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The Almighty Buck Space Science

X-prize Award paid 97

Posted by CmdrTaco from the faster-than-most-ebay-bidders dept.
daveywest writes "According to the AP, "SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan accepted the Ansari X Prize money, along with a 150-pound trophy, as a chase plane flew over the ceremony in a field adjacent to the St. Louis Science Center.""
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X-prize Award paid More

X-prize Award paid

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  • How long... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ckwop ( 707653 ) * on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:23AM (#10746219) Homepage
    until he's got the proposed orbital prize? I bet 2010.

    Simon.

    • Not Rutan (Score:5, Insightful)

      by senseofhistory ( 823192 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @12:11PM (#10746575)
      Burt Rutan is a brilliant airplane designer, and SpaceShipOne is a great rocket-powered airplane (as was the X-15, in 1951), but I don't think he'll even attempt to gain Robert Bigelow's "America's Space Prize" for a 7-passenger orbiter. Orbiters are in a nearly completely different design domain than space-planes, needing about 10 times the total impulse (energy), and much more critical management of reentry-generated heat. Rutan's not a daredevil. He's cautious and thorough. Orbiters are innately more risky than space-planes. I don't think he'll be able to come up with a way to reduce the risk to something he can accept.

      • Re:Not Rutan (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, 2004 @12:51PM (#10746853)
        In the documentary "Black Sky: The Race for Space" on the Discovery channel, Rutan showed some designs he is working on for an orbital vehicle.

      • Re:Not Rutan (Score:4, Insightful)

        by khallow ( 566160 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @04:16PM (#10748105)
        I don?t think he?ll be able to come up with a way to reduce the risk to something he can accept.

        I don't see this. You ignore how he worked on SpaceShipOne. Namely, he gradually worked up to the altitude. I think he can reduce the risk to aacceptible levels though incremental testing.

      • Perhaps something we need - like cost effective wind power designs that don't kill birds.

        Seriously,

        Rutan is a genius at aerodynamics, if that prize had been for a 10 dollar airfoild design to generate 100 killiwatts, we could have joined the kiyoto treaty rednecks notwithstanding.

        AIK
    • seems to have a design that is more likely to go orbital than what Rutan did.

      • Re:John Carmack (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yeah, he's optimized the number of pieces at reentry to O(N^2) pieces, where N is the number of pieces that were launched.
      • Which design are you referring to? His design changes every week ;) Last I checked, he was looking into ditching the whole monoprop concept ;)

  • Next task (Score:4, Funny)

    by pete_norm ( 150498 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:24AM (#10746222)
    Make the thing fly with the trophy in it...

  • hey, nice check! (Score:5, Funny)

    by muntumbomoklik ( 806936 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:26AM (#10746233)
    Was it one of those big checks? I always wondered how you're supposed to get them in the tiny deposit envelopes.

    • Re:hey, nice check! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Average_Joe_Sixpack ( 534373 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @11:11AM (#10746370)
      I heard it was paid in cash using several money sacks, each marked with a big green '$' sign.

    • Re:hey, nice check! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @12:23PM (#10746627) Journal
      I got one of those giant checks for about $10 once from a sweepsakes that I might have won $100,000 in, but didn't really read all the fine print so I'm not sure exactly. The giant check isn't the real check - they don't have any of the markings on the back, and they even say, "NON NEGOTIABLE" in non-giant print at the bottom. You get to keep that one, and buy a giant picture frame in and hang it on the wall or something. They give you a real, normal-size check to cash.

      • Re:hey, nice check! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @02:50PM (#10747604) Homepage Journal
        Well, I worked for Symcor Inc [symcor.com] for 3 years, and I can tell you that I went on tours into the check processing facilities and there are items there that pass as checks that are FAR more bizarre than just gigantic checks. ANYTHING with an account number written on it, a 'To' field, an amount and a signature qualifies as a check. I mean, thay had a bra (yes, a part of a female warderope that an average /.'er wouldn't be familiar with and most normal men wouldn't know how to handle on any first attempt) signed and it was accepted as a check.

