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Space

Rules Set for $50 Million America's Space Prize 548

Posted by CmdrTaco from the didn't-have-enough-fun-with-the-x-preise dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that The rules have been set for Robert Bigelow's $50 million 'America's Space Prize'. The gist of it is that the winner needs to get a crew of five people up 400km, complete two orbits of the Earth, and then do it again within 60 days. I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!
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Rules Set for $50 Million America's Space Prize More

Rules Set for $50 Million America's Space Prize

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  • How long... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webroach ( 655190 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:31AM (#10754032)
    ..until Rutan does this?

    • Re:How long... (Score:3, Informative)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 )
      I'm tempted to point out the incredible amount of kinetic energy involved to ORBIT versus simply gain alititude. (dY*mG=400,000 vs .5 m (17,000km/s)^2

      But then again, Rutan has done some amazing things.

      • Re:How long... (Score:3, Informative)

        by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 )
        Yes, I know I screwed up the equations.
        Altitude = (400,000m) * m * 9.8m/ss
        Orbit = 0.5 * m * (v^2)
        Where v=(G(m*M)r) ^ 1/5

        I'm still drinking my early morning coffee

  • Hah! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) * on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:31AM (#10754033) Journal
    I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

    The confessions of a true geek, eh Taco? ;)

    That said, the time frame for this thing seems a little too high -

    And one more thing. They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010.

    I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing -- 3 years might have been nice, but 5 years seems a little too long to me.

    Anyway, this is really good. Hopefully, the space race has started again!

    PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.
    • Yup, Firefox on XP here at work and when I click to read comments it all freezes up for a while (a long while) - I used to have to kill Firefox, but now I just wait it out and it eventually comes back to me.

      I like to view the ad's cause if any site is going to have ad's targeted at 'me', it's this one. I've clicked the top banner many-a-time, but I may have to start blocking them cause I just can't give up 60 seconds every time I want to view some comments.

      Either that, or stop viewing the comments :)

    • Re:Hah! (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Angstroem ( 692547 )

      PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.

      What, there are ads on /.? Or on any other website?

      One word for you: squid [squid-cache.org]... Never seen ads again since the installation of squid together with a nice redirector script [sourceforge.net] effectively replacing all picture and applet ads with something less distractive.

    • Re:Hah! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by julesh ( 229690 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:31AM (#10754624)
      3 years might have been nice, but 5 years seems a little too long to me

      Sorry, 3 years is infeasible for the kind of development this will take. How long was SS1 in development? This is at least an order of magnitude more complicated.

      I'm not sure 5 years is possible, but I'm hoping to be proved wrong.

  • To little? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:33AM (#10754045)
    It seems like spaceship one spent significantly more than 10 mil on their first ship. Is 50 mil a large enough reward for other participants?
    • There has to be incentive, and that's what this provides. It also provides a framework for the contest, which is nearly as important.

      Furthermore, while the prize is not enough to recoup an investment, it's still nothing to shake a stick at. We are talking about $50 million here.

    • Re:To little? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JDevers ( 83155 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:40AM (#10754102)
      My take on these type of awards is that the cash prize is just there to try to encourage both the small and inventive teams as well as help pay back some of the bills accrued by the big teams. The real reward will come a few years AFTER the competition, but the award will help keep the company solvent from point A to B.

      Basically, this isn't like a lottery or something where if you spend $11 to make $10 you loose, instead you got to do $11 worth of science for only $1 and more importantly you might be able to move your company/team towards a future where you can make 10x-100x times the award per year or more...

  • Technicality Smechnic..thingy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Clappingman ( 829179 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:34AM (#10754053) Journal
    The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth; It doesn't say that it actually has to orbit twice though, just reach the velocity necessary to do so.

    • Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Phanatic1a ( 413374 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:40AM (#10754094)
      Please explain.

      If you achieve the velocity sufficient to achieve orbit, then you've achieved the velocity sufficient to orbit twice. And three times. And 17 times.

      I must be missing something.
      • At low altitude (say, the 100 km that was the goal for the X Prize) that's not necessarily true -- you could have the velocity for n orbits, but lose enough to drag not to make n+1.

        For an extreme example of this -- consider the fact that if you fired a bullet from a decent rifle a thousand miles up, it would go into orbit, but obviously bullets don't go into orbit here on the ground.

        • Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy (Score:5, Informative)

          by logpoacher ( 662865 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:52AM (#10754856)
          consider the fact that if you fired a bullet from a decent rifle a thousand miles up, it would go into orbit, but obviously bullets don't go into orbit here on the ground.

          Well, careful here. That's the big misconception - that orbital velocity is anything like the speed of a bullet. Ok, ok, it depends on your definition of "decent rifle" :-), but no Earth rifle even comes close to firing at 5 miles a second - a tenth of that is more likely.

