Monday, August 04, 2008

V PRIZE?

I noticed that the V Prize link isn't working, and I also couldn't track down the V Prize blog. I also don't see any links for it anymore at Spaceports. Is the V Prize effort done? I don't know.

A prize like that is pretty difficult to arrange. Hopefully if that proves too difficult, a less ambitous, more easily funded prize that promotes the MARS and Virginia space commerce can be pulled off. I can picture all sorts of ideas like that. Off the top of my head: a prize for the first reusable suborbital vehicle to perform science or engineering task xyz 5 times from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. That would promote the types of skills that could some day, in a later general of vehicle, result in point-to-point suborbital trips, while at the same time giving incentives to develop such capabilities at the MARS. The difficulty of the task could be calibrated to the funding available.