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X Prize Competition Gets New Sponsor, Amended Name
An anonymous reader writes "The X Prize Foundation today announced that entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari have made a multi-million dollar contribution to the X Prize Foundation. As a result, the X Prize Competition is being renamed to the Ansari X Prize Competition." However, the X Prize rules stay the same: "The ANSARI X PRIZE will award $10 million to the first private organization to build and fly a ship that can carry three passengers 100 km (62 miles) into space, return safely to Earth and repeat the launch with the same ship within two weeks. Both flights must be completed by January 1st, 2005."
What a great way to buy one's name into the pages of history.
You mean, they're changing the name of the porn giveaway? Those bastards.
*blank stare*
Ooooohhhh...
The ANSARI X PRIZE will award $10 million to the first private organization to build and fly a ship that can carry three passengers 100 km (62 miles) into space, return safely to Earth and repeat the launch with the same ship within two weeks
:)
What about the passengers? Or they really do care only about the ship
Sponsors get naming rights on just about everything these days, so it's not surprising the X-Prize wasn't immune... next thing you know somebody's going to buy the rights to put ads on baseball bases.
The ANSARI X PRIZE will award $10 million to the first private organization to build and fly a ship that can carry three passengers 100 km (62 miles) into space, return safely to Earth and repeat the launch with the same ship within two weeks. Both flights must be completed by January 1st, 2005
I hope they extend the date and I also hope the prize money goes up. I think the major entrants have all spent more than $10,000.000 as it is. Still, I don't think they are doing it primarily for the money anyway.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
What happens after January 1, 2005? Do they get to keep all that sweet cash?
I wonder how test flights would go. Someone tricking their little brother to "step in the SPACESHIP!"
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Oh (replying to myself), maybe next time i should RTFA.
how do you spell it
Ansari?
On Apple Input Peripherals: They're okay, I guess, but I was really hoping for a one-key keyboard and a 109-button mouse
I notice it doesn't say what kind of passengers - wonder if mice are acceptable?
I'll just keep calling it "the X prize" until there is more than one.
You can't take the sky from me...
Aside from the fact that Iran is off-limits to most Americans and has been since the overthrow of the Shah, one has to wonder what the motivation of these "angels" are. The press release does not say, but it stands to reason that ownership of all advances and technologies must be turned over in part to the benefactors.
Considering how rich these guys already are, this seems like a way to squeeze more money from the public at large by garnering a monopoly on private space faring. 10 million US is a small price to pay for that much upside. Even the downside is mitigated by the fact that if a team doesn't succeed by 1/1/2005, the whole thing is called off and no money is paid out.
Call my cynical, but Iranians wanting in on rockets capable of doubling as ICBMs worry me.
I have been pwned because my
No, it is spelled "it".
*rimshot*
I thought they bought an insurance policy to pay the $10 mil.
I would have bet that Burt Rutan would have won the prize by January 2005.
I guess they're cobering the bases so they don't have to go out of business in January.
The organizational imperative is to survive and stay viable.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
maybe next time i should RTFA.
/., no one RTFAs. *wink*
Um, this is
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As someone already pointed out, it says that the ship has to return safely, not the passengers.
It does not specify if the passengers have to be alive or not. If you send up corpses, it is easier to keep them intact than it is to keep live passengers alive.
Mice? Does not say you can't send them instead of humans.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
At least those who do it for "publicities" sake, you can't argue that this investment is a boon to the cause.
And to risk venturing off-topic for a second,
I think Ansari X prize should consider expanding there efforts at not just the tech to get us there, but to provide a prize for the think tank that can invent a corporate (manufacturing?) incentive to go there. Basically, show practical applications in space and provide due dilligence.
Or maybe more on the mark... provide a multimilllion dollar reward for the company that can first create an operable facility in space.
Yeah... wishfull thinking, but the more efforts put towards extra-terrastial expansion the better I say.
Dwarfs and midgets have been barred from the Final Frontier. I guess it is back to the mines to look for precious precious mithril.... Oh, and Mini-Me, stop humping the laser!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
X-Prize moon base?
