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X Prize Competition Gets New Sponsor, Amended Name

Posted by simoniker on from the kerching dept.

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."

9 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Mods - get the whole joke? by Ieshan · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:Is the ship more important... by LupusUF · · Score: 4, Informative

    "5. The crew must return to the Earth's surface from both flights in good health as reasonably defined and judged by the X PRIZE Review Board. The flight vehicle must return from both flights substantially intact, as defined by and in the sole judgment of the X PRIZE Review Board, such that the vehicle is reusable."

    Rule number 5 :)

    I guess they don't put in on the press release since it points out that people might not come back in good health...but the full rules don't let dead people win.

  3. Re:Loopholes by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Informative

    As someone already pointed out, it says that the ship has to return safely, not the passengers.
    Nope. Rule 3 says "Each flight must carry at least one person..."

    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.
    It's even stricter than that. Rule 5 says "The crew must return to the Earth's surface from both flights in good health as reasonably defined and judged by the X PRIZE Review Board."

    Mice? Does not say you can't send them instead of humans.
    Nope, but Rule 3 says "person" and I don't think mice count as people.

    Try finding loopholes in the actual rules instead of the Slashdot summary of them.

  4. Re:propulsion methods by phoenix.bam! · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is incorrect. Ion Propulsion is only good for micro-gravity / zero-gravity travel. As it only adds small amounts of energy to the craft built up over a long period of time to reach fast speeds. This method of propulsion is impossible to use (as it is currently implemented) for flights from the surface of the earth into outer-space.

  5. Re:Increase the prize money and extend the date by Docrates · · Score: 4, Informative

    SUB-Orbital!. Getting into orbit requires an amount of speed and power that is waaaay beyond what the X-Prize entrants can currently achieve.

    I mean, sure, once they start running a profitable business taking people up to space, Zero G for seconds to a few minutes, and then down real fast, then they can start working on the exponentially harder orbital flights, which will be even more profitable with business applications as well as pure fun.

    --

    There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
  6. Re:Can this even be done?? by rootus-rootus · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is being done.... See the scaled composite web site for info on their *Manned* test flights.

    --
    The moral of the story is: "Always remember to mount a scratch monkey."
  7. Re:Wow by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Informative
    That was the idea behind the prize in the first place, but no big donor stepped forward early -- hence the "X" prize because there was no name, yet, to attach to it. The intention was always to name it after whoever stepped up with the prize money.
    No. It was named the 'X' prize after the series of ground breaking experimental aircraft built by the USAF and NASA. (Think X-1, X-15, etc...)
  8. Re:X-Prize to the Moon... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Informative
    Just out of morbid curiosity, are there any /.ers here who are involved with the X-Prize in any way? If so, do any of these guys have any ideas on what would be next for the X-Prize?
    The best place on the 'net to keep track of these things is the sci.space.* heirachy on Usenet. Several X-prize contenders post there from time to time (Including Burt Rutan and John Carmak) as well as many folks in the CATS movement (notably Jeff Greason of XCor) and many, many folks knowledgeable about space related things in general.

    (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.)

  9. Re:Wow by KJACK98 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.gmu.edu/alumni/spirit/00fall/ansari.htm l If you look at the donators background, I don't think you could find a better or more honorable person to have sponsored this event... This woman definitely deserves her name to be recorded with X Prize's History...