Heinlein Prize Established for Space Achievements 26
StJefferson writes "The Heinleins' estate has just announced the establishment of a US$500,000 prize to be awarded as often as annually for individual accomplishment in commercial space activities. What a terrific application of the legacy - both financial and intellectual - of the Dean of Science Fiction!"
The Man Who Sold The Moon (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for your support (Score:5, Insightful)
Yay! I've been paying to support the commercialization of space since I was 8 years old!
(Too bad Bill Gates doesn't care enough about space exploration. He really could be the man who sold the moon.)
A _crucial_ realization, but how? (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea behind rewarding a price for the commercial exploitation of space is not important, it's crucial. The purists among us might claim that space should be for all humanity, and that it should be used in an idealistic way, and that promoting commercialization of space leads to destructive capitalism out there.
However, please do wake up: as damaging as some of the forces of the free market might be, there is one thing in the free market that even governments have to a much smaller degree. That thing is money. As much as some of us (myself included) might dislike the greedy nature of mankind, fact is that if money is to be made, things will happen, and the end-result might be very good.
For example, look at the first satellites. Sure, the very first ones were launched for purely political reasons, but then the commercial communication-sats were lanched. Expericience with these kinds of satellites (launching risks, maintenance, reliability) has helped us to safely launch other kinds of satellites as well. E.g. at the moment there are a number of satellites watching over our ecosystem: the GOES [noaa.gov], POES [noaa.gov] and others.
I firmly believe that if the exploration of space (and that's not limited to just LEO, but can also be extended to Mars or other places) must be a common venture of commercial and "idealistic" initiatives. And therefore I applaud the Heinlein Estate's prize.
However, I do have my doubt as to who might be able to win such a price: the regulations specifically exclude corporate or government-sponsored initiatives. This seems to mean that only individuals with a big bag of money can ever hope to win the prize. I've checked the main estate site [heinleinprize.com], but haven't been able to find any nominations or ideas on what kind of initiatives might be nominated yet.
Any ideas?