Space Access '10 Prize Notes: John Carmack on Armadillo Aerospace

John Carmack started his talk by showing a video on Armadillo's progress. They tested a LOX/methane engine at White Sands, and adapted a vehicle to use LOX/methane. Pixel has been used for tests. They also have been working on Rocket Racing League propulsion. John showed some Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Level 2 flight videos. There were also hover tests with forces applied to see how the vehicle reacts. They did tests with students in an effort called SPEAR. They are preparing for higher altitudes.

John presented a new video of a flight to 4000 feet. The engine veers to the side, and then the vehicle tumbles and crashes. John talked about this. They got to a 110 mph descent, but the 120 mph descent failed. They would have hit it eventually, at 5000 feet for example.

They have 2 more full time members, and Neil will soon be full time. The have an operating profit. They are "distracted by these customers" (this caused a laugh from the way he said it). John sold Id Software. He still hasn't made up his $4M investment, but now he will probably be pushing expenditures to reach goals.

The government can help. For example, Armadillo did an SBIR as well as the Lunar Lander Challenge. He considers Centennial Challenges the best money NASA has ever spent. He compared it to X33, X34, and so on. He's still a unhappy with the judging of the Lunar Lander Challenge.

John likes the new NASA direction, like the changes Dan Rasky talked about in an earlier presentation. For example, he likes technology demonstrations.

Armadillo handed over a system to the Rocket Racing League. They did their 50th flight the day of John's talk. You get much better when you launch again and again. You learn on the 35th flight.

John had a 2nd son 6 months ago, and he's spending lots of time at Id Software. He wants to be moving faster.

He expects to fly to 6000 feet at Caddo Mills, then 20,000 feet at Oklahoma. Then they go to Spaceport America. They may go with a drogue parachute for stability. They expect 100,000 feet with the current modifications. For 100km, they need to build the next generation. They are building a bigger quad for NASA.

"What you want is 3 times the control authority you think you need so you can laugh as you blast through the atmosphere".

NASA has Pixel now. John is excited at NASA's new suborbital program. The audience is clearly excited at Armadillo's progress.

Space Access '10 Prize Notes: Jordin Kare on LaserMotive

Jordin started by showing a Spaceward Foundation video on the Space Elevator Games. He noted that LaserMotive was formed to commercialize power beaming. He gave a chart of the power beaming competition from 2005 to 2009 showing the height, speed, prize money, power source, minimum energy per mass, and minimum power per mass.

In 2007 when they started, they had a 10kw laser system. He showed a picture of that system. They didn't have time in 2007. He then showed the 2009 lasers and optics. They were going to use automated tracking for 2009, but decided not to. Instead, they went with a manual joystick method because they were going to have to go 10 times as high, and a cable rather than a ribbon was being used. They didn't expect the cable to shift as much as a ribbon.

He showed a fun picture of them cooking hot dogs with the laser. He then showed $80,000 of photovoltaics and Otis the climber.

At the games the teams had to improvise stands to allow the climbers to be pulled up. He showed evidence of the "aging NASA infrastructure" - the NASA trailer alongside the teams' trailers. The NASA generator went down and they needed help from the teams. Then they ran out of a common product used often for personal hygiene, and again needed assistance. (Have they heard of the famous government TP regulations from the novel Snow Crash?) Jordin showed the Kansas City Space Pirates and USST, their competitors on the field. KCSP used a weighted tire for their improvised workaround.

Jordin talked about potential customers: UAVs, lunar rovers, sensors, laser launch, etc.

He ended with a separate discussion of the HX Laser Launch (PDF). The idea is to have small vehicles, where the hard part stays on the ground. These lasers on the ground can be divided into arrays of small units. This lets yo develop a nice system cheaply. You can build many small "beam modules", not 1 big laser. You can use a lot of 41kw laser diode arrays. These are improving technology. They can be useful in the propulsion range from 10-100km. You can have a 2-phase launch system. One array gives thrust for lift above the atmosphere, and the other continues from there.

Space Access '10 Prize Notes: Andrew Petro on Centennial Challenges

Shortly before Space Access '10, I took a couple walks in Phoenix's nearby South Mountain Park, and took a few pictures. The conference was not held outside in the desert mountains, in case you were wondering.

