Space Prize Roundup: July 23, 2009: More Beam Power Tests, Newspace 2009 Video, Diamandis on I2I, Dutch Cansat, Astrobotic Heat, Conrad Sci Advisor

The news continues from the Space Elevator Games preparation and dry run week:

From the University of Alberta Space Elevator Racing Team:

Qualifications: Day 1
Qualifications: Day 2

... and from the Space Elevator Blog:

We're now live
King of the Road

The main event isn't far away ... August 5.

'incentive2innovate' (i2i) Conference Review - Peter Diamandis looks back at the I2I conference.

I ran across this interesting YouTube video: Team 9 QuADes - Dutch CanSat Competition - perspex chassis - When Team Quades was selected to participate in the Dutch CanSat-competition I saw the possibility to give my hobby, experimenting with 3d sofware, a purpose.What started as a fun pastime has grown into a enormous project. It took about 450 hours to build this animation and approx. 900 (!) hours of rendering.

team QuADes - I don't speak Dutch, but rocket hardware and obvious teamwork are spoken in a universal language.

Video from the Google Lunar X PRIZE Panel at NewSpace 2009 - Team Frednet at the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams site offers video of a panel featuring a number of teams.

The countdown's on for humans to return to moon - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - This features Red Whittaker and David Gump from Astrobotic ...
Oakland firm refines rover designed to land on lunar soil, win $20M - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - ... and so does this: What's special about this prototype, said Astrobotic spokesman David Gump, is that it should be able to withstand the intense heat a lunar day exerts.

This is from an email mailing list notification from the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards:

The Conrad Foundation today announced Sigma Xi as the official Science Advisor of the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards. Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, will assist the Conrad Foundation by providing scientific guidance and mentorship to high school teams competing in the annual awards program.

Apollo 11 Landing Anniversary, Google Lunar X PRIZE, and Google Earth/Moon

Tour the Moon in Google Earth - The Launch Pad -

As you explore this new software package, we hope you’ll also take the Google Lunar X PRIZE tour. Simply download this file to your computer and open it the new Google Earth, and you’ll be whisked away on a tour of the lunar surface with X PRIZE Founder Peter Diamandis and with X PRIZE Trustee and second generation astronaut Richard Garriott. They will use the software to imagine what we’ll all be watching in the near future, projecting the preliminary designs published by our teams onto the lunar surface. This tour is a rough draft, and will be revised and updated as often as possible to give you the best information about this new race back to the Moon.

The Google Earth Blog is covering the overall release in detail:

More on Moon in Google Earth - ... Google put on a really slick media event here today. Having Buzz Aldrin, Andrew Chaiken, and Anousheh Ansari help promote the new Moon features was awesome. ...
Look at the Moon in Google Earth - Available Now!
What if the Eagle Landed on Earth? - pre-announcement

While we're at the Google Earth Blog, I'd like to point out the following contest news:

Links: Google Moon Monday, Tax Evasion, Panoramio Winners, Canada Wins - Here are the prize items extracted from that post:

Panoramioa winners - The May winners of the monthly Panoramio photo contest have been announced.

Canada Wins National Geographic Contest - In the world championship of National Geographic's geography contest, Canada came in first place. US was 2nd place, and Poland 3rd.

By the way, the picture for this post is one of the Panoramio contest honorable mentions.

@Pomerantz from the X PRIZE Foundation has a detailed stream of tweats on the Google Moon unveiling.

@SoldTheMoon (David Gump) - For Pittsburgh fans, Channels 2 and 4 will have features tonight on the third prototype of the lunar rover; Tribune-Review story hits tmw.

@Bob_Richards - Odyssey Moon is a proud member of the NextStepInSpace coalition for commercial spaceflight http://www.nextstepinspace.com

Some journeys change mankind forever. Louis Vuitton Moon Odyssey campaign by Odyssey Moon partner WPP http://bit.ly/EP9lP

@ARCAspace - GOOD NEWS: ARCA will launch the first Romanian object in space in September! http://www.arcaspace.com More info to come. :)

@interorbital - Comment on the 40th from Randa and others: http://bit.ly/HhEXn

@OmegaEnvoy - Today at 3pm @jasontweets will talk about the project then a live Q&A with FMARS crew at KSC Training Auditorium. #GLXP

@teamfrednet - The interview with our team on The Space Show is now available for download: http://bit.ly/qJ5vp #GLXP

@Regolith_Chal - Moonfest exceeded all expectations! @NLSI Stopped the traffic (literally). Booth was mobbed all day. Amazing demand for Lunar Exploration.

