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Space Science Technology

X-Prize Cup Site Chosen: New Mexico 144

Posted by timothy from the mutton-stew-and-frybread-and-oxidizers dept.
savuporo writes "MSNBC reports: "The X Prize Foundation and the New Mexico Office of Space Commercialization are joining forces to stage the multifaceted X Prize Cup, a two-week-long event that allows for privately financed, passenger-carrying space vehicles to compete for prizes.' The first Cup is expected to be held summer, 2006, while 2005 will probably see a 'Public Spaceflight Exposition.'"
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X-Prize Cup Site Chosen: New Mexico More

X-Prize Cup Site Chosen: New Mexico

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  • Golly (Score:5, Funny)

    by z0ink ( 572154 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:10PM (#9123700)
    I wonder how many UFO chasers will come out of the woodwork when some metal falls from the sky.

  • Cool (Score:5, Funny)

    by use_compress ( 627082 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:17PM (#9123738) Journal
    3rd tier US private industry is catching up to the Chinese government!
  • So, where would the best place to hitchhike be, after all, I do need to get back home to my home planet one of these days...
    I am guessing that I will have to do a bit more than flash the driver (as if I was female anyway) to get a ride, arrgghhh. Maybe they follow the unspoken rules of the road (watch Dogma)!

  • Wrong Name! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pavan_Gupta ( 624567 ) <`pg8p' `at' `virginia.edu'> on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:26PM (#9123779)
    Whoa, let's make sure we use the name, "Ansari X-Prize" Hell, if I'd paid my way into that name, I'd be damned annoyed if my name wasn't mentioned!
  • at raising the competition's profile, in a positive way.

  • X-Prize takes the lead (Score:5, Funny)

    by qaffle ( 264280 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:34PM (#9123808)
    Watch, X-Prize contestants are going to make it into space before NASA does again.

    And going up with the Russians doesn't count.

  • Sheesh. Why not in the United States? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:37PM (#9123816)
    You'd hope they would host this in the United States instead of a foreign country! [heritage.org]
    • Well, you could inquire at The Martian Embassy [folktunes.org], but avoid the tea.
    • New Mexico Magazine has a regular feature called "One of Our Fifty is Missing". You would be amazed at how often it happens. The most frequent response from the clueless customer service rep is: "Wow, you speak the language very well!"

      • Subscriptions? (Score:5, Funny)

        by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @11:09PM (#9123936)
        "New Mexico Magazine"

        Do they mail that to the United States? Sounds interesting.

      • Moderated Funny? It's True! I live in Albuquerque.. There most certainly does exist that column and it is quite an entertaining read on occasion. It happens frequently even to me...

        And.. When people *do* get the hint that I live in the Albuquerque ... they begin to say "Oh yes, you are in Arizona, right?"

        I find it profound just now many people actually do not recognize NM as a state of the union!

        But, I think that is mostly due to alien abduction.. The Overlords make sure that this area is kept low-key..
      • It's often suggested that war is god's way of teaching Americans geography.

        You see, we have a critical problem here.

        America hasn't had a civil war in a rather long time.

        Kabul and Baghdad are familiar names, but when it comes to your own state capitals, what military operations do you have to associate with them?

        Now unfortunately, we've got a bit of a paradox here. You might ask, if America can make neither heads nor tales of the world around it without a war waged upon some part of its geography, how d
    • Heh! It's not even funny when it happens in real life.

      I had some documents to be sent to New Mexico, and the person at the post office gave me a bunch of custom forms and what not.

      For a while, I thought maybe she was asking me to fill all this since I was applying to a US Govt national laboratory, and so it was a pre-requisite of sorts.

      Then I realized that she was sending it to Mexico. And it took her a while to realize I was referring to a state within the US.

      And these are the people who work in the po

    • That stuff really pisses me off. :( Everybody knows New Mexico is part of the Republic of Texas. *Everybody*. Sheesh.

      Seriously, I was shocked to hear that New Mexico was adding USA to the license plates. I asked "Why? Aren't all the states in the USA? Why does New MExico have to say so?"

      These days, I live in the Northwest, and I find that when I tell people I used to live in New MExico, they say "You don't look Mexican at all! Do you speak spanish?"

      I just say "Si, yo quiero Taco Bell, puto. Marga

  • explosion! (Score:2, Funny)

    by LordChaos ( 2432 )
    Ha.. I read that as "Public Spaceflight *Explosion*". Probably not a word you would want to use in that context ;)
  • First you get the lucky destinction of having Trinity [alamogordo.com] getting Hot first in the sands of New Mexico only to be followed by this Rocket Launch!