As is always the case when I present notes from a conference, consider this my best attempt rather than a perfect review of the presentation. If you have any doubts, contact the presenter. I'm fairly bad at hearing clearly and taking notes during a presentation. With that caveat, let's start the Space Access '10 prize notes with the NASA Centennial Challenges presentation by Andrew Petro.

Andrew discussed other programs within NASA IPP that he's involved with besides Centennial Challenges (e.g.: FAST). He noted that IPP is being transferred to NASA's new and bigger space technology program.

With Centennial Challenges, NASA only provides the prize money itself. Other organizations run the prize competitions. This allows NASA to get more prize "bang for the buck". Up to now Centennial Challenges has used $12M that was appropriated in 2005-2006. They recently got $4M more, and the current budget request includes $10M each year for Centennial Challenges.

Andrew went over the big prize year in 2009. In addition to the various competitions and wins, he noted that they announced the new Green Flight Challenge in July, and the regolith testbed at Ames was started. Eight teams have already registered for the Green Flight Challenge.

Ted Southern and Peter Homer, the winners from the Astronaut Glove Challenge in 2009, will go to JSC to demonstrate their glove technologies to engineers there.

The Tether Challenge will have incremental prizes this year.

Centennial Challenges plans to announce a new prize or prizes soon. He expects that within weeks the topic area(s) will be announced.

For future prizes, they are interested in a number of areas. Examples include energy storage, participatory science, minisats, low cost space access, and robotics. They will also seek to enhance participation impact with the new prizes in areas like education. They may have university level or earlier school level prizes. They want to ensure that the technology is relevant to national needs.

Andrew had a dialog with the audience on how the next space access prize should be, should there be one. He listed numerous space access categories to start off the discussion. There wasn't much time for this, though. Paul Breed of Unreasonable Rocket discussed the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge payload requirements. He would like to have had a mass fraction rather than an absolute mass. John Carmack from Armadillo Aerospace had a different perspective. One audience member asked if any thought had been given to doing a prize-brainstorming workshop.

Weekend Twitter Update: Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundups, Madrid CanSats, Space Show, Beam Power Competition

@LunaCI: Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #12: http://is.gd/aVlDU Pretty active week around the GLXP :)

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #13!: http://is.gd/bc3Fj

@PTScientists: http://twitpic.com/1cvhky - I've got a cool new Jogging shirt! Thanks #SpaceX :-)

@glxp: "This is not your father's moon": NewScientist article on the state of lunar science http://bit.ly/d1AKUY (thx @iamjem)

@TeamPrometheus: Going back to Calli! With three launch Goals! Lander, Rockoon and Amatuer Altitude record! Not coming back to Texas... http://bit.ly/8XLjJd

Here's a couple Space Show interviews with prize themes (of course the interviews cover a lot of other ground, too):

Peter Homer - March 19th, 2010 (Astronaut Glove Challenge)
Dr. Paul Dear - March 26, 2010 (N-Prize)

The Space Elevator Games are still active:

Vertical no more - LaserMotive

Space Elevator Blog celebrates its 4 year anniversary - Space Elevator Blog

The McGill Space Elevator Team site has a new look. They're in the game for the 2010 competition:

We are currently working hard to finish our climber and power beaming laser system for the upcoming competition scheduled for May 2010. Be sure to visit our blog for frequent updates.

Lunar payloads for sale - Dispatches from the Final Frontier

CMU researchers aim for the moon by developing lunar rover - Pittsburgh Business Times

ECO-MARATHON ULM in Vichy - This is s competition for flying as far as possible using as little energy as possible.

2nd International CanSat Competition - DeSoto: ESA´s CanSat competition.

Conferences, Talks, and other Gatherings

@NLSI: Two important dates: July 18th- 1st LunarGradCon, July 19th- NextGen Lunar Scientists & Engineers Workshop, both at Ames. More info coming.

Since I have more than the 140 twitter characters NLSI had to work with, I'll note that the 3rd annual NASA Lunar Science Forum is scheduled for July 20-22, also at Ames. There will be a student poster competition with cash prizes at the conference.

Here's the LunGradCon link.