NewSpace 2009: Monday - Morning Session - Part 2 - RLV News - This includes the Google Lunar X PRIZE panel moderated by Nicole Jordan. Next Giant Leap, Synergy Moon, FREDNET, and Odyssey Moon were on the panel.

"Moon 2.0" Inspiring the Next Generation of Lunar Explorers - The Huffington Post (Larry Page and Peter Diamandis) - link from the X PRIZE Foundation news scroller:

We believe the time is ripe for private industry to assist in creating a new era of sustainable, international lunar exploration -- a "Moon 2.0." If the first version of mankind's journey to the Moon was about flags and footprints, Moon 2.0 is focused on a new standard of sustained participatory exploration and the expansion of new markets and economic opportunities. ... The Google Lunar X PRIZE is our solution to that problem.

Peter Diamandis: Key to Lunar Frontier in Private Hands - Space.com - ... the fact of the matter is private industry should be providing the transportation. NASA should be saying 'we'll pay $20 million per seat to orbit, and we will buy 200 seats a year.' ...

NASA Ames Prize Roundup - July 17-18, 2009: NewSpace, Moonfest, Lunar Science Forum, Propellant Depots, Masten, Isle of Man

NASA Ames to Host Variety of Events During Moon Week - SpaceRef press release

The events include:

NewSpace 2009
Moonfest 2009
July 20: ... a live broadcast of a NASA Headquarters news briefing with astronauts from the Apollo program
July 20: ... join students of the 2009 International Space University (ISU) Space Studies Program for an International Astronaut Panel
NASA 2009 Lunar Science Forum (July 21-23)

NewSpace 2009 is happening now. I'm not there, but I made up for it today with a nice 23 mile bike ride, a good restaurant lunch, a family afternoon at a lake swimming and having fun, a 3 mile nature walk around the lake, and another bike ride (repeating the nature walk on fast forward). That's about 2 weeks of activity for me compressed into 1 day. Not only that, but I have a chance to go to EAA Airventure as part of another trip, although with the schedule I have to work with I'll probably miss VMS EVE.

I've already posted prize-related items on the NewSpace 2009 agenda; here are notes from RLV News from the actual first day:

NewSpace 2009: Saturday - Afternoon Session - Part 2 - This includes:
Orbital Fuel Depots: Fueling the Frontier
Jon Goff - Masten System - Moderator

NewSpace 2009: Saturday - Afternoon Session - Part 1 - This one includes
Space and Isle of Man
Bob Richards

Dave Masten, Masten Space Systems

Here are some prize and award plans for the NASA 2009 Lunar Science Forum:

DAY 1 Tuesday, July 21, 2009
4:20-4:40 Robert (Bob) Richards, Founder & CEO of Odyssey Moon Limited, Odyssey Moon: Preparing for Moon 2.0
4:40-5:00 William Pomerantz, Senior Director, Space Prizes, X PRIZE Foundation, "The Google Lunar X PRIZE"
6:00-7:30PM SHOEMAKER Award, David Morrison Presenting, Don Wilhelms Speaking

Prize Roundup - July 7-8, 2009 (Part 2): HSF Question, DIME and WING, SpeedUp and KC Pirate Updates, NewSpace Agenda, UTS Wins, FMARS

From @NASA_HSF: Here's a question on the HSF Committee website that deserves some thoughtful responses:

Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Committee - Current Topic For Public Comment - To what extent should NASA rely on the private sector for human space flight-related products and services? (Closes July 24th)

One commenter starts with: Keep makeing X-Prizes ...

@Pomerantz - Middle School & High School students in the US: Want to do experiments in microgravity? http://bit.ly/19sFF0 (Please spread the word)

The link from Will Pomerantz is on the NASA Drop Tower Competition for Student Teams at NASA Glenn Research Center. The 2 components are "DIME" and "WING": "Dropping In a Microgravity Environment" and "What If No Gravity".

DIME Program Announcement (PDF)
WING Program Announcement (PDF)
DIME & WING Educators Resource Guide (PDF)
Experiment Design Requirements (PDF)

KC Space Pirates status report - Space Elevator Blog

@jeff_foust - What happened to the space elevator track at NewSpace 2009 next Friday? Was on the agenda yesterday, but not today: http://is.gd/1r3QQ

There are more details on the NewSpace 2009 agenda than I saw the last time I checked. Here are a few involving people or events with prize connections - an updated look at something I posted about recently.

