Diamandis Predicts X-Prize Winner Within One Year

drix writes "Things are moving along for the X-Prize. The FAA is currently in the process of approving a launch site for competitors, several of which are set to launch "within the next few months." Perhaps most exciting, Peter Diamandis says he expects a winner within one year."

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[Entropy Unleashed]

Private space race nears its climax

Correction: AP erred in reporting FAA approval; agency still considering teams' applications The X Prize trophy - and $10 million - will go to the first team to send a privately developed, piloted craft to the edge of space, then do it again in two weeks' time.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 -- Correction: In a Sept. 26 story about the X Prize to promote space flight, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved a Mojave Desert airport as a launch site for suborbital manned space missions and that the agency had approved applications from two teams of rocket engineers. FAA officials said that although applications have been filed and are being considered, formal approvals have yet to be issued for either the airport or the rocket teams.

What follows is a corrected version of the story that first ran on Sept. 26:

In a race to achieve the first privately funded manned spaceflight, rocket engineers are poised to compete for the $10 million X Prize by launching people to the edge of space and bringing them back safely twice within a two-week period. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, said he expects that a teams will launch within the next few months, using rockets and spacecraft that are already being tested and prepared for the daring venture.
A Mojave Desert airport in California is being considered for use as a launch pad for the suborbital missions.
"We expect to have a winner within the next nine to 12 months," Diamandis said in a presentation Friday to officials of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Among teams being considered are Scaled Composites, led by aviation maverick Burt Rutan; and Armadillo Aerospace, a Dallas group headed by John Carmack, a computer game designer who made a fortune on "Doom" and "Quake."
There are 23 other registered groups from seven countries competing for the $10 million cash prize. There are teams from Russia, United Kingdom, Romania, Israel, Argentina and two from Canada. The rest are headquartered in the United States.

'MIND-SHIFT BREAKTHROUGH'

Diamandis said the goal of X Prize is to promote commercial human spaceflight, just as prizes offered early in the 20th century jump-started the aviation industry. For instance, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927 while competing for a $25,000 aviation prize, he said.
Lindbergh's flight, said Diamandis, "was a mind-shift breakthrough" for the public. Within 18 months after that daring flight, the number of people boarding airlines rose from 5,700 a year to almost 200,000.
Demonstrating that private companies can build and fly spacecraft can be a major step toward making human spaceflight as routine flying on an airliner is now, he said.
"The floodgates will open when a group of private people can plan on going some place in space," Diamandis said. He said earlier prizes opened "the golden age of aviation," and with private firms racing to reach space "it's happening again, right now."
Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne and its White Knight carrier craft are being flight-tested in California. Click to learn more about Scaled Composites.

TO THE CUSP OF SPACE

The X Prize contest calls for launching a manned craft to 62 miles (100 kilometers), generally considered the cusp of space, and returning it safely to Earth. And then doing it again within 14 days. The craft must be able to carry three people, although the contest rules permit contestants to use one pilot accompanied by equipment equal to the weight of two people.
Diamandis said the craft will not go into orbit and will not fly far from its launch site. But it will graze space, giving an orbitlike view of Earth and perhaps brief moments of weightlessness. The whole adventure would probably last about 15 m