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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.
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!"
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
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...
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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.
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
Call my cynical, but Iranians wanting in on rockets capable of doubling as ICBMs worry me.
;-)
I won't call you cynical. But I will call you an ignorant, paranoid, xenophobic and war-mongering fool - no offense.
Not everyone in the middle east would like to 'nuke' America - not yet anyway. Give it time, and consistency of US foreign policy and maybe... but even then you'd have to count on finding some fanatical middle eastern people with millions of dollars to spend on something insanely overt, huge risk and incredibly open to public and global scrutiny. And anyway, everyone knows the best delivery system for a nuclear warhead these days is a suitcase.
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?
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."
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
The organizational imperative is to survive and stay viable.
No, that's the reproductive imparitive. The organizational imparative is to pay large retention bouses when you go bankrupt.
paintball
The first to miss gets the Darwin awards.
It's all good.
Money for anyone who can once and for all get my X Window configuration files working.
There, now there's another X prize.
Actually they did not really have the money when they announced the prize. They actually announced the prize, hoping they could gather the money from donations before anyone could claim the prize. It seems a questionable thing to do, but looks like they will get away with it.
"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.
Umm...he didn't say that everyone in the Middle East wanted to nuke America. He specifically mentioned Iranians. With all due respect to the Ansaris and the vast majority of the Iranian people, it would raise my suspicions, too. The simple fact is that despite the current "moderate" executive branch of the Iranian government, the religious extremists actually hold all the power. They've demonstrated this by vetoing attempts at reform by the President and, most recently, disqualifying a vast portion of the legislature from reelection for ambiguous "religious" reasons. These hard-liners would like nothing better than to see more planes flown into American buildings. Absolutely the only thing stopping them is fear of retribution ala Afghanistan or Iraq.
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?)
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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.
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
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.
The Ansaris are U.S. residents (citizens too, I would guess - the article doesn't say, but as they both are well-established American businesspeople, I find it likely). Saying that their Muslim-nation