          Similarly, SpaceShip One only achieved about 0.6miles/sec. That's why - amazing though it is that they achieved what they did on such a small budget - the orbit challenge is so much harder than just "touching space". When you consider that chemical rockets project propellant at about 2 miles/sec, you'll see that a single-stage rocket's mass must be almost entirely fuel (>85%) to achieve orbital speed alone - and that's after you've reached a suitable height! Multi-stage boosters help with the physics, of course, but they slaughter the economics. :-)

          Anyway, achieving height is just the easy "Part 1" of the problem. Speed's the hard part. Try doing the momentum sums yourself - it gives you serious respect for people who can build machines to overcome the problems, and it shows how close Earth is to being completely un-escapable (at least using chemical rockets)!

          Of course, re-reading your post, the rifle thing does illustrate your point rather well. Oh well ...

      • Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy (Score:4, Informative)

        by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:30AM (#10754617) Homepage Journal
        The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth; It doesn't say that it actually has to orbit twice though, just reach the velocity necessary to do so.

        I suppose there could be reasons that you would not actually want to perform the orbits even though you've reached the appropriate speed.

        Orbits take time. If you just pop up to altitude and speed, then immediately fall back down then the total trip is probably an hour or so. In order to orbit, you have to have to support several hours in space, maybe a day:
        1. Air supply and air tightness of cabin to maintain the crew for the duration of the orbits.
        2. Depending on length of time you spend in orbit, you might need other "human" facilities on board, food, water, restrooms.
        3. Radiation and debris shielding. There's less debris in the upper atmosphere, but lots in orbit.
        There may be fuel considerations to actually entering and exiting orbit rather than just passing through and falling back down.

      • Think of what the space shuttle does. If everything goes well, it's in orbit. As you say, if you get there, you can orbit as much as you want to.

        But, when the shuttle has a problem, there are several abort modes, including RTLS, ATA, ATO, and AOA

        RTLS - return to launch site. Early in the flight, but after the SRB's are done burning, the shuttle can return to the runway at Kennedy if there's a problem.

        ATA - Abort Trans Atlantic. If the shuttle is going too fast to get back to Kennedy, it can land an emerg

  • That's a big meatball (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow, no more than 20% expendable and attain a real orbit. I have a feeling this money is safe.
    • Yeah -- that having been said, I was fairly sure the X-Prize wasn't going to be claimed, and I ended up having to eat my shirt. So I'm not going to be so quick to write this one off. But you're right; the orbital requirements are hard enough, and then the extra docking requirements... highly non-trivial, in my ignorant opinion.

  • The rules specify the 5 people... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:34AM (#10754059)
    ...must be Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, and Oreilly. Successful reentry is not required to receive your prize.
    • ... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?

      • No way ! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Thomas Miconi ( 85282 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:32AM (#10754644)
        ... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?

        Schroder will attract hordes of angry east German protester who will block the launch, Blair will give the plans of the ship to the US government with offers of complimentary sexual gratification to any senior member of the administration, Sharon won't get in the ship because it will probably fly over a moslem country at some point, Chirac will ask for United Nations meetings, counter-meeting, commissions and detailed reports on the size and orientation of every single joint in the fuselage, and Berlusconi will just run away with the prize !

        Thomas-

    • And just how do you think technology is going to proceed without O'Reilly? The code running the next generation of space travel will be written by people who learned their trade from VB.net For Dummies In 24 Hours!

    • Re:The rules specify the 5 people... (Score:5, Funny)

      by JavaLord ( 680960 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:40AM (#10754726) Journal
      ...must be Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, and Oreilly. Successful reentry is not required to receive your prize.

      Yes, but with those people in the Rocket, successful re-entry is likely since they are very succssful people. Now, if you are shooting for failure try putting in Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Nader and Sharpton
  • "I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!"

    Does anyone else remember the old SCTV storyline in which Dr Tongue (John Candy) launched a space mission? The rocket appeared to be a Saturn V with a Chevy Vega glued to the nose.

  • America's Space Prize? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by levell ( 538346 )
    I'm a little disappointed with the name. Even if the money is put up by Americans and will almost inevitably be won by an American it just seems a little well clique-y to put America in the title. I'm aware this is private enterprise and they have the right to call it what they like, I'm just a little sad about their choice.

  • Make an orbit (Score:5, Funny)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:39AM (#10754093)
    I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!
    Your taun-taun will freeze before you reach the first marker!

  • Finally, a REAL space challenge (Score:4, Insightful)

    by csoto ( 220540 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:42AM (#10754121)
    There's a huge difference between flying a neato rocket plane like "SpaceShipOne" and actually achieving Low Earth Orbit. This will be a much more difficult challenge!

