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Heinlein Prize Established for Space Achievements
StJefferson writes "The Heinleins' estate has just announced the establishment of a US$500,000 prize to be awarded as often as annually for individual accomplishment in commercial space activities. What a terrific application of the legacy - both financial and intellectual - of the Dean of Science Fiction!"
Now we can see that it was intended more as a blueprint than a short story.
My favourite Heinlein novel is Friday.
It features a female lead character who is genetically enhanced for the role of a specialist, and secret, courier.
There is a tortue scene in the first which I found quite disturbing, mainly because Friday, the female lead, isn't that bothered about being tortured, she is more annoyed that the torturer is rude!
Anyway, get it, and read it. Then pass it on.
Hooray for the Heinleins. I guess I wondered what would happen when Ginny died; I can't think of any more suitable memorial.
Free Group Marriage licences for the first one thousand applicants to be married in space.
A Free Lunch for the 1st person to coin a new term and get others to grok it in space.
For encouraging colonization:
Free libertarian handbook for the 1st person to sleep over-night on the surface of the moon.
Free libertarian handbooks AND Free Lunches for the first 3 or more people to sleep over-night on the moon together.
And of course, a Clothing Optional Space Station should also win.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
In typical Heinlein fashion, they seem to have come up with an outside-the-box solution that actually has the potential to acheive their goals. It's not clear whether this was all Ginny's idea, or whether R.A.H. had a hand, but either way, it's clearly a great idea.
Now if there were grants for students....
I read "Friday". It had Pat Benetar on the cover.
I, for one welcome our new Martian flat-cat overlords.
Sometimes truth IS stranger than fiction :)
"This year, we award the Bill Pullman award to Bill Pullman, for acting and off-screen behavior that best charactarizes what it means to be Bill Pullman."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That would be Al Bean and Pete Conrad during Apollo 12. They spent 2 days on the surface and slept a bit between moonwalks. Conrad dies in a motorcycle accident a while ago, but Bean is still around.
Sleep over a lunar night? That's not sleeping, that's hibernating.
I'm hoping you're somewhere out of reach of sharp and pointy objects.
On a personal level, the really cool thing about this is that it turns every past purchase of a Heinlein book into monetary support of future space industry.
Yay! I've been paying to support the commercialization of space since I was 8 years old!
(Too bad Bill Gates doesn't care enough about space exploration. He really could be the man who sold the moon.)
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
the word commercialism was used, how about accomplishments in science in space or even to the first and then best science fiction story written in space...There will be "42's" floating around in space when we look in the right place or a litle closer.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
Q.
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Is it for commercial "space activities", or "commercial space" activities? Cause I can think of plenty of "commercial space" activities...even if they are dirty
Well...Heinlein women are definitely bizarre.
But Asimov, despite the PG rating on the majority of his work, has the Dirty Old Man title in the bag. There's simply no contest...ask any of the female receptionists at any of the book publishers in New York from the 1970's to the 1980's. They'll tell you.
Besides...he (literally) wrote the book on it!
Look up "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man".
The idea behind rewarding a price for the commercial exploitation of space is not important, it's crucial. The purists among us might claim that space should be for all humanity, and that it should be used in an idealistic way, and that promoting commercialization of space leads to destructive capitalism out there.
However, please do wake up: as damaging as some of the forces of the free market might be, there is one thing in the free market that even governments have to a much smaller degree. That thing is money. As much as some of us (myself included) might dislike the greedy nature of mankind, fact is that if money is to be made, things will happen, and the end-result might be very good.
For example, look at the first satellites. Sure, the very first ones were launched for purely political reasons, but then the commercial communication-sats were lanched. Expericience with these kinds of satellites (launching risks, maintenance, reliability) has helped us to safely launch other kinds of satellites as well. E.g. at the moment there are a number of satellites watching over our ecosystem: the GOES, POES and others.
I firmly believe that if the exploration of space (and that's not limited to just LEO, but can also be extended to Mars or other places) must be a common venture of commercial and "idealistic" initiatives. And therefore I applaud the Heinlein Estate's prize.
However, I do have my doubt as to who might be able to win such a price: the regulations specifically exclude corporate or government-sponsored initiatives. This seems to mean that only individuals with a big bag of money can ever hope to win the prize. I've checked the main estate site, but haven't been able to find any nominations or ideas on what kind of initiatives might be nominated yet.
Any ideas?
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If they people at NASA had followed RAH writings we would have people living on the moon today instead of rotating around the Earth in a glorified outhouse. Sigh.