Saturday, July 18th
12:30-1:30pm VidVision Contest Lunch
2:15-2:55pm Orbital Fuel Depots: Fueling the Frontier - Jon Goff, Bernard Kutter, Dallas Bienhoff
3:15-4:00pm Suborbital Point-to-Point: Going Places or Taking Us for a Ride? - Paul Damphousse, Kelvin Coleman, A.C. Charania, Chuck Lauer, Randall Clauge

Sunday, July 19th
9:00-11:45am Business plan competition
11:45-12:00pm Isle of Man Presentation - Bob Richards
1:00-2:00pm NewSpace Policy: Accelerating development or picking winners? - Ken Davidian, Jim Muncy, Bruce Pittman, Doug Comstock
4:00-5:00pm NewSpace Case Studies- The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat - Ecliptic Enterprises, MirCorp, Masten Space System

Monday, July 20th
9:25-10:20am The Google Lunar X-Prize: A Look Into the Entrepreneurial Future - Nicole Jordan, Fred Bourgeois, Bob Richards, Kevin Myrick, Randa Milliron, Mike Joyce

Speedup "Hybrid Ignition Test" - RLV News
Briefs: Ribbon fuel contest results; Space prize roundup - RLV News

Tampa Space Program News Examiner - FMARS 2009 Crew Employing Google Lunar X-Prize Rover and Other Advanced Systems

Prize Roundup: July 4-6, 2009 - Astrobotic in RegEx, Multiple Lunar Lander Challenge Updates, More NewSpace 2009 Prize Activity

Astrobotic creates robot to win NASA Moon excavation competition - Astrobotic Technology, Inc (press release) -

Astrobotic Technology Inc. announced today that it has begun testing a robot designed to win a NASA competition for excavating simulated Moon dirt. ... The Astrobotic robot, developed in collaboration with the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, is about a yard on each side and two feet tall, with a laser scanner at its crown to measure distances inside the 13 ft by 13 ft competition area.

Here's the Moon Diggers site. It includes some video of their robot Sandra. You can see where Sandra got her name. It's a good name; I called my cat Sandy (officially "Sandstorm") because of her fur colors, fast wind-like movement, and paws that would get in my eyes like sand when she wanted me to wake up.

There are a bunch of Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge updates to report:

Unreasonable update - RLV News

TrueZer0 reports that Scott Zeeb will be working at Scaled Composites.

Tales from the Melting Pot: Scott Zeeb to Scaled Composites - The Launch Pad uses Scott's move as an opportunity to discuss the collaborative spirit and cross-pollination of many innovation prize teams.

Long hover flight by Armadillo vehicle - RLV News

In my previous post, I pointed out as many prize-related events at NewSpace 2009 as I could find. I already see that I missed one:

VidVision Contest Lunch - Saturday, July 18. Event will offer opportunity to support the 2010 VidVision Contest & view/discuss last year's winning videos

Space Elevator Day - Space Elevator Blog - This goes into more detail on the theme of one of the days at the conference.

@NextGiantLeap - @glxp Just sent in our NewSpace Heinlein BP... and finished making travel arrangements.

Prize Roundup: July 2-3, 2009 (Part 2) - Rocket Racing Financing, Masten LLC Plans, MiniSpaceWorld, NewSpace 2009 & Prizes, Prometheus Update, SF

The picture is from the NSS Space Settlement art calendar - July. Notice the flag - and related to that, I'll be celebrating the July 4th holiday tomorrow, so you get 2 prize roundups for the price of one today.

Masten Space tests - RLV News - This includes videos of recent tests and a note about Masten plans with respect to the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

Rocket Racing League Closes Multi-Million Dollar Financing - MarketWire press release:

The Rocket Racing League® today announced the closing of a $5.5 million dollar financing round, ensuring the next phase of development of the league. It also announced the appointment of a new President & CEO and the commencement of manufacturing activities for its next generation Rocket Racer®. ... July 2009 also marks the kick-off of the manufacture of the League's next generation Rocket Racer, an advanced design based upon the current ships already built, flown and FAA-certified in 2008, in a collaborative partnership with Armadillo Aerospace of Rockwall, Texas and Velocity, Inc., of Sebastian, Florida.

MiniSpaceWorld Design Contest - This is a new competition entry in SpaceHack:

The MSW Design Contest is a contest open for participants worldwide about imagining various parts of MiniSpaceWorld, a lively scale model exhibit about spaceflight and astronomy. Participants shall create a high-level content design including a theme description, map and graphical representations.

