An AXP Straggler

Here's one I missed from that earlier post.

The X PRIZE Foundation news scroller adds one more article to the comprehensive list from that X PRIZE Cars post. It's from the Oakland Business Review, and it's about the big auto companies and their glaring absence from the competition. You'll have to read the article to see why.

It's interesting to compare this to the Ansari X PRIZE, which the big aerospace companies sat out. However, when the dust settled, Virgin Galactic was there as a big customer to take the winner to production scale and Northrop Grumman was there for a buy-out (although conventional wisdom is that the purchase was more related to other Scaled Composites efforts that fit NG needs).

That's all well and good, but it would be interesting to get the big auto companies into the AXP competition. Could there be a 3rd category in the competition designed specifically for big automotive companies? Maybe this "big company" category would lower the MPGe requirement from, say, 100 MPG to 80 MPG. The tradeoff? Raise the required vehicles that can be produced to a much greater number, like 100,000 or more, and have more requirements to prove that this mass production will actually happen (is already happening). Since prizes on the order of $10M aren't a big deal to such huge companies, just make it $1M to show that it's a serious prize (leaving the rest for the entrepreneurs), and of course let them share in the media coverage.

End of January Automotive X PRIZE Roundup

The X PRIZE Cars blog has has a lot of posts in the last couple days. Two of the posts concentrate on teams Tilting Vehicle Australia and the Open Source Society for Sustainable Mobility. The third is a big news roundup with links to all sorts of articles and videos. Some of it is on vehicles that aren't actually registered for the competition, but that lean towards the goals that the competition is designed to achieve.

There's also a link there to an article that says Ray Sidney (formerly from Google) made a big donation to the AXP. Here's a version from CNet. Last August the X PRIZE Foundation had a press release that included the following, which confirms a donation then (I don't know if the article refers that that donation or a later one):

The AXP has recently finalized a supporting sponsorship from Adobe. Other early AXP sponsors and donors include Idealab, Ray Sidney of Big George Ventures, the Elbaz Foundation, and the Jack D. Hidary Foundation. Once fundraising for the prize purse and administration is complete, the AXP will officially launch.

“We are seeking assistance from major foundations, corporations and philanthropic individuals to help bring about this revolution in transportation,” Diamandis said. “Visionary individuals and organizations have risen to this type of challenge before by backing the Ansari X PRIZE for personal spaceflight, and the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics. We’re confident we can build a financial base for this competition as well, and expect one or more heroes to rise to this challenge.”

There's also a post with a number of related articles, including some on Tesla, at Space for All.

One of the links at the Space for All post is on one of many potential developments in alcohol fuels. Somewhat related, Transterrestrial Musings has a post that's critical of the way Robert Zubrin promotes his flex fuel car mandate idea for E85 and M85 support for all cars sold in the U.S. Although I agree with Rand about Zubrin's over-the-top argumentation style, I'm still pretty convinced Zubrin has a good idea that would accomplish a lot with a minimum of government interference after reading his Energy Victory book. Of course I went into the book knowing ahead of time what style to expect, and I therefore had "all shields up" to counter that style.

More on ISDC 2008

I just got the latest National Space Society Downlink #84 email. One of the topics covered is the ISDC 2008 Conference. I mentioned earlier that Peter Diamandis is scheduled to speak there; the Downlink also lists Anousheh Ansari and Robert Bigelow (2 major space prize sponsors) as speakers (Bigelow in the "invited" category). Of course there are plenty of other interesting speakers without such direct prize connections (that I happen to recognize).

The Downlink also lists the tracks at the conference. One of the tracks is "Prizes and Competitions". At first glance I like the distribution of track subject matter. Here's the full list:

• Space Tourism
• Prizes and Competitions
• Space Business and Entrepreneurs
• NASA's COTS Program
• Lunar Exploration
• Mars Exploration
• Space Settlement
• Space Solar Power
• Space Law
• Space Medicine
• Space Environment and Space Weather
• Near Earth Objects and Planetary Defense
• International Space Programs

John McCain on an Energy Prize

When I was searching for candidate positions on innovation prizes, I missed this one from John McCain, probably because I didn't spend a lot of time on the search and this one doesn't have keywords like "prize" in it.