  • Only wimps use LOX (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:46PM (#9123844)
    They should merge this with the various human-powered vehicile competitions held on desert flats and roads from Nevada to New Mexico. I for one want to see a human-powered space vehicle.

  • safety factors? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by complete loony ( 663508 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (namekaL.ymereJ)> on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:48PM (#9123853)
    "We expect to draw hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to a single Spaceport".

    Um, ok. and they'll all stand nearby while high powered rockets, designed and built by just about anybody, take off and land... mmmmm that sounds safe.

    I hope the viewing area is as far away as during shuttle launches.

    Seriously, should we be considering something like this yet? with passengers and spectators?

    • Re:safety factors? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:55PM (#9123883)
      In order to launch you need an FAA license, which includes a safety review.
    • did you happen to see the "artist's impression" by the way? according to that, spectators will be allowed ridiculously close to the vehicles. I bet the liability lawyers are already gearing up for it :)
    • And another thing,
      If something does go balls up and someone dies (as happens sometimes at airshows... ), would it dampen the whole X-Prize movement?

      Personally I'd take the risk to see, and perhaps maybe be a passenger on, a privately funded launch.

    • Whooohooo, maybe I will get to see 'em out my window! Then again, maybe that isn't such a good thing....

      OB NM story: While living in North Carolina, I used to get all kinds of dumb crap, like, "wow, I didn't know foreigners could buy houses in this country," not to mention the number of people who thought NM was an island somewhere. I kept telling them we have lots of beach, but no ocean.

  • Whoa, slow down there... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hjf ( 703092 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:49PM (#9123859) Homepage
    Whoa, slow down there, maestro. There's a *New* Mexico?

  • makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @10:50PM (#9123864)
    Makes sense, considering that Goddard was launching sophisticated liquid-fueled rockets outside of Roswell prior to World War 2, and of course, White Sands Missile Range is also in New Mexico. Also, New Mexico is (imho) the most beautiful state in the United States, but also one of the poorest. It needs a boost like this.

    --
    SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER
    • Yeah this is going to be really cool for us New Mexicans. There is finally something super neat happening in my backyard! Other than the Ballon Fiesta [aibf.org], which is totally worth seeing at least once in your life. Anway, I'm stoked about this. I hope I'll be able to go in 2006.

    • Re:makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Zakabog ( 603757 )
      I dunno maybe I just drove thru the wrong parts of New Mexico (kind of thru the center starting from east from texas to west into AZ) but I wouldn't consider it the most beutiful state in the U.S. I would deffinitely consider it one of the poorest (maybe even the poorest state I've been thru.) Texas is quite beutiful, so is Utah (Utah's REALLY nice) wyoming is nice, California is gorgeous (not even from cali but I've driven from lake tahoe to around death valley and from what I've seen it's a very beutifu
      • I'll give you that not all of New Mexico can be considered beautiful, but there's a heck of a lot more to New Mexico than what you'll see while driving on I-40. Jeez. That's like judging California by what you see driving from Barstow to Sacramento. And, Texas is beautiful?!? What part exactly? I've been in just about every nook and cranny of that state and I never saw anything I would call beautiful. Next time you're in NM, take a drive in the mountains north of Santa Fe. There's a good reason why Texans c

      • There are two highways across NEw MExico that are guaranteed to show you nothing but *shit*. I-40 and I-10. (Where the hell is I20 anyway?) I-25 has some nice places, but not many. Had you driven across the Valley of Fire (or whatever that damn volcanic plain is called) you'd have said "Wow, this place is really hot! I thought Texas was hot, but check this out!"

        Of course, had you driven I-25 through Santa Fe, or 54 down through Alamogordo, or 70 into Ruidoso, you'd have had a hard time leaving the sta

      • I dunno maybe I just drove thru the wrong parts of New Mexico...
        I've driven from lake tahoe...

        Maybe my opinion would change if I hiked the state parks rather than just drive thru their highways, but from what I've seen that's my opinion.

        How quintessentially American--evaluating an entire region based on what can be seen from the Interstate, cruising past at sixty miles an hour...