        • I've never seen a giant check with an account number on it. Mine just had 000 00000 000, which is the same thing they put on the sample checks they give you at the bank.
      • non negotiable just means non negotiable. not that the cheque is invalid.
    • you fold it about 1024 times. Then it should fit in the envelope. Wouldn't want to be the clerk opening it though...

  • The next big prize (Score:5, Funny)

    by pchan- ( 118053 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:29AM (#10746244) Journal
    After the Ansari X-Prize, the next big prize to watch is the Ralph Kramden Prize.

    One of these days, Alice... to the moon!

  • Money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Paster Of Muppets ( 787158 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:32AM (#10746252)
    As for the $10m prize, how is it all going to be split? I assume Rutan won't get to keep all of it?

  • Congrats to St. Louis, Diamandis and Ansaris (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:37AM (#10746264) Homepage Journal
    The folks who made this prize award real, the folks at the St. Louis Science Center, the leadership of St. Louis, Peter Diamandis and the Ansaris are real heroes in this. They deserve as much recognition as Rutan's team.

  • It's well deserved (Score:4, Insightful)

    by qwave54 ( 671614 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:37AM (#10746265)
    He accomplished what the X-Prize was meant for. All criticisms aside, he won the prize fair and square. I hope his team makes good use of their design in the future.

  • This Great News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Space_Soldier ( 628825 ) <not4_u@hotmail.com> on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:39AM (#10746274)
    This is great news. However, we all know that the X-Prize works based on donations. I hope that they still have money for daily operations and for future pricez. The X-CUP will require a lot more money than the X-Prize. However, I'm sure that corporations will turn the white space crafts into race cars (full with ads), which should pay for most of the expenses. The SpaceShipOne has the Virgin logo on it.

    • Hmm? Venture Capital? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by igrp ( 732252 )
      I wonder if VC companies would consider investing in an X-Prize-like endeavour now that Burt Rutan and his crew have proven that it's not just doable but also possible to do it in a manner that attracts prime-time media attention.

      I guess it won't happen since a VC company would very likely be concerned about X-Prize Spinoff Inc.'s 5-year-return (basically, the way it works is that VC companies focus on return-on-investment; as a rule of thumb that should happen in a 3-7 year timeframe (5 being the median),

    • However, we all know that the X-Prize works based on donations.

      This is true only if you replace "donations" with "insurance money"

  • We need a monument (Score:5, Funny)

    by CodeWanker ( 534624 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @10:48AM (#10746302) Journal
    This is the kind of thing all us hard-core geeks who grew up reading the Real Heinlein (from the '40s and 50s, before he got too preachy to tell a story) have dreamed of. A lot of really good geeks have died wanting to see this day.

    Maybe a Mainframe Terminal of the Unknown Geek can be built for them. Instead of an eternal flame it could have an eternal Estes engine on it.

  • Zefram Cochrane (Score:5, Funny)

    by dapyx ( 665882 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @11:27AM (#10746412) Homepage
    Burt Rutan looks a bit like Zefram Cochrane, doesn't he? :-)

  • The next challenge for Rutan (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @11:36AM (#10746443)
    Is to convince his bank manager that spending 25+ million to win 10 million was actually a good idea.

    It was an excellent achievement but I think the real challenge is to get people to actually hand over their cash as easily as they pledge it and create a viable space tourism/haulage business.

    To be honest once the novelty and rich morons exclusivity factor wears off I cant see it happening.

  • How to spend the money? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @11:42AM (#10746466)
    I'm wondering how they will spend that money - I realize their development costs were well over 10 mill in the first place, but I hope some of that goes back into new ventures.

  • $10M (Score:2, Funny)

    by chachob ( 746500 )
    ...should be enough cover his gas costs.
    ;)

  • Gotta Be Orbital (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DanielMarkham ( 765899 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @12:09PM (#10746566) Homepage
    I'm a huge Rutan fan, but it's gotta be orbital or bust.