NewSpace 2010 is scheduled for July 23-25 at NASA Ames. It sounds like a convenient 2-conferences-for-1-trip package for anyone interested in both the Moon and commercial space.

Space conference at UCF set for 2011 - Central Florida Times covers the Second Annual Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference.

Here's a recent Space Show interview featuring the Space Access '10 conference: Henry Vanderbilt - March 15, 2010

Also see: Space Access '10 Conference - latest update - RLV News

@tedprize: Follow @missionblue as they set out on the Mission Blue Voyage for Sylvia's TEDPrize wish, http://www.tedprize.org/mission-blue-voyage/ #FF

@Bob_Richards: Joining Naveen Jain & @PeterDiamandis for @ChurchillClub Commercial Space panel Apr21 in Palo Alto http://bit.ly/9HVELU

Weekend Twitter Update: X PRIZE Benefit, Prometheus and Kiwi 2 Space Photos, Athena, Conrad Awards Voting Approaches, More

@ad_astra2: Synergy of competitions and innovation featured in today's MIT Entrepreneurship Review: http://miter.mit.edu/node/143 #MITER #xprize

RT @megmurfff: X PRIZE Radical Benefit selling out fast. Get your tix to hang w/ J Cameron, S Brin, L Page, etc ASAP! http://bit.ly/9phzA6

@TeamPrometheus: I posted 4 photos on Facebook in the album "First Fire" http://bit.ly/c0C8m9

I posted 2 photos on Facebook in the album "Finished gimbal Just before assy." http://bit.ly/bWKq3u

@paulsrobotics: IEEE event at #WPI where we have Moonraker on display http://twitpic.com/1acd9h

@xprize: Congratulations to XPF Board Member, Erik Lindbergh, for the launch of the Lindbergh Prize! http://bit.ly/dgw86M

@ValkyrieFed: Our Facebook page is up! http://bit.ly/a9cdWB

This is just 1 recent tweet from the Conrad Awards as the voting approaches:

@ConradAwards: Team Rocket is competing in the Space Nutrition category http://ow.ly/1r44v

@jetlab: Space Operations Award Going to Mars Rover Team: The team that operates NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opport... http://bit.ly/acaFmY

@Pomerantz: RT @beethakore: Wow! Students compete to design solar power satellite - happy to go back to school for this!! http://powersatcontest.com/

@whitelabelspace: Swiss Propulsion Laboratory on National Television: This TV story about our parter the Swiss Propulsion Laboratory... http://bit.ly/dmfZK9

@mastenspace: If you want to intern for @mastenspace this summer you have one week to get your app in - April 4 deadline! http://bit.ly/bMRdxF

Remember how the Lunar Prospector got launched for this one:

@synergymoon: Another possible launch vehicle for GLXP teams! http://bit.ly/c8Imh9

@Bob_Richards: Awesome!: ISU Wins Arthur Award at UK Space Conference in International category. (via @ISUnet) #isunet #uksc2010

@fineri: http://twitpic.com/1bi3i9 - Injector orrifice drilling today,supprised at how easy it was to drill a 0.6mm hole & not break the bit!

http://twitpic.com/1bi1v4 - Test stand in shed,attach valves and engine then all go, hopefully......

Weekend Prize Roundup: FAR Results, Electric Aircraft Prizes, UROC contests, more

@alias_amanda: Successful tethered test with @unrocket's Blue vehicle. They are moving to another pad for a higher flight (1200 ft?)

http://twitpic.com/19vxac - There was an in-flight abort at 100+ ft. Vehicle fell to ground.

@wikkit: Super boring rocket video. I know you're all sick of them. :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfnhjdE2wY&fmt=22

@mattcannella: http://twitpic.com/19xq2x - Great Pic our rocket Xombie (@MastenSpace), & the @unrocket blue-ball rocket on the same pad! Bummer day for blu

@ad_astra2: RT @Xconomy Lindbergh Grandson Launches Incentive Prizes for Advances in Electric Aircraft and Green Aviation http://xconomy.com/?p=69372

Here's an excerpt:

The four LEAP awards, which have yet to be funded, will be awarded annually at the EAA’s annual AirVenture “fly-in,” the popular air show held each July in Oshkosh, WI. ...

Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize (LEAP) - Space for All

I should also mention some items on the CAFE Foundation, another organization with ties to EAA and electric/green aviation:

Eco-Marathon an Echo of the Green Flight Challenge - CAFE Foundation Blog - This relatively new blog has quite a few other posts, too.

The 2010 CAFE Foundation Electric Aircraft Symposium - CAFE Foundation - The dates are April 23-24.

TeamPrometheus: Gimbal control module! Very simple and effective! http://bit.ly/aR2EcT

Space Policy Essay Competition - Space for All

NorthWest Entrepreneur Network Panel Features Tom - LaserMotive

WPI By the Numbers - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

New meeting - DeSoto: ESA´s CanSat competition.

January 2010 Meeting Minutes - UROC.org - The Utah Rocket Club minutes cover Utah TARC entries and the club's Pioneer contest. They will also be involved with NARAM 52 in Pueblo, CO, and hope to help with rocket contests there, too.

FAR Testing, Peter Homer on Space Show, Intel Award, Lunar LaserMotive?, Space Entry in Art Contest, more

Here are a bunch of prize-related tweets from the last few days that caught my attention. Note that the date references in them (like "today") are most likely out of date.

The first batch is about some rocket testing by former Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge teams. I wouldn't be surprised if they have more tweets throughout the day. One convenient place you can check is the ngllc-teams twitter list.

@glxp: Rockets! Rockets! Rockets! New blog post: http://bit.ly/cLh1L1 #GLXP

@unrocket: Leaving for far eta 1230

At mojave am pm getting gas and fuel for the truck, 45 min to far

New gps ant mount, both lighter and stronger! http://yfrog.com/6u1obj

Blue Ball is ready, leaving for FAR in 11hrs, time enough to build new non-fragile GPS antenna mount. Off to the metal store....

@wikkit: Headed back out to FAR shortly. Will be camping under the stars guarding my rocket, maybe watch Moon on my laptop under the crescent moon.

@alias_amanda: http://twitpic.com/19mcz6 - Treasure map acquired -- 'X' marks the spot where rockets will be launching tomorrow.

@LaserMotive: In addition to UAVs, we've been having discussions with people interested in powering lunar rovers.

@FLspacereport: Teen Girl Wins $100,000 Intel Science Award with Spaceflight Project. http://bit.ly/bYA8oL

@LBourgeois1: forum.TeamFREDNET.org • View topic - Picorover http://bit.ly/ahy8tJ

@TeamPrometheus: I posted 3 photos on Facebook in the album "Gimbal" http://bit.ly/bOdSb6

jetlab: JPL Wins 'Green Building Award': JPL's environmentally friendly Flight Projects Center received a "Green Bui... http://bit.ly/b4dG9M

@PTScientists: @glxp new headcount we now got 40 Part Time Scientists!

@SpaceShow: Peter Homer, President & Founder of FLAGSUIT LLC, is the guest this morning, 9:30-11:30 AM PDT. Listen live at http://www.thespaceshow.com/.

Note: digitalart is the twitter account for Jim Plaxco:

@digitalart: BLUECANVAS Art Contest and New Art: With A Flourish The folks over at BLUECANVAS Magazine are having an art conte... http://bit.ly/b4fzoo

dmasten: An interesting view of today's free flight from @wikkit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsO2YD9KV_I

http://twitpic.com/19ef6k and ready for free flight.

http://twitpic.com/19ee66 good flight. Prepping for free flight.

Heading out for a couple test flights today. http://twitpic.com/19dw2z

@arcaspace: Video journal entry 9 Videoclip from Mission 3 about Helen stage 1 being loaded onto 281 Constanta Navy ship. http://bit.ly/cfGhGe

@progautoxp: RT @PoulsenHybrid: Congrats to the 24 MIT Clean Energy Prize Semifinalist Teams. http://tinyurl.com/yelm8vz Who's your favorite?

Weekend Roundup: Baen/NSS Story Contest, Spirit of Innovation Summit, Lindbergh Prize, Space Access '10 Update, Much More

As in past years, Jim Baen's Universe and the National Space Society are teaming up to offer the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest for science fiction stories about near-future manned spaceflight. The grand prize winner will be published in the online magazine and honored at the 2010 International Space Development Conference in Chicago.