Here's a link to the MiniSpaceWorld contest itself: MiniSpaceWorld Design Contest - Overview

Sturgeon & Campbell Winners - Science Fiction Awards Watch
Locus Award Winners - Science Fiction Awards Watch

Here are some of the NewSpace 2009 events and speakers related to space prizes and awards:

A.C. Charania
Ken Davidian
Peter Diamandis
Art Dula
Jonathan Goff
Nicole Jordan
Michael Mealling
Bob Richards
Paul Spudis

Friday, July 17th: Space Elevator Day (including a session specifically on "Spaceward and the Elevator Games")

Monday, July 20th: GLXP Discussion (presumably with some of the above speakers with connections to the Google Lunar X PRIZE)

Heinlein Business Plan Competition
Finalists Selected for the Heinlein NewSpace Business Plan Competition - As I mentioned in an earlier post, this includes teams in, or with history in, other space prize competitions. I mentioned Flagsuit, LLC and Next Giant Leap. I didn't mention Aeronautic Enterprises because I didn't know about them, but this should give a hint:

http://teamprometheus.org/movies/2009/07/prometheus-makes-finals.html -

Aeronautic Enterprises/ Team Prometheus made the finals of the New Space Fronter Foundations Business Plan competition ... We will be launching a large rocket on the 11th and I will go to the NASA AMES Reasearch center for the New Space Convention 2009 on the 16th ...

Team Prometheus has been posting a lot more than that. Here are some. Don't be intimidated by the number of posts because most are short, a lot of it is imagery, and it's all iteresting.

Balloon Making 101
Load Cell for QPIII motor test
Balloon For Near Space Expedition II
Quad Pod III Rocket Motors
Station Keeping in the upper atmosphere
More Horizon Shots

Prize Update: June 28-30 (Part 2) - Interstellar Probe, Beam Team Tests, OSTP, GLXP Updates, NewSpace Business Plans, Masten Plans

This isn't about space prizes, but it's by someone involved with space prizes:

Interstellar Probe How-to
Interstellar Probe How-to Part 2 - Life in the Milky Way (Dave Masten)

@wikkit - We'll be flying with our second aluminum chamber this week. Some manufacturing mods, will be interesting to see how it goes.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE JURBAN Team A Diverse Journey into Space - press release at SpaceRef

Students and Faculty Members Are Among Competitors for $30-Million Space Prize - The Chronicle of Higher Education

White House wants prizes for innovators - Federal Computer Week (link from X PRIZE Foundation news scroller)

Briefs: NewSpace Business Plan Competition finalists; Conference preview - RLV News - Note that one of the finalists is Next Giant Leap (a Google Lunar X PRIZE team) and another is Flagsuit, LLC (derived from an Astronaut Glove Challenge win).

@OmegaEnvoy -

RT @OE_Rover Made it to Resolute Bay, population 300. Waiting for the weather to clear up so I can finish my journey to Devon Island. #GLXP
FOX National News picks up our Devon Island story. Can you find the typo though? http://bit.ly/xbFYs #GLXP
Central Florida Future has a feature on us today: http://bit.ly/J8fsd #GLXP

@glxp -

Cringely still aiming for Moon: "it’s a little harder to do, you see, when there isn’t a $20 million payday at the end" http://bit.ly/CAsTf
And the Winner of the $1 Million Netflix Prize (Probably) Is … - NYTimes.com http://bit.ly/lHNgn
Have you seen ChallengePost? Another clearinghouse for incentive prizes http://bit.ly/y4BJ2

This is from the linked Cringely post:

Team Cringely, on the other hand, still expects to reach the Moon by 2011 and will by fall have a number of announcements on that front including major technical alliances, major corporate sponsorships, and a global TV deal. And this is no stunt: we’re working with NASA’s Goddard Space Center to answer a long list of important scientific questions until we use-up our 24th and last rover.

Esther Dyson "needs help with ........ 2 challenges" at ChallengePost:

Genotyping the Astronauts
Terraforming Mars

Crazy Eddie at the Space Elevator Games has been blogging like, uh, crazy, after the week of testing. There's a bunch of recent team-specific posts and more. Here's a sample (and where you see a "part 4", you can be sure you can find the earlier parts if you look hard enough). There's a site navigation area on the right if you want to, for example, focus on the posts for a particular team.