    Creating a huge reverse bungee-jump looks like a hoot, but until you go orbital you are not demonstrating real economic value (over just fun).

    Perhaps the industry can survive for several years on 90-minute tourist rides, but I don't know. 1-hour delivery of packages and executives anywhere in the world will change the future.

    • Re:Gotta Be Orbital (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Phiil ( 828925 )
      Agreed that we need to start thinking about orbital spaceflight now. So what are the current thoughts on HOW we might get orbital - realistically? Are we still dependent on pure chemical propellant, which would require a lot of initial mass - which would surely keep the project strictly in the domain of a few very well equipped companies. The only improvement I know of is nuclear thermal propulsion - using hydrogen as a propellant, but heating it up and getting it out of the exhaust at high speed with th
      • I can't give you the answer but I can make some observations.

        I think if you do the math you realize that with the current power of propellants you can't carry your fuel with you.

        Some ideas: earth-based mass drivers, ion scramjet technology, even blimps into space (JP Aerospace) looks interesting. The mass driver and blimp technology involve no (zero) big science acheivements and are both heavy-lift and completely reusable.

        • I recall Jerry Pournelle getting very excited by the potential for ground-based laser back in the late 70s. Is any work being done on that or has it proven to be impractical?

          Regards
          Luke
    • The "1-hour" thing doesn't actually require the vehicle to go into orbit, a big enough ballistic arc will do (yes, I know an orbit is just a ballistic arc that misses the object being orbited...), there's probably ICBMs that could be modified to slow down enough at journey's end.

      Either that or use one of these:
      http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v1/v1n1/ww2space.h tm [worldatwar.net]
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel [wikipedia.org]
    • 7.000 interested custumors for a $200.000 ride. I agree: two hundred million tourist industry doesn't qualify as 'real economic value'.

      And don't forget, this is the first step. Rutan and others have already made their follow-up plans...they just need time to implement them.

  • Made a small fortune (Score:3, Funny)

    by murderlegendre ( 776042 ) on Sunday November 07, 2004 @12:22PM (#10746619)

    spending $25 million to make $10 million

    Q: Know how to make a small fortune in space travel?

    A: Start with a large one.. ;-)

    In all seriousness, nice going folks. You won that fair & square; hats off!

  • They bought an insurance policy for something like $100,000 saying that it would only pay if someone fulfilled the requirements. Some insurance company weasel is getting his ass chewed right now by his boss!!!
  • Scaled Composites also has a new CMS 5-Axis Gantry Mill [scaled.com].

    How fucking cool is that?

  • Underestimating Rutan (Score:2, Insightful)

    by soldeed ( 765559 )
    There is nothing easier in the world than being a critic, a doubter, a pessimist, a naysayer. Such as those on this forum who cast doubts that spaceship one concept would work and who now doubt that Rutan can even make an orbital vehicle. Well sir, nothing great is ever accomplished by such thinking. I celebrate the crackpot tinkerers and inventors who toil on despite critics and deriders and continue to think outside the box to bring forth "Impossible" wonders. Burt Rutan is a brilliant engineer and thos
    • Glad to see people of like mind. I wish to extend your argument by including a few great explorers/scientists in the past that are under-estimated.

      1. Christopher Columbus
      2. Marco Polo
      3. Albert Einstein
      4. Nikolas Tesla
      These are a few right off the top of my head.

      Yes, I've seen the National Geographic's "Black Sky: The Race for Space". I'm especially impressed with his dream of having a functional, residential space station and a cheap transport (relatively) for people.

      Burt Rutan: He really kicks the cr
  • Wow, He should have spent some of those millions on a new jacket. Or maybe he's just that hip and he bought it since retro 80's gear is hot right now.
  • Burt Rutan accepted the Ansari X Prize money, along with a 150-pound trophy,

    And then used the money to buy Doom3 and a system that can actually run it. Carmack always wins.

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