Are you kidding? You must be. Did you that the US spent 10% of its GNP per year for 10 years to reach the moon? Sure they had to invent alot of new technology, but still the costs today would still be enormous. Flying what amounts to a modified airplane 100 miles high is one thing, travelling 250,000 miles away from earth is another.
This was an obvious joke, but I'm not sure if moderators really get it-
Ads really are going on baseball bases. Spiderman 2 has bought the rights to put some logos on baseball bases in the next few weeks.
Next thing you know, corporate sponsors will be buying insightful or funny slashdot posts.
THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY MCDONALDS. WE'RE LOVIN' IT.
...the competition is now known as "Pepsi Presents the Ansari X Prize Competition"
(Why, yes, this was an obligatory Simpsons reference, thank you for noticing!)
~Philly
Thank you for your well-informed post. I also had better inform the travel agency to cancel their tour groups to Iran.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Ok, i think this can be done fairly cheaply I need:- A couple of guys to dig a really big hole. A Really Big flame proof tennis ball to hold the crew. 2 really strong trees (steel poles will suffice) 1 Big rubberband. A guy with good hand eye coordination and a big catchers mitt. Waste
shouldn't the focus be on propulsion methods first. is the traditional rocket engine efficent enough to make such frequent trips. ion drive is looking to be a promising concept
Cats might be able to survive the fall to Earth? Heh. I'll do some tests and get back to you.*
*JK! I love my cat. He could probably leap up into space. I'm not going to do any tests.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
is can NASA take a rocket up 100 km with 3 people, take it down, and put it back up again within 2 weeks?
the Atheist faith
Isn't that an oxymoron?
ymmv
Anousheh Ansari
Founder and CEO
telecom technologies, inc. (tti)
Anousheh Ansari is president, founder, and CEO of telecom technologies, inc. (tti), a supplier of softswitch based solutions for network and service providers offering end-to-end solutions for next generation, carrier-grade multi-service networks. Prior to founding tti, Ansari provided consulting services to the major telecommunications service providers and vendors in the areas of Frame Relay and ATM switch testing and evaluation.
Early in her career, Ansari held positions with MCI Telecommunications Corporation and Communication Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) in various engineering capacities. She worked on architectural design for SS7 and ISDN networks.
Ansari was recognized by Working Woman magazine as the winner of the 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence award, and was chosen as the winner of the 1999 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Southwest Region, for the Technology and Communications category. She has authored numerous technical papers and has two patents for her work on Automated Operator Services and Wireless Service Node. She was a U.S. delegate at ITU SG VII, SG XI and SG XVII, and a representative at American National Standard Institute T1S1 and T1X1 Technical Subcommittees.
Ansari holds a Master of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from George Mason University. She is also a member of Eta Kappa Nu, IEEE and NSPE.
Success
2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence Award winner: Anousheh Ansari, CEO and chair of Telecom Technologies on the cover of Working Magazine (May 2000). "Anousheh Ansari once dreamed of being an astronaut while growing up in her native Tehran, Iran. Today the 33-year-old Ansari is turning upstart Telecom Technologies Inc into a force in the telecommunications industry."
Company profile for Anousheh Ansari
Can anybody find Amir's info?
Hey! In space, copyright laws don't apply (yet). You can set up a rogue state for file traders.
History is bound to repeat itself. Apparently, many of the Europeans who came to the US way back when did so to escape opressive taxes. Of course, others did it for wealth or land. Who knows, if cheap affordable spaceflight becomes a reality, the chance to create a new state from scratch will be upon us.
However, the *IAA are probably ahead of you, or will do their best to be. I had Entertainment Law this semester (had the final today) - we learned that one of the record company executives saw a shot of astronauts in space with music playing. Apparently it was MCI. Well, believe it or not, while artist contracts previously required assignment of all rights for the whole Earth, now they say for the Universe. (Can't have artists suing and reclaiming that lucrative interplanetary market!)
