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X-Prize Cup/Olympics Planned
sckienle writes "Space.com has a quick article in their astronotes section about the X-Prize committee's idea of an X-Prize competition. Apparently they are thinking about having a 'X-Prize Cup' where 'teams would compete for cash prizes, attempting to set new records.' My favorite quote: 'The notion is to try and bring the money and excitement of NASCAR and Formula One racing into space.'"
I think its ideas like this that the current space program needs to reawaken peoples interests in Space exploration, especially after the last few months and the negative attention it has recieved.
It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them..
I hope their not trying to bring the exact same type of excitement as NASCAR. Most of the people there are just waiting for a big crash to watch.
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
With the latest Guiness craze (anyone willing to do the dumbest, most dangerous stuff to get their names in the book), I'm afraid to make space the next competition. Yeah, they put their lives in danger, which is no biggie by me... cleanse the gene pool...
But what happens when someone's custom-made SaturnV crashes into your house?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
This reminds me of the air competitions in the 20's and 30's, normally funded by wealthy newspaper owners. Cash prize for the first to cross the Atlantic East to West, then in reverse. First to Hawaii, around the world, etc.
If not for some of those competitions, aviation would have progressed much slower than it did.
Who cares, as long as they're willing to throw down the $$$ like they do for NASCAR! It's amazing how much cash they generate...
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I don't think I totally agree with this. Part of the point of the X-Prize is finding the cheapest way to space, not necessarily the fastest way to space. Remember: good, cheap, fast, pick two. If we pick cheap and fast, we get deathtraps.
I'd much rather see the X-Prize lead to something good and cheap that takes 2 days to get to orbit than have some over-engineered phallic symbol dominating the space race for the next 50 years.
Driving a non-air-conditioned, 400HP car in a circle at 150 mph for a few hours just slightly faster than the other two dozen guys in identical cars, however, does require skill.
Do you tailgate (less drag, more heat)? How long and with who? Which line through the banked corners is optimal right now (it'll change as the track gets dirty and your tires heat up/wear, not to mention different amounts of traffic at different levels)? How many times will you stop for gas? Change tires? Do you need to adjust the suspension?
My lack of interest for a lot of modern mechanical sports is the udder lack of distinction between any of the entries, two cars in nascar are more alike than your and my DNA.
Contrary to popular belief there are other motorsports besides NASCAR:
...just to name a few.
For example, on Speedvision(now "The Speed Channel"), you can catch events like the Maine Forest Rally. In rallying, there are lots of different cars, it's pretty exciting, often more so than NASCAR- you've got insane speeds, limited traction, crazy drivers, and little to no control over the course(helloooooo wildlife! :-)
Rallying is intensely popular pretty much everywhere except the US, where the population seems fixated on NASCAR bullshit.
Please help metamoderate.
the hoopla around the x-prize is starting to look like the dot-com era. this space stuff is expensive. people are going to die. it is WAY off the curve for profitability, even if you factor in the x-prize money. yes, i'd love to go too (disclaimer #2: i am an MBA, but I am also the test pilot for a small aerobatic aircraft manufacturer), but please people.. this will take time.
You know, as cold hearted as that is, that might not be such a bad thing.
As things stand now, if an accident occurs during a space flight and people get killed it's a national tragedy and the entire space program shuts down for months or years. When Dale whosie got killed it was still a tragedy (although a lot more worked up than i thought it really deserved to be) but they didn't stop doing NASCAR or Formula One races for any significant period of time.
As someone else pointed out on the last spaceship related article, thousands of people get killed every year just commuting to work, but no one makes a big deal of it because it's part of our lives. Likewise worldwide there's probably at least one lost commuter jet a year, which gets more press than your average car accident since they're rarer and kill hundreds of people at once, but we don't stop using planes because of them.
Perhaps routine-as-in-sporting-event is a good first step towards routine-as-in-taking-a-commuter-jet.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Right now, the teams are trying to break the 100 km barrier by going straight up and returning straight down. For example, in Rutan's design the airspeed never exceeds 155 knots. As a result, it will take 80 minutes to cover a horizontal distance of 35 miles. That is enough to win the prize and I'm fine with that. But, in years to come, there should be new targets that get us closer to orbital flight. Greatest distance prizes will do that.
The first one, greatest distance traveled between takeoff and landing, could possibly be won by some sort of hybrid between Rutan's globe-circling Voyager and his Spaceship One, but that's also something that I'd be fine with. It would, like the current X-Prize, stretch aviation technology to lits limits.
My second idea, greatest horizontal distance traveled above 100 km, would be a logical follow-up to the first one, since it could only be won by someone following a ballistic trajectory. This would might inspire new research into thermal shielding, or it may generate all new ways to return to earth. (For example, find a way to eliminate your horizontal velocity before re-entering the atmosphere.)
Either of these would be far better than the possibilites discussed in the article.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?