        • Never been through the southwest US have you? You can see nearly everything from the Interstate (horizon to horizon). Lotsa wide open flat land...
      • Having been through many parts of tejas, except the coastal areas like houston, I can't see how tx is at all nicer than NM. The damn place is flat and ugly as hell, and about 30 miles in from the NM border you can see a sudden shift of flora and features to flat nothingness.

        Utah has some pretty nice spots, and some pretty crappy ones, but I could see an argument for Utah's beauty.

        To appreciate New Mexico you need to agree with a couple things:
        1) mountains kickass
        2) not all vegetation is green, and more i
      • Alaska is a beautiful state. Good luck driving much of it (black lines [alaskanoutdoorpages.com] are roads). What you can drive through is quite scenic [milebymile.com], but you can't even get to the state capital (Juneau, not visible on the first map) by road (unless you count the marine highway [akferry.com] system as a road).

  • A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Silvrmane ( 773720 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @11:03PM (#9123918) Homepage
    And Santa Fe kinda looks like Mos Eisley as you are driving into it in your Land Speeder. Perfect place for a space port. :)

  • We're the new haven for aero work (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lobo_Louie ( 545789 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @11:18PM (#9123970)
    First we attracted Eclipse Aviation (we're developing the leading 5 place microjet for ~$1M) to Albuquerque.

    This past January the Aviation Technology Group announced they'd base the manufacturing plant for their Javelin (think $5M F18) here as well.

    Now the Xprize? Cool. We'll take it!

  • Any bets on how long it will take for this information to be added to the Ansari X Prize [wikipedia.org] Wikipedia node?

  • Interesting Prize Categories (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @11:32PM (#9124019) Journal
    The article listed the following prize categories:
    1. Fastest turn-around time
    2. Maximum number of passengers carried in one flight
    3. Total number of passengers carried during the entire X Prize Cup event
    4. Maximum altitude attained
    5. Fastest flight time from take-off to landing

    Overall I think this is an excellent idea, but some of the prize categories seem to be... interesting choices. Take for example number 2, "Maximum number of passengers carried in one flight." I instantly have a mental image of dozens of people being packed like sardines into a spacecraft, and the horrible tragedy and PR fiasco which would occur if something went wrong. Having a category like that really doesn't seem like a hot idea.

    There's also number 5, "Fastest flight time from take-off to landing." Is this really that interesting a problem? I can't see any connection to potential commercial applications. It seems like it would be more a measure of how much acceleration the human occupants could tolerate than anything else.
    • I can see the new Guinness record now: 35 college students fit into rocket powered vw bug.
    • For 5, I would think that craft design would be the limiting factor. If the craft is designed right, then the humans inside it should be reasonably comfortable, even at high Gs. Think of it as a way to test the breadth of design, winning this category means that in addition to having a design that works in terms of the "commercial spaceflight" goal, you also have something that can get up there and come back down fast. Short flight times are good, think of why the concorde existed. Now think of a much more
      • So with something like the Concorde, I can certainly see why a short flight time would be good -- you want to get from point A to point B quickly. With these vehicles, though, the launches and landings are in the same place.

        I would actually think that one would be more interested in having longer flight times, rather than shorter.

    • Re:Interesting Prize Categories (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This may relate in someway to how Airline Carriers are rated. Faster turn around time means your aircraft is in flight more, which means it's more efficiently utilized (which makes more $$$). For example, Southwest has the fastest turn around time in the industry (20 minutes): [http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pdf/2002-2-0012.pdf [dartmouth.edu]]

    • Re:Interesting Prize Categories (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I like number four especially when the crew ends up lost In space with nothing but a damn robot and a snivelling doctor all because the wanted maximum altitude

  • The Only Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PeaceTank ( 758859 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @12:11AM (#9124141)
    I myself am a space enthusiast. Personally, I have no problem with the private sector wanting in on space flight, and in fact, I think it would be good for the troubled American economy. The only thing is these companies have no practical experience with putting humans into space, and they seem to be jumping in head first rather than 'testing the waters' so to speak. Remember, NASA has had more than 40 years experience putting humans into space, and they by no means just dove right in. I don't know fully about the tests being conducted with these spacecraft, but from what I can gather these companies are in over their heads. They are attempting to start their 'space business' by putting 20 or 30 people in space at a time, when they should really start out slow for safety's sake. What's going to happen if these companies rush to put massive numbers of people in space, forgetting about safety and we have another Challenger or Columbia, but this time with civilians, and more of them? The industry really needs to slow down, or else we are in for a terrible tragedy.