The Space Elevator Blogger
Dynon Avionics High Altitude Station Keeping
Embedded Jester

LaserMotive - part 4
USST
University of Michigan MClimber - part 2
Kansas City Space Pirates - part 4

Dotting the Last I

It’s on!! - The Space Elevator Blog -

Because of the logistics involved, mainly the use of high-powered lasers and the competition’s location at a secure facility, it will not be open to the public. At http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org, which is the official site of this competition (or on this blog, of course) you will be able to follow all of the events as they are happening. The competition will be televised, live, on NASA TV. There will be webcasts and interviews. There’s going to be all sorts of cool stuff going on.

From the "Upcoming Events" on the side:

June 15,16,17, 2009 - Space Elevator Games onsite testing
July 14-15-16, 2009 - The Space Elevator Games
July 17, 2009 - Space Elevator Day at the Space Frontier's Foundation NewSpace 2009 Space Conference

Power Beaming Challenge - NASA announcement - RLV News

NewSpace 2009 Agenda; ISDC Updates

The Speakers page for NewSpace 2009 isn't filled in yet, but the Agenda gives a hint of what's available, including prizes:

Friday, July 17th: Space Elevator Day
1430-1530 Spaceward and the Elevator Games

Sunday, July 19th: The Business of New Space
0900-1130 Business Plan Competition

Monday, July 20th: Moon, Mars, and Beyond; Where do we go from here?
0930-1030 GLXP Discussion

There are a lot of other topics related to commercial space and Ames-flavored NASA space.

This is in no way meant to distract from the imminent ISDC 2009 conference, which continues to add good speakers and content. Here are some changes I noticed compared to my most recent post on a large amount of ISDC 2009 content related to space prizes, contests, and awards:

- The speaker list for the Google Lunar X Prize / NG Lunar Lander talk has changed. Here's the current list: Will Pomerantz, X Prize Foundation, Moderator; Dave Masten, Masten Space Systems; Ruben Nunez, Omega Envoy; Bob Richards, Odyssey Moon; Scott Zeeb, TrueZer0

- I don't remember if this one is a change, but I'll list it because the speaker has participated heavily in prizes: So You Want to Start a Space Company? Tim Pickens, Orion Propulsion

- This one also features prize competitors: Workforce Refresh Panel: Tracy Anania - NASA KSC, Clay Yonce - NASA KSC, Cassie Kloberdanz - SpaceX, Bob Richards - Odyssey Moon/ISU, Brooke Owens - IAF, Loretta Whitesides - Moderator

- Rusty Schweickart - Apollo 9 Astronaut and Chairman, B612 Foundation - Pioneer Award Presentation

- The speaker for this one is changed and becomes plural, but they still have prize connections: Hands-on Education Roundtable - Josh Neubert, Conrad Foundation, Tony Gannon, Space Florida, Micheal Mealling, Masten Space Systems

- John Mankins - President, Space Power Association - NSS and O'Neill Awards Presentations

- Liquid Bi-Propellant Rocket Development For Lunar Lander X-Prize: Baber, Dr. Eric R. Perrell, Johann S. Schrell

News and Links Care of Twitterers

Pomerantz - Cool! Purdue students present plans for 3 different #GLXP vehicles (working with team Lunatrex): http://bit.ly/d3L5Q

Pomerantz - Fun new video from Armadillo: intentionally destabilizing a methane rocket to see how it handles. http://bit.ly/GQGC9 (via aRocket) #NGLLC

Also see Armadillo test video - RLV News.

Regolith_Chal - And the blog post with updated draft rules... http://regolith.csewi.org/a...

Pomerantz - Bostonians: @kdavidian & I, among others, will be speaking at the Museum of Science's "One Giant Leap" event! http://bit.ly/hS0uf

Here's more on that event from the above link:

with Doug Cooke, associate administrator for exploration systems, NASA; Ken Davidian, "Encourage, Facilitate, and Promote" program lead, FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation; Joanne Gabrynowicz, JD, director, National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law, The University of Mississippi; William Pomerantz, senior director for space projects, X Prize Foundation; Moderated by Spencer Reiss, contributing editor, Wired Magazine.

mmealling - http://tinyurl.com/cfv7hh <-- StartupWeekend at NewSpace 2009 at NASA Ames in July

In other conference news: NewSpace 2009 to hold $5000 business plan competition - RLV News

glxp - Just found this blog post from a new #GLXP convert. Good writeup, complete with predictions: http://bit.ly/15RKmn

Bob_Richards - Big Twitter pulse on stories of Odyssey Moon's @glxp lunar lander work with NASA http://bit.ly/WW7zf http://bit.ly/18dma3

NewSpace 2009

NewSpace 2009 - NewSpace 2009 will take place at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley July 17-20, 2009.