More Armadillo picts - RLV News

Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #11 - Luna C/I: Moon Colonization and Integration

NASA Systems Engineering Student Competition - Space for All

Conrad Foundation - 2010 Spirit of Innovation Summit - Space for All

Erik Lindbergh to unveil Lindbergh Prize & education program - Space for All

More details have been filled in on the Space Access '10 conference site. Here are some of the presentations from current or former prize teams and sponsors (no doubt I'm overlooking some):

Armadillo Aerospace/John Carmack
Centennial Challenges/Andrew Petro, NASA HQ
Masten Space/Dave Masten
Lasermotive/Jordin Kare
SpeedUp/Bob Steinke
Unreasonable Rocket/Paul Breed

Engineering Design Challenges Brochure - Freebie - Teaching with Contests

Here's the brochure itself: Engineeeering Design CHALLENGES - Hands-on Activities for the Classroom (PDF) - NASA - Several NASA competitions - SLI, TARC, and the Great Moonbuggy Race - are featured in the brochure.

New Suborbital Spaceships Spark Scientific Frenzy - Space.com - Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge teams Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems are mentioned in this article.

Space available on lunar expeditions - Astrobotic

@paulsrobotics: Dean Kamen is speaking about changing society and the future at the #WPI FIRST Regional. http://twitpic.com/18e9cs #omgrobots

@InnoCentiveCEO: RT @TheWisdomCrowds: InnoCentive is moving to larger offices http://bit.ly/cMjEi4 And we need it!

@whitelabelspace: Lander Thermal Design and Analysis: The White Label Space engineering team has started the design and analysis of ... http://bit.ly/bjP72a

NASA "Game Changer" Commercial Space Innovation Prize at Rice University Business Plan Competition

The 2010 Rice University Business Plan Competition is just around the corner. It's scheduled for April 15-17. In addition to many big prizes in various business areas (often with some sort of high technology emphasis), as in past years, NASA is sponsoring prizes for space-oriented business concepts. Here's a press release from a few weeks ago on the NASA contribution: NASA offers $110,000 in Prizes at 2010 Rice Business Plan Competition. I'll include a few excerpts:

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship (Rice Alliance) of Rice University is pleased to announced that NASA’s Johnson Space Center will increase their prize offering with the addition of the $50,000 NASA “Game Changer” Commercial Space Innovation Prize. ... The award will go to the team that is judged to have the best business plan that supports the commercial space market by addressing a need in technology, service or product for the for sub-orbit, Earth orbit, or the moon exploration.

The press release goes on to list a number of possible commerial space business areas in the suborbital, Earth orbit, and exploration categories. It continues:

NASA will continue to offer the two, $20,000, NASA Earth/Space Engineering Innovation Prizes for the best business plans that represent an engineering technology that has applications to both the NASA space program and to Earth-based activities. ... The new “Game Changer Award” brings a dynamic twist with an increased emphasis on commercial applications,” said Brad Burke, managing director, Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. ...

Infernal Mechanisms - Mechanical Engineering, the magazine of ASME - This article gives some mechanical engineering and medical context for the winning entry in last year's Microgravity Research Competition for an experiment on board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. This contest was part of the 2009 Rice Business Plan Competition.

Future NASA Centennial Challenges Planning

Braun Outlines Technology Plans, Including Reestablishing NIAC - Space Policy Online.com

This article includes a link to a presentation, "NASA Innovation
and Technology Preliminary Planning", by NASA Chief Technologist Dr. Robert Braun. The article and presentation are both interesting as glimpses into NASA's initial general (i.e. not specific to a mission directorate like Exploration) technology plans following the 2011 NASA budget proposal. However, I'll concentrate on one specific part of those plans: NASA's Centennial Challenge prizes. The presentation includes a slide (on page 21) of "Near-Term Actions" to develop more details for NASA's new technology programs. One of the upcoming milestones is the following:

–Centennial Challenges Lunar Exploration Prize: April 26, 2010

No more details are given, but there is also the following on Centennial Challenges:

Solicitation/planning for ongoing programs (SBIR/STTR, Centennial Challenges, Flight Opportunities) proceeding on schedule