    • Re:The Only Problem... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Have you actually built and flown serious rockets, or are you just another clueless kibbitzer? NASA was flying people into space within a few years of its founding, and they started from very close to scratch. And the information about how they did it is all in the public domain. Combined with the enormously superior technology available to modern teams, particularly in materials, manufacturing, and electronics, it's much easier for a private team to put people into space than in was for NASA or the Russian

    • Re:The Only Problem... (Score:5, Informative)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @01:17AM (#9124358) Journal
      > They are attempting to start their 'space business' by putting 20 or 30 people in space at a time, when they should really start out slow for safety's sake. What's going to happen if these companies rush to put massive numbers of people in space, forgetting about safety and we have another Challenger or Columbia, but this time with civilians, and more of them? The industry really needs to slow down, or else we are in for a terrible tragedy.

      As far as I've seen so far, none of the X Prize contestants are planning on carrying anywhere near 20-30 people. Indeed, I believe the plan is to stick with one person at a time (or unmanned, in the case of Armadillo Aerospace), scaling up to the three required for the X Prize when they're confident in the hardware.

    • Re:The Only Problem... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fan of Damocles ( 703435 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @01:51AM (#9124457)
      Teams competing for the X-Prize ARE starting out small. The spaceship required to win the competition only needs to carry 3 people. The competition can be won by a ship carrying only one pilot and ballast representing the other two passengers.

      As far as I know, Scaled Composites [scaled.com] is the only team carrying out manned tests of their vehicle so far. They're following a careful test program, slowly expanding their flight envelope, and are taking no unnecessary risks.

      For another team's perspective, check Armadillo [armadilloaerospace.com]'s website for a great log of all the testing and refining they've been doing while developing their rocket.

      Bottom line: The teams with a shot at winning are not jumping into rocketry without careful attention to safety. No one wants to see fatalities or explosions of any kind - they're bad for business.
    • They could put chimps into space but then they'd come back super intelligent. Believe you me, we don't need any more suit-wearing, cigar-smoking, roller-skating chimps.

  • What an Honor! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @12:44AM (#9124234)
    To the Governor of New Mexico:

    Dear Sir or Madam,

    Congratulations! New Mexico has been determined to be sufficiently desolate and barren enough that the possibility of launchpad explosions and space debris raining from the sky pose little or no threat to the general population of your great state. Therefore, we are pleased to annouce that we are awarding the X-Prize Competition Site to New Mexico. We also looked at a small, uninhabited atoll in the Pacific Ocean but we found that it would be cost-prohibitive to provide portable toilets at that location on such short notice.

    Yours,

    The X-Prize Competition Site Selection Committee

  • in comparison... (Score:2, Informative)

    by acceber ( 777067 )

    The Ansari X Prize is modeled after the $25,000 Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 for his historic flight from New York to Paris.

    The Ansari X Prize awards $10 million to the group who builds and flies a spaceship that can carry three passengers 62 miles into space within a matter of weeks.

    The Orteig Prize awarded $25 000 to the sole man who flew non-stop on a single-engine aircraft 3635 miles from New York to Paris within a matter of hours (33.5 hours).

    It's interesting how the model for

    • Well, Lindbergh's was hardly a modest aeroplane in 1927 - that was the point, to push the state of the art. Now, as I have just finished writing a thesis which touches on this point, I am obliged to point out that the person who started this trend was Lord Northcliffe, a British press baron, who announced a series of prizes for the first person to acheive various aeronautical feats, the first being a thousand pounds for crossing the English Channel, which was won by Louis Bleriot in 1909. Not bad pay for le
  • ...if someone decides to add balloon-lander tech.

    If the ship comes down and bounces back up to orbit, does that count as two trips?

  • They missed an event. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dnnrly ( 120163 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @03:18AM (#9124694)
    What about the longest sustained flight?

    I'm guessing that the events are aimed at promoting safe transportation of people and cargo but there is not specific mention of the amount of time that a craft will be 'airborn' for. Even mach 3 on a sub-orbital flight will take a few hours to make it coast to coast. During this time the craft might launch to the proper altitude and then glide the rest of the way. The amount of time spent in powered flight affects height and speed and therefore the distance travelled.

    What if the organisers had an event where competitors have to lift a pre-determined mass to a minimum altitude and keep above there for as long as possible?
  • I'm surprised that it will take that long. Burt Rutan's team just did another drop test. They've already taken their air/spacecraft beyond mach, and I expect they will try leaving the atmosphere before the year is up...

    http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/f light_data/flt_data.htm [scaled.com]

    • The Ansari X-Prize can be claimed only once, and only until the end of 2004.

