COMSTAC Slides

RLV News posts links to some presentation slides from the recent COMSTAC meeting. A lot of these will be of interest to anyone following RLVs or personal spaceflight. I'll just give some prize-related pointers.

Here's a slide presentation on the X PRIZE Cup from the point of view of the Holloman Air Force Base where this year's Cup will be held. With all of the events, including the Lunar Lander Challenge requiring permits and strict safety guidelines, as well as all sorts of other rocketry events, there is a lot for them to do. The slides note that 10 teams have registered for the LLC, seven of which are actively consulting with the FAA.

Another slide presentation covers the NASA Innovative Partnerships Office, which contains Centennial Challenges among several other offices. There is a lot about the recent Centennial Challenge competitions in the later slides. You will see a lot of pictures from the Astronaut Glove Challenge and the Regolith Excavation Challenge that I at least haven't seen from other sources.

One interesting slide notes that one of the IPP's goals is "By 2012, complete one or more prize competitions for independently designed, developed, launched, and operated missions related to space science or space exploration." That sounds like an actual space mission prize, but the Centennial Challenges funding has been pretty low, so it won't be easy to meet this goal.