  • Sounds like a recipe for disaster (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:42AM (#10754122)
    The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active.

    If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations. The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong.

    This contest also has the potential to create an international incident.

    • Lighten up. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:50AM (#10754204)
      " The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active."

      I don't mean this the way this sounds, but I think you made this up completely. You may be right. But I don't see any data to support this.

      "If people die in the course of attaining this prize"

      People die skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, skiing... all the time. Unlike many people, I don't think the loss of a spacecraft with 6 people on board is any more tragic than the loss of 6 people in a minivan accident on the freeway.

      "say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations."

      New laws and regulations are inevitable anyway. Or did you think Virgin Airlines (Branson) is just going to fire up Spaceship one and start taking reservations? Its really hard getting FCC certified for any kind of commercial flights.

      "The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong."

      What chilling effect? The space shuttle is a piece of crap; it should be grounded because its too expensive.

      "This contest also has the potential to create an international incident."

      So does fingerprinting and retina scanning all foreigners entering the country, but that doesn't seem to have stopped us.

      Stop worrying about the sky falling.
    • This kind of thinking amazes me. I wonder if DeSoto, Columbus, Magellan or Marco Polo had to worry about such ramifications.

      Humans, by thier very nature, are explorers. If someone wants to strap a raocket to thier butt and blast themsellves into space, so be it. People will die in the name of exploration... Five hundred years ago losing five men on an expedition would mean relatviely little (impact to thier families notwithstanding). Why is it so different today. Do our lives now mean that much more t

    • Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:11AM (#10754407)
      If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations.
      Yep. Just look at what happened when people first died in a private automotive accident. The government stepped in, and now we're all back to horse and buggy.

  • 80% reusable? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bulletman ( 254401 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:43AM (#10754124)
    The rules say that only 20% of the vehicule can be expendable. Why have this requirement at all? If someone can send a ship cheaply and reliably that doesn't meet this rule, then why not?

    Stephen

  • Learner Drivers... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RobertTaylor ( 444958 ) <roberttaylor1234 AT gmail DOT com> on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:44AM (#10754139) Homepage Journal
    "Bigelow Aerospace will be hiring astronauts, as well as conduct the training of "space novices""

    NASA does intense training; will these new spacecraft pilots have heat resistant learner plates?! ;)

  • restrictive condition? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.

    Isn't this is very restrictive and unfair?

  • Orbital Mechanics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hugg ( 22953 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:45AM (#10754155)
    Now, using a rubber band would be impractical -- when you apply an impulse to an idealized orbit, the trajectory will change but it will always return to the same point at which you applied the impulse. Therefore your Gremlin would crash into the Earth's surface. You would need a second rubber band floating in space to actually reach orbit.

    Now, this is *unless* you take advantage of perturbations of a second body -- like the Moon -- to alter your trajectory enough to bring the perigee up to 400 km. This is what I am assuming you meant.

    Sincerely,
    Pedant McGee

  • Prize money not enough... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mOoZik ( 698544 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:45AM (#10754156) Homepage
    I don't think the prize money is enough. It cost about half that to attain something much less by SpaceShipOne. My guess is that it will cost closer to $100 mil to do such a thing and claim the prize. Furthermore, I think the timespan is too short. It took 8 years for someone to claim the Ansari prize. How can we expect something much difficult to be accomplished in much less time? Sure, some of the development is in place by the teams that lost, but there are many hurdles to be overcome for orbital flight.

    • SpaceShipOne cost $20 mil, and they won $10 mil.

      Your estimate on this is $100 mil, and the prize is $50 mil.

      Get half your money back both times.

      As for the timespan, didn't Rutan start just a few years back? Plus, that initial work is done, it makes for something of a stepping off point.

    • Remember, after you win the money, if you do. You still own your space ship and all the technology and your company. If that isn't worth $50 mill then you are out of luck, but there is a good chance that it is.
  • Is if India or China set up a corp in the US and win it.

  • Probably much more useful than SS1 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) * on Monday November 08, 2004 @10:47AM (#10754170) Homepage Journal
    Rutan's accomplishment was impressive, but as has been pointed out in other discussions, it was essentially a high-flying airplane rather than a true spaceship, and doesn't scale well. Anyone who wins this prize will have built something much more directly applicable to real space travel.

    Which isn't to say I don't want Rutan, or someone else whose approach is essentially aviation-based rather than big-boom-straight-up-based, to get it. When I was a kid, I spent endless hours reading my Dad's old 50's sci-fi collection, and somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that a real spaceship has a needle nose and delta wings ...
    • How do you know SS1 doesn't scale well? Did you see the documentary on Scaled that was on the Discover Channel? Scaled has plans for an orbiter vehicle with a big old booster.

