NASA Exploring $1.5 Million Unmanned Aircraft Competition 38
coondoggie writes "NASA today said it wants to gauge industry interest in the agency holding one of its patented Centennial Challenges to build the next cool unmanned aircraft. NASA said it is planning this Challenge in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Air Force Research Lab, with NASA providing the prize purse of up to $1.5 million."
For those who don't know... (Score:2, Insightful)
An unmanned aircraft is *much* easier to program than a unmanned car.
No bumpy road, no complex wheel behavior, no forced curves, barely and obstacles, and nothing that can occlude them (assuming your sensors obviously go through clouds)... and you have only one axis to care for.
Every big plane already has automated cruising and landing for emergencies.
The navigational aspects also are already mostly automated away in regular planes.
Once you have the flaps and engines abstracted away, and have a working radar, a child could do it.
With all those automated drones out there, I wonder what's the big deal about this anyway?
Probably tested and guaranteed passenger safety.