On the next page, "Approximate Number of Planned FY11 Space Technology Products", the following is anticipated:

5 New Centennial Challenges

OMB Prize Guidance, National Academies on Suborbital, SXSW, X PRIZE Benefit, More

Guidance on the Use of Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government (PDF) - WhiteHouse.gov (OMB):

To support agencies in the execution of prizes that further the policy objectives of the Federal Government, the Administration will make available a web-based platform for prizes and challenges within 120 days. This platform will provide a forum for agencies to post problems and invite communities of problem solvers to suggest, collaborate on, and deliver solutions. Over the longer term, the General Services Administration (GSA) will also provide government-wide services to share best practices and assist agencies in developing guidelines for issuing challenges. Additionally, GSA will develop, as expeditiously as possible, a contract vehicle to provide agency access to relevant products and services, including technical assistance in structuring and conducting contests to take maximum benefit of the marketplace as they identify and pursue contest initiatives to further the policy objectives of the Federal Government.

Revitalizing NASA's Suborbital Program: Advancing Science, Driving Innovation, and Developing Workforce - National Academies Press - This includes a chapter on commercial vehicles, as well as a lot of material on traditional suborbital access methods like balloons, sounding rockets, and planes.

Moon 2.0: The Outer Limits of Lunar Exploration - SXSW, Saturday, March 13 at 03:30 PM

02/16/2010: Hybrid Motor Holds Together - SpeedUp


Here are a few tweets I picked from many related in one way or another to prizes over the last few days:

@SpaceFellowship: REXUS 7 and 8 student research rockets launched successfully http://ping.fm/W11RC

@makerfaire: RobotFest/Mid-Atlantic 2010 Mini Maker Faire, April 24th: Gary Mauler and the folks who put on the RobotFest ... http://bit.ly/be9vD2

@LaserMotive: We are getting interest in a product we hadn't considered making. It's a prime example of listening to customers for ideas.

@PeterDiamandis: Just announcing major X PRIZE "Benefit" on May 15th -- http://www.xprize.org/email/benefitforhumanity Cameron, Page, Brin as co-Chairs. Come join!

Here are some of the event details:

Through our live auction, bid to win a trip to space on Virgin Galactic, a 2010 Tesla Roadster, have your personal genome sequenced, lunch with our VIPs and more.

Date: Saturday, May 15, 2010
Location: Lucasfilm, Letterman Arts Center, The Presidio of San Francisco

This gives some more information about what's happening at the X PRIZE Foundation:

X Prize group sets sights on next challenges (Q&A) - CNet News

@TeamPrometheus: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5414479&l=aeecc47771&id=213171526223

@ValkyrieFed: We'll do a fundraising event, in Montreal! Maybe in April or May.

@jeff_foust: Garver: NASA very supportive of prizes, talking about potential collab on Google Lunar X Prize, such as making a data purchase.

@bonnova: New high-performance injector in development. First prototype in house today.

OpenNASA Prize Ideas

OpenNASA invites you to contribute ideas on making NASA more efficient, innovative, and open within the agency and to the outside world. You can discuss and vote on other contributors' ideas, too. Some of the ideas there feature prizes or competitions of one sort or another. Here are a few examples:

Create a Science Data API Challenge

Junior Astronaut Corps - Allow students to compete for 25 coveted slots in the Junior Astronaut Corps -- using much of the same criteria (but age-appropriate) as we use to select astronauts. ...

Millennial Challenges ... Centennial Challenges on Steroids

Step-by-step prizes for Flexible Path goals

Incentive awards 4 creative thinking (new participatory office)

Weekend Roundup Part 2 - The Non-Twitter Side

Stephen Hawking to Accept Cosmos Award in Cambridge, England - The Planetary Society - Note that the award presentation was a week ago (the linked press release is from February 24).

Greetings From Space Up in Sunny San Diego! - The Planetary Society reviews the unconference, including photos of people and hardware from Unreasonable Rocket and Masten Space Systems.

Masten Space Systems Update - NASASpaceflight.com - Jon from Masten links to another picture from the unconference in this discussion.