With some of the savings from cutting subsidies for industries that can stand on their own, we can establish a national challenge to improve the cost, range, size, and weight of electric batteries for automobiles. Fifty percent of cars on the road are driven 25 miles a day or less. Affordable battery-powered vehicles that can meet average commuter needs could help us cut oil imports in half. The reward will be earned through merit by whomever accomplishes the task, whether a laboratory in the Department of Energy, a university, a corporation or an enterprising young inventor who works out of his family's garage.

Science (and Technology!) Debate 2008

From Cosmic Log comes news of an effort to have a Presidential Debate on science and technology policy. There's no reason why space and/or innovation prizes wouldn't be part of such a debate.

Apophis Contest Winner To Be Announced Next Month

Spaceref and Science Daily both have a press release from the Planetary Society about Near-Earth asteroids and related Society projects like the Apophis Mission Design Competition to design a space mission to "tag" asteroid Apophis.

Nancy Conrad on the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award

Will Pomerantz at the X PRIZE Foundation adds more, mainly from Nancy Conrad, to his earlier post on the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award. From Nancy's contribution:

Our first year rocked and 2008 promises to be even more exciting ... We're going to have 2 Awards: Space Travel and Space Exploration and many other surprises.

The State of Prizes

This one from the Financial Times (and linked by the X PRIZE Foundation news scroller) gives a good summary of the state of innovation prizes, including the efforts of the X PRIZE Foundation like the Ansari X PRIZE, the M prize, and many historical prizes. It also discusses some very large prize/contract hybrids that may be offered by the Gates Foundation and governments to solve health-related problems.

There's also coverage of some of the academic and economic arguments about the pros and cons of prizes compared to grants, patents, and contracts.

Space Elevator Blog, E-T-C, and Trumpf

The Space Elevator Blog has a detailed interview with laser supplier Trumpf. They're in the business of (among other things of course) helping the Space Elevator Games laser teams. The post goes into some ideas on how a laser source could be designed to work at the distances and with the focus needed at altitudes relevant to a Space Elevator.

The discussion suggests a third Space Elevator Games challenge - cooling the beam power receiver in the vacuum of space.

The details of what Trumpf is offering to the teams are also discussed.

The blog also has a post on a video of E-T-C, one of the beam power teams. It looks like they must have stopped off at in New Mexico at the space museum along the way?

Unreasonable Post Trio

Unreasonable Rocket shows us the damage from the last crash of the helicopter, then restarts flights, and finally endures rain delays just like the giant rockets.

Political Links

Since this site does occasionally cover politics as it pertains to space prizes (for example, see the Politics tag below for other posts related to politics, and the Politics section on the right), I thought I'd follow the lead of Action for Space in this political season in the U.S. and add some relevant links on the right. These include email contacts for Presidential candidates in a new "Political Contacts" section and links to a couple of prize-related bills in the "Politics" section. I won't comment on the specifics of candidates or bills now (I have, however, discussed some of them in past posts). To keep neutral the candidate lists are in alphabetical order.

Of course emails and phone calls, while convenient, aren't the most effective way to express whatever your political convictions are. For example, candidates respond much better to personal contact like ProSpace's March Storm or, as Jim Muncy noted in this Space Show interview, volunteering in a campaign and influencing it from within.

Ames and the Future City Competition

Spaceref presents a press release about the National Engineers Week Future City Competition for middle school students. The competition involves skills like teamwork, computer software like SimCity, presentations, math, and engineering. NASA Ames is hosting the Northern California regional competition.

Rocket Magazines

The Rocket Dungeon reviews 3 recent issues of rocket magazines: Rockets Magazine, Sport Rocketry, and LAUNCH Magazine. Competitions with prizes that are mentioned include the Team America Rocketry Challenge and the 2007 X PRIZE Cup. I just got my issue of LAUNCH today, so I can't give any comments of my own about it yet.

Armadillo Vehicle Updates and Plans

RLV News posts on the latest of Armadillo Aerospace's very comprehensive every-month-or-so updates, complete with photos and videos.

Lots of Big Donations for Methuselah Foundation

The Methuselah Foundation has been getting a lot of donations lately. It sounds like most of them are for traditional grants focused on the Foundation's anti-aging goals, but some of them are directed towards the Mprize, which has the same goals, but uses a different approach to achieve them.