I'm proud to announce the Raehl X Prize. First person to drink a gallon of milk in an hour gets 10 bucks.
paintball
Does anyone else think that now, the reward might justify the cost, if maybe only in the mind of venture capitalists? I could imagine some random super scientist going to a VC firm, purposing, estimating risk, then getting such a loan, with the promise of profit for the investors.
The article doesn't mention how much they gave, but the X-Prize was originally for $10mil, and that hasn't changed. I expect that the X-Prize foundation had that money set aside, otherwise noone would have taken the competition seriously. So now they have more money, but haven't increased the prize. It would appear it must have gone somewhere.
The first to miss gets the Darwin awards.
It's all good.
Imagine this taking hold and we could have our next 'innovation race' circa the cold war. No one can argue the cold war did wonders for technology and innovation. However, instead of having an arms race and worrying about another country blowing yours to bits, nuclear winter, fallout, cancer, etc, we can have safe competition between peers.
I think this is something we need. If necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps competition is the father. What better way to promote competition than cold hard cash?
the Atheist faith
Isn't that an oxymoron?
No it isn't. "the Agnostic faith" would be an oxymoron. But because there is no proof of the existance or non-existance of God, then asserting one way or the other is not a valid fact, theory, or hypothesis of science, but instead is an opinion or belief. Hence Atheism is a belief system based on faith.
Money for anyone who can once and for all get my X Window configuration files working.
There, now there's another X prize.
Fact: *BSD is dying
"RODDENBERRY JOINS X PRIZE ADVISORY COMMITTEE"
I see where this is heading: Gene's son joins the team so he can get close to the launch site. He climbs some scafolding just as that Alaskan sheriff is about to board the ship (Contact). Instead of blowing everything up, Gene Jr. jumps onto said Sheriff with a big bear hug and ends up on board the ship (ST:IV:TVH). They slingshot around the Sun (ibid) where they go back to October of 1955 (BTTF). They steal Doc's DeLorean, drive into the future at 88 mph to San Francisco's UFP HQ. Since money is no longer an issue, they easily win an antique British phone box off of eBay, make some slight mods, and time/space warp back to 2004 (Dr.W)
Unfortunately, at the end of this spectacular journey, Gene Jr. was mistakenly wearing a red shirt. We all know what happens to the red shirts. :-(
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Ok, I buy your point on Atheist faith, but I think the same logic applies to both terms although the dictionary supports both of our assertions:
..meh *shrugs*
agnostic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (g-nstk)
n
1.
1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
2. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
*A believer is someone who has faith.
*Noncommittal is ambiguos and supports your oxymoron theory
-
ymmv
As far as the organisers are concerned, I can't recall them ever posting here, but the plan after the X Prize is won by somebody (probably Rutan, at this stage) is the X Prize Cup, an annual festival/competition where teams will compete to launch their craft as high and as fast as they can.
If they are successful with that competition, I imagine that sooner or later they will propose a private orbital shot.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And not believing in bigfoot is a position based on faith, I'm sure. :/
(Most) Atheists don't maintain there can't be a god. They maintain that, due to the nature of the claim and lacking of evidence, one most likely does not exist.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
The real question is, "How much could the Russians do it for"?
Maybe less, but then again, you can't put a price tag on lives and the Russian space program has killed at least 20 times as many people as the US's space program. Hell, one accident alone killed 148 people when a rocket blew up during launch.
I think definition 1.1 is somewhat bogus. Most agnostics I know would be willing to believe in a God were He to offer proof of His existence (unarguable miracles, perhaps). In other words, they believe that it is possible to know whether there is a God if one indeed exists, it just hasn't been proved (to their satisfaction) yet. By the definition given they'd just shrug and say "that doesn't prove anything".
;-) are not merely a-theist (non-theist), they're downright anti-theist.
Most atheists (the evangelical ones, anyway
As for "a believer is someone who has faith" -- true in a religious context, but how much faith does one have if one believes the sun will rise tomorrow, or that if you drop something (on Earth), it will fall down? I'm a believer in physics, is that faith?