Let's put robots AND humans in space - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Astrobotic's David Gump considers NASA's new budget proposal. Much of the debate over this budget concerns a controversy over whether NASA should use its own systems, commercial systems, or both to give NASA astronauts access to space. This article focuses on a less-debated, but essential, part of the new plan that goes beyond the old astronauts-vs-robotics debate: a new line of robotic astronaut precursor missions to do things like travel to the Moon's surface and demonstrate production of rocket propellant from lunar ice.

NASA Wants to Fund Centennial Challenges at $10 Million Per Year - Parabolic Arc

Bankrupt Sea Launch Gets More Financing – Heinlein Prize Trust Involved - Parabolic Arc

Centennial Challenges gathering… - The Space Elevator Blog

“One of the problems we had last year was wind-induced oscillation…” - The Space Elevator Blog points to some video clips from Bitter Jester Creative, Inc.

Announcing the Artsutanov and Pearson awards - The Space Elevator Blog

Marshall hosts the 2010 Great Moonbuggy Race - Lunar Networks

Ted Southern - Eyebeam Art + Technology Center

You can see more photos of Ted's astronaut glove at his Glove & Hands page. From there you can also get to his other projects.

A wry report on regolith removal - RLV News

Explore Mars, Inc. opens - Space for All:

... We are pleased to announce the formation of Explore Mars, Inc. (exploremars.org). ... In the first half of 2010, Explore Mars will launch a series of technology development challenges relating to Mars exploration, with prizes ranging from $10,000 - $100,000. ... the first of these challenges will focus on in situ resource utilization - technologies that will allows us to "live off the land" on other planets. ... collaborating with Aerojet and NASA's Spaceward Bound, we will be creating the Mars Education Challenge that will challenge educators to design new and innovative Mars curriculum. ... Explore Mars plans to announce details of at least two prizes in the first half of 2010. The Explore Mars team includes individuals such as Apollo 11 Astronaut, Buzz Aldrin; NASA Planetary scientist, Dr. Chris McKay; Space historian, Andy Chaikin; former Biosphere 2 director of science and research, Bruno D.V. Marino; and many others.

Aero Club of Atlanta presents Epps Award - GeneralAviationNews.com:

... Huffman has inspired students who later become astronauts, including two students from Henderson High School, the only known school in the world to graduate two NASA astronauts. ... She is the founder of the SEMAA (NASA’s Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy) LINKS Engineering team and sponsored the Wild Blue Wonders Team America Rocketry Challenge. ...

The latest NewSpace News links to an article by Peter Diamandis, Beam Power team LaserMotive, and information about the 2010 Space Access conference that includes numerous space prize teams.

Johns Hopkins Engineering - Winter 2010 - One of the features in this article is on the JHU Robotics Team. The team participates in the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition and the International Aerial Robotics competition.

Working on Blue and.... - Unreasonable Rocket

Volanz Aerospace Thanks Secor Strategies - Secor Strategies

Weekend Twitter Space Prize Roundup

Here's a stack of tweets I gathered over the last week or so, interspersed with a few comments.

@InnoCentiveCEO: NEw $20K NASA Challenge: Coordination of Sensor Swarms for Extraterrestrial Research http://bit.ly/jHtV Very cool!

The deadline on that new NASA InnoCentive competition is April 26. From the challenge overview:

... but a much more revolutionary idea is the concept of Sensor Swarming, where the swarm itself exhibits ’emergent behavior’ or ’intelligence’. This Challenge asks solvers to develop and simulate a high performing sensor swarm coordinate protocol.

Check InnoCentive's NASA Innovation Pavilion to keep up to date on all of their NASA challenges.

InnoCentive has many other innovation competitions. Here's one:

@InnoCentiveCEO: New $100K Competition: Predictive Data Analysis http://bit.ly/bXLs3c Teams Eligible!

@jetlab: Watch Students Compete Using Lego Robotics: Watch school teams test their software-enabled Lego robots via a... http://bit.ly/chdgOI

This is on the Southern California NASA Explorer Schools Robotics Competition, part of FIRST. The competition will be held on Tuesday at JPL.