    • Rutan is leading contender to win, though. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:29AM (#10754611)
      I think people forget that Burt Rutan's company is probably the leading candidate to win this US$50,000,000 prize.

      Scaled Composites did a lot of development work for both the McDonnell-Douglas Delta Clipper and Lockheed Martin Venture Star projects. This means Scaled Composites already has enough technical knowledge to start work on a space vehicle to win this prize as soon as they get enough funding to pull it off (Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures could easily part with the US$200,000,000 estimated development cost; Allen's group paid US$30,000,000 to develop the X-Prize winner).

  • Do the crew members have to be alive, or can you use corpses with a computer for guidance?

    Easier to find volunteers that way.

  • Better Idea (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ancil ( 622971 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:16AM (#10754471)

    I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!
    Wile E.Coyote once tried something similar.. For the first launch, I'd suggest five enemies instead.

  • friends (Score:4, Funny)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:22AM (#10754530)
    Ok since noone has said it:

    Who wouldn't be able to find 4 friends when you have a gremlin and a huge rubber band!

  • Earth's Space Prize (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zentinal ( 602572 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:23AM (#10754544) Homepage
    Others have already expressed dismay at the USA-onlyness of the prize. The solution, of course, would be for a Non-USA billionaire or corporation or consortium thereof to offer a similar, but better, prize. Keep most of the rules the same, except that the corporation couldn't be American, and development & launch would have to take place outside of the United States. I agree that $50 million seems too low. How about €100 million to €150 million?

  • pretty good, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VanillaCoke420 ( 662576 ) <.vanillacoke420. .at. .hotmail.com.> on Monday November 08, 2004 @11:28AM (#10754596)
    ...why is it open only for Americans?

  • Orbital Gremlins (Score:5, Funny)

    by jshark ( 623406 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @12:10PM (#10755082)
    The aerodynamics of a Gremlin are such that the giant rubber band will give insufficient lift to attain orbital velocity. You'll be better off with a good strong plank and one of those weights from Acme that read 16 TONS on the side.

    The only drawback is that the sudden acceleration may cause your passengers to look like pancakes of mercury on the floormats, assuming they don't just flow through the rust holes in the floorboards.

  • Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cascino ( 454769 ) on Monday November 08, 2004 @12:58PM (#10755672) Homepage
    We're all overlooking one key fact:
    It must also demonstrate the ability to dock with Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space habitat and be able to stay docked in orbit for up to six months.
    This prize is not an act of goodwill - it is subcontracted commercial R&D! Presumably this "Bigelow Aerospace" (doesn't that sound like something out of the Jetsons?) company is in need of a launch vehicle, and finds it cheaper to launch a "contest" than to develop the vehicle themselves. Remember, Rutan & Co. spent well more than $10 million developing SS1... it's likely Bigelow will actually save money if the contest is completed successfully...

    • Sub-contracted R&D (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Teancum ( 67324 ) <robert_horning AT netzero DOT net> on Monday November 08, 2004 @01:41PM (#10756187) Homepage Journal
      While this may seem like a rip-off, everything is much more open than a typical commercial R&D subcontract. Those are usually done like NASA has done things, or worse, especially for the sub-contractor.

      At least in this situation everything is going to be out in the open, you don't have to worry about missing deadlines, because the deadlines are something that you set personally. It may be influenced by competition, but even then it is quite straight forward, and if you miss the prize because somebody else beat you to that... that is simply the rules of the game. Normally if this were an R&D subcontract like you were implying, there would be the primary contractor or customer who would be breathing down your neck asking for status reports every couple of days, if not daily or hourly (depending on how anal the customer is and mission critical the project is).

      On the other hand, I agree that this is a very cost-effective solution in terms of getting needed components on a very visible project. It would be impressive if GM or Ford did something similar in terms of building a hydrogen-fueled engine or even a major utility company in regards to highly efficient power generation. Set the specific requirements and guarentee a certain minimum buy of the power generated from such a facility, such as a wind farm, geothermal vents, or even a nuclear power plant with an established maximum of nuclear waste generation. There is some real engineering that could be accomplished using this model that would be incredibly effective.

      This could even be done for software components that implement a certain technology. Just for instance, if you set up a contest to pay for the first implementation of a new audio or video codec that also has features X,Y,Z (like a plug-in to winamp, and LGPL libraries, etc).

      The main requirement here to do such a contest is that 1) the discussion of the project can be done publicly and 2) the resulting product while complimentary to your product line, does not directly compete with what you do for your main line business or with the industry (when a large number of corporate sponsors are involved).

      In this case with Bigelow Aerospace, they really need to have these spacecrafts available, but don't really intend to build and fly them.

      Not every engineering challenge can be solved this way, but there are a number than can be done. This is also why Thiokol won't be a sponsor (although perhaps a competitor?), because this does directly compete with what they do for a business.

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