      The X-Prize Cup is a planned regular event - in essence an air show and competition for the suborbital space vehicles being developed in response to the X-Prize.

  • Only option? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Natchswing ( 588534 ) on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @06:51AM (#9125261)
    They say that Florida was the other alternative. Being someone who builds and launches payload with NASA on a regular basis White Sands is really the only launch option for a recovered vehicle. A row of launch facilities built and ready and a large area already isolated from civilization for recovery (or cratering). I know for our recoverable payload that White Sands is really one of our only choices in the U.S.

    On top of that I live in Florida. The cape is really a turn-key operation and isn't setup to easily handle new payloads and rockets. Florida also doesn't have any large barren areas, it's either trees or swamps.

    I don't think anything but White Sands was ever really an option, although playing that Florida might be an option might be a good bargaining chip to ratchet up the price that NM pays.

    I wonder if I can schedule my next launch to coincide with this.

    • Re:Only option? (Score:3, Informative)

      by BCW2 ( 168187 )
      It really is the only option, but reading the article it appears they are building a whole new facility in open land near WSMR, not on the range. I thought they would be allowed to use Northrop Strip where the shuttle landed. I guess security says keep everyone off base, considering the research going on there it makes sense. This still gives the competitors access to the reasearch people in the area and a large base of outside contractors and facilities. These are things available in few areas in that con
  • Wait... now there's a New Mexico?
  • ....that people are going to be killed. It takes a lot to put a person into space and get him or her back safely, it is not likely to happen without a huge budget and access to lots of technology.

    I am surprised that the FAA or NTSB do not stop this, or is there some loophole in the law which puts it out of their jurisdiction?

    • Probably, thats why test pilot is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The people that take on that task know the risks and accept them. These are dedicated people who think they can beat the odds, and most of the time they do! They are responsible for making sure that every advance in flight becomes safe and reliable if possible.
    • As they should have stopped the Wright brothers and all the other pioneers from achieving flight? We're not going anywhere with that attitude.
      • The point is that this is a backward step, and so does not justify the risk, and must be of questionable legality. Just watch the lawyers if any non-participant is injured or killed, which is quite likely.
        • Isn't it possible to inform people who are unable to think for themselves, that there are risks involved?
          • But what about the general public, within a large radius. Do they have the choice? That is the point, if some imbecile kills himself, that might be regarded as his affair, but he will likely kill a number of innocent people too.
            • Yes, sometimes a large truck collide with a bus full of kids. Sometimes an aeroplane crashes right in a suburb with unsuspecting people. These things happen no matter how much we try to avoid them. And one more thing... are you calling the leading X-Prize contestants "imbecile"?
    • Statistically, you're probably right. Sooner or later, a privately-funded spacecraft is going to have an accident. There have been many events that push the limits of human capability, such as the air races, the America's Cup (or the Vendee Monde (?) solo-around-the-world yacht race), motorsports, and pretty much any other sport involving state of the art technology and human know-how, and in each of them there have been fatalities, and usually not due to reckless abandon on the part of the participants. Ev
      • This will be sooner, rather than later, simply because all the proper control and experience which exists in the aviation industry is not being applied here. This is going much too far, and may kill innocent people a log way from the launch site, in which case no-one will win but the lawyers.

        In this day and age there is no justification for reversion to unnecessary risks which would probably have alarmed the Wright brothers.

        I am all for progress, but only by properly funded and controlled organisations, wit

        • The fallacy with your argument is that it assumes that
          (a) the people currently pursuing the X-Prize have no regard for the safety of themselves or others, or that they're incapable of making sound decisions based on their knowledge (presumably because they're blinded by the need to be-there-first); and
          (b) somehow, "properly funded and controlled organizations" (such as NASA?) DO have the ability to make these decision.

          Recent events in the Space Shuttle program would suggest that the people doing the contr

    • Sorry, but people DO have the right to take risks with their own personal lives and property. This country //USA// was founded on that principle.

      I do not subscribe to the liberal mantra that idividuals are not capable of accomplishing anything.

      I also do not see how their risk affects you. You cannot be a victim just because you want to.

  • "The first Cup is expected to be held summer, 2006, while 2005 will probably see a 'Public Spaceflight Explosion'."

    For a moment there I thought they were making a comment about their confidence in the contestants...

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