@glxp: Anousheh Ansari's new memoir, "My Dream of Stars", is now available on Amazon: http://bit.ly/bjsDCa

Here's a look back at the NASA Centennial Challenge recognition ceremony:

@Doug_Comstock: Check out images of all winning teams and allied organizations from last week's CC recognition event. http://tinyurl.com/CC-images-2-26-10

... and here's a 3-tweets-for-one collection from the winner of the 2009 Beam Power Centennial Challenge, showing that they're looking into business applications for their technology:

@LaserMotive: Tom is heading to San Diego today for a UAV conference. Power beaming could enable 'eternal' UAVs.

Here's the UAV conference website: http://www.ttcus.com/view-conference.cfm?id=138

Day one of the UAV conference went well. Tom spoke to a number of people about power beaming for UAVs, and they were very interested.

The neXt PRIZE blog has been active lately. This brings our attention to the most recent post there:

@Pomerantz: A new blog post my from colleagues in Prize Development: http://bit.ly/aqyDRp "PRIZE Development - Where It All Begins..." #XPRIZE

The post compares the X PRIZEs to X CHALLENGEs:

... An X CHALLENGE, on the other hand, is a prize of up to $2.5M, awarded for solving a well-defined technical problem that has no clear path to a solution or is perceived as difficult. Unlike an X PRIZE, which seeks to stimulate or catalyze an entire market (including the social and regulatory aspects of that market), an X CHALLENGE seeks to produce a breakthrough technological or behavioral solution to a specific market need.

I'm sure most of you have seen this news:

@Odyssey_Moon: Odyssey_Moon Chief Scientist Paul Spudis says >1.3 trillion lbs of water at Moon's north pole http://bit.ly/aWO17s @GLXP

The mass isn't the only consideration. Here's a comment from Dr. Spudis at NASA Watch:

The ice we're seeing is nearly pure and is located within the interiors of craters with diameters of 2-15 km. It's at least a couple meters thick, with maybe 50 cm of dry regolith on top of it.

To a mining engineer, it's almost the perfect ore body.

Dr. Spudis gives more details here: Ice at the north pole of the Moon - The Once and Future Moon (Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine)

Here are some updates from a couple of N Prize teams (Team Prometheus is also participating with Team FREDNET in the Google Lunar X PRIZE):

@TeamPrometheus: We have aquired a 24' Box Truck for Missiom Control. http://www.teamprometheus.org/ http://bit.ly/a0NTmv

@ValkyrieFed: We will be at the Montreal Twestival, March 25th, at the Bain Mathieu!

The next few tweets show what some of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge teams are doing after the competition:

@unrocket: Have to build new tethers and cat pack, then fly blue ball again. Hoped to be ready for FAR on the 6th, now thinking 20th, taking my time.

@glxp: http://twitpic.com/15p641 - The @unrocket folks are here with Blue! Here is the venue #spaceup

This video made me think that maybe Masten Space Systems should have taken the name of one of their NG-LLC competitors, SpeedUp:

@wikkit: Two hours of work in two minutes: taking apart #ngllc winning rocket Xoie in December: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7ny7uRcapU

@wikkit: The sexy aeroshell design I came up with didn't survive today's analysis. This whole having an atomsphere thing, it's tricky.

The link in the following tweet is to a COSMIC LOG article, "Inventors take the prize", that covers the Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prize Program:

@Pomerantz: I'm partial to incentive prizes, but the other kind work well, too! http://bit.ly/bnxm0d (via @b0yle)

@Eurospaceward: Abstracts due May 15 for the newly announced Pearson and Artsutanov SE Prizes, paper deadline July 1, 2010. Contest details: www.isec.info

Here are more details from the ISEC Prizes page:

ISEC has created these prizes to foster research about topics related to building a Space Elevator. ... The Pearson Prize is open to all college undergraduate students currently enrolled in a two or four year undergraduate curriculum. Papers submitted for the Pearson prize must have a specific theme as its topic. For 2010, this theme is "Space Debris Mitigation". ... The Artsutanov prize is open to all entrants and papers can be on any space-elevator related subject.

The winner of the Pearson Prize will win a cash award of $1,500 while the winner of the Artsutanov Prize will win a cash award of $2,500. In addition, the winners (one per paper in case of multiple authors of a single paper) will be invited to the 2010 Space Elevator Conference to present their papers and to receive their award. ISEC will reimburse the winner's travel and hotel expenses ...