes the following:

The Rockefeller Foundation:

$20,000: a plant oil stove that doesn't need to be cleaned every couple hours of use
$20,000: solar-powered wireless routers
$20,000: a dry-based biolatrines proposal
$20,000: "Safe and Economical Synthetic Route for PA-824, a candidate drug for tuberculosis"
$40,000: "Reducing Risk of Malaria with Solar Powered Device"

Clean Tech and Renewable Energy:

$30,000: Boston Energy Challenge for proposals for energy-efficient cooling and dehumidifying
$10,000: In Situ Analysis of NO3/NO2
$50,000: Rapid evaluation of nitrosamine content
... etc ... many more

Global Health:

... numerous prizes in the $10,000 - $50,000 range (plus the $1,000,000 ALS Biomarker prize)

In addition to the Pavilions, they also have several prizes for videos and other ideas to market and improve Innocentive itself.

Plus, there are the traditional categories (engineering/design, physical sciences, life sciences, chemistry, math and computer sciences).

I couldn't find a "space" or "aerospace" category, though ...

X PRIZE Cars May Update

Here's the latest from X PRIZE Cars:

Automotive X Prize News - April 21st, 2008 - These weekly news updates usually have a ton of articles; I can only mention a few. First, don't miss the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE site. There are also articles on the EPA possibly mandating car fleets averaging 75 mpg by the 2030's, another Tesla lawsuit (this time directed at the company), and bicycle power in AXP vehicles to give them that extra edge.

Podcast Interview of Jim Stansbury (more here on this letter of intent PAXP team) ... is Sammy Hagar listening?

Automotive X Prize News - April 28th, 2008 - news on CAFE standards, the Cornell team (sponsored by names like Lockheed Martin, Toyota, and GE), a prominent hire for Aptera, and much more

Motive Industries BEHEV - spotlight on this Canadian team

Florida RLV Prize Checkup

I'm not familiar with the process that Florida bills go through, but the Florida Economic Stimulus Bill CS/SB 2310 that includes a "Reusable Space Vehicle Industry Prize Program" seems to be moving along, but note the following in the House of Representatives Staff Analysis:

On Friday April 18, 2008, the Economic Expansion and Infrastructure Council passed a strike-all amendment that did the following:
....
Reduces the amount of state funds included in the cash prize for the reusable space vehicle industry prize program from $20 million to $2 million, and leaves open the amount of privately secured funds that may be included

I'm not sure if that version is being carried forward or not; there are several versions of the bill posted and I can't tell which is current. It seems like the Senate version may have replace the House one ...? As I said, I'm not sure.

Here's some of the bill history:

05/02/08 S Ordered engrossed, then enrolled
Friday, May 02, 2008 11:34 AM

05/02/08 S CS passed as amended; YEAS 40 NAYS 0
Friday, May 02, 2008 11:34 AM

05/02/08 S Concurred
Friday, May 02, 2008 11:34 AM

04/30/08 S In returning messages
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:30 PM

Message sent to senate
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 7:24 PM

Amendment(s) reconsidered, withdrawn
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5:49 PM

CS passed as amended; YEAS 117, NAYS 1
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5:49 PM

...........

DeltaX Tether Team Updates

This post is out of date, but in early March tether team DeltaX mentioned some new carbon nanotube equipment, new members, and a PhD for one of the teammates - in "2D multimode infrared spectroscopy".

TRUMPF Newsletter Article by Brad Edwards

The Space Elevator Blog points out a Brad Edwards article in a TRUMPF Laser newsletter (on page 24) with implications for both laser beam power and strong tethers. The main theme of the article is lasers helping make carbon nanotubes, but there's also a bit about carbon nanotubes returning the favor and making better lasers. Of course the Space Elevator games are featured in the article.

Quick Update on a Quick Update

Unreasonable Rocket gives a quick update.