America's Space Prize As A Followup To The X-Prize
from the next-up dept
There will be no sitting still in the private space flight business. Just as Burt Rutan received his $10 million check for winning the X Prize, another private space prize has been announced. This one, called America's Space Prize picks up where the X Prize left off. This one offers $50 million, but requires the winner to fly five crew members into space twice in sixty days, sometimes before the beginning of 2010. And, if that seems a little too easy after the X Prize, there's one more factor: the ship has to go much higher. In fact, it has to reach 400 km and then orbit twice around the Earth. In other words, this won't just be an up and down affair. The sponsoring company, Bigelow Aerospace is doing this for their own good. They want to have commercial space crafts that can jumpstart their own commercial space operations, which is why there's also a condition that any craft entering the competition has to be dockable with their own "inflatable space habitat." The company also has made it clear they have a lot more to spend on commercial space flights afterwards, noting that if the second or third place contestant has a better design, but just doesn't win the prize first, there may still be plenty of business for them.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
xPrize should still stand up
my point: xprize should smoothly move into the industry; from amateurs to professionals
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: xPrize should still stand up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: xPrize should still stand up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]