-- Alastair
The deadline is 7 months away and we have yet to see an actual unmanned test launch. To think that any of these groups could get a ship into space and back with people onboard within that time frame is hard to believe. I'm all for them getting there, but it seems this deadline is almost useless it inspired a lot of research and competition but how much of this is going to fizzle when no one can meet the goal set (while maintaining any margin of safety). It'd be nice to be the first private group into space, but how would you like to be remembered as the first private group to kill three guys on their way to space?
First the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize whore themselves out, and now the X-Prize.
Just to put this into perspective, the expected financial reward for the company that wins the Joint Strike Fighter contract is $200 billion.
Hail the X prize contributors, or mod me Disappointed.
"...while history is usually explicable it is often irrational" --Roger Spiller
Are they having any trouble finding people to ride the prototypes into space?
I always liked that scene in Dr. Strangelove when Slim Pickins rode the nuclear bomb into oblivion...
Seriously though, I wonder what the ratio of volunteers to projects might be.
... sort of an offshoot of sealand? An independent space station - nation?
that could work......hmmmm
(Disclaimer: Like any Usenet group, we have our share of trolls, but most of them are easily identified and kill filed. In general the s.s.* groups have an extremely low tolerance for fools, idiots, and those unwilling to learn. It's a tough place to get started in, but well worth it if you are truly interested in the topic.)
"...Both flights must be completed by January 1st, 2005."
Inspired by such a generous challenge I would like to announce that I will contribute my life savings (and of coarse any change in the couch) up for grabs to the three volunteers that can go back in time (yes, a list of various times, dates, and various embarrassing events of mine that are to be altered...namely all of high school) - in addition they must find the jade monkey before the next full moon!
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
a) Huge media attention from the beginning. It's something that's never been done before. That's essentially "free" advertising.
b) Un-editable content. While there are many ads in major league baseball already [see: the scoreboard, the stadium, etc], there are none on the field of play. If something big happens in these games, they can't edit the spiderman logo out.
c) Mention by the announcers. Something like a), except, this is going to be a big deal.
d) Regular advertising. Yeah, they'll be visible on many plays of the game.
Isn't that an oxymoron?
;-)
No, he's just a conventional moron.
Maybe next time, when you're reading some text to yourself, and then apparently just listening to yourself without thinking too much, you should realize that if you want to know how to spell something that you just read to yourself...you just read it to yourself.
I don't try to be right, I just try to make people think
Awe at the fact that these people (and other teams) are attempting to get 100 km, safely, and reusably. The amount of engineering and knowledge to do this isn't trivial. I have attended high-powered model rocketry events, and to see these things go up 10,000+ feet, which is well under 5 km - and these things take a lot of work and knowledge alone, to get up and back down in one piece. One rocket self-destructed in flight. I have seen video of HPMR's exploding on the pad.
I feel excitement that this is being attempted at all - and is likely to succeed at some point (all eyes point to Scaled, but you never know what may pop up in the end). It also has a good chance of failing.
I only hope that should an X-Prize contender fails, that other contestants look upon the failure as a learning experience and continue forth with their entries. I believe that all the "test-pilots" and builders of these craft would agree with me (ok, maybe I am being a little arrogant there)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Those aspects you "believe" about physics are proven scientific facts. Faith is holding something as true without the presence of supporting data or evidence. With regards to gravity and celestial orbits, you do not have "faith", you have an understanding of the supporting evidence. You cannot have faith in something that is proven true.
Just like the movie industries going west to avoid patent inforcement on movie cameras ....
hehe.......you reminded me of an old show I can't think of the name we watched it in science class in elementary... Explorer might be the name, a bunch of KIDS rocket into space with their little craft. :)
Well I for one welcome our new X-Prize overlords. /me ducks.
we get signal!
Almost correct, the Russian space program has claimed about 8-10 times as many lives as the American program. 4 Russian astronauts and about 150-160 gound crew have died, compared to the 22 dead American astronauts.
But no Russian has died in flight since 1971. They've had a better safety record than the Americans for the last two decades, belive it or not!
(Numbers from http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_disasters)
Yes and no - the person making it generally has an unusual definition for "atheist" that makes it a tautology, counting anyone who doesn't hold the non-existence of any sort of god as a matter of faith as merely an agnostic.
It's a common enough claim that Google will find plenty more detail in places where it's on topic (and where it isn't). "strong" and "weak" are useful terms to add to the search.
rant
When the wealthy people start wanting to come on board with a significant amounts of money, it means the project has a good possibility of success.
Sounds to me like the FAA needs to look in to this. Now these guys will want to take lessons for a one way trip.
Where can this information be verified? How did you learn of the etymology of "X Prize"? What are your sources?
So, does this mean that the Ansari X-Prize is now fully funded?
Chip H.
Congratulations to the Anasari family and to the Iranian culture from which they derived their values. This is a noble way of handling wealth. If the Gates Foundation, not to mention Allen, Ellison, Buffet, etc. would simply change their philanthropic disbursements into prize awards for objectively measured goals, such as the X-prize, the world would be a better place for all families.
Seastead this.
Those aspects you "believe" about physics are proven scientific facts.
And yet all scientific proofs need a starting point that is believed to be true. In some cases this consists of another "proven" idea, but if you keep doing a back trace on this, eventually you come to a point where something is taken to true but can't be proven and is called an Axiom. So keep that in mind when throwing around phrases like "proven scientific facts." You are using more faith than you realize, and mostly about things you already believe to be true.
Another interesting thing that seems related is that there is an idea called Solipsism which can't be proven false (or true). Solipsism says that everything around you is a construct of your mind, and doesn't necessarily exist. Have a look here. Reality may not be so neat and tidy as we like to think. All of science that we believe to be true may in fact be some crazy crackpot idea floating around in our own mind, having existence nowhere else. Because this theory is not (yet) disprovable, we are forced to take it on faith that it isn't true.
Now, for those who believe in Christianity and the Bible, is their faith without supporting data or evidence? No. There is a lot of supporting data and evidence for the accounts in the Bible--more so for the New Testament than the Old Testament. If you look at it from an eye witness point of view, the apostles who wrote the books of the new testament had nothing to gain from their works, and in fact most were crucified for it. From a documentation reliability point of view, there are over 5000 copies of the New Testament in its original Greek language, some dating back to the first century. That's a gap of about 100 years between authorship and copy. In contrast, books like homer's illiad have a gap of 400 years between authorship and copy, and I beleive the shortest gap between any of Plato's writings and earliest existing copy is 1300 or 1400 years. Additionally, the fact that we have copies that are in the original language, throws out the idea of things being lost in repeated translations and re-translations.
So it isn't correct to say our belief in science requires no faith, nor is it correct to say that having faith in something means there is no supporting data or evidence.
The real question is, "How much could the Russians do it for"?
No, no, no. You outsource it to China and India and then buy your parts from Walmart. No wonder it takes $10m to build this thing.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
There are no posts of sci.space.* by Burt Rutan in recent years (or anyone else of scaled composites ). He is pretty tight-lipped, especially when compared to Carmack.
You will find, however, many informative posts by the one and only Henry Spencer, author of The Ten Commandments for C Programmers and possibly the most knowledgeable person in the world about the history of the U.S. space program.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Quite a few St. Louis companies / folks are involved, due to the Lindbergh / Spirit of St. Louis connection, as well as the historical involvement of MacDonnell-Douglas (now part of Boeing) in the space race.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
The only thing I challenged these men to do is shift from philanthropy based on someone telling them a story, aka "proposal" to philanthropy based on objectives open to all comers. Of course, fair competition is something that requires character of the philanthropist -- like a genuinely philanthropic intent as opposed to a desire to have a bunch of people schmoozing up to them with appealing "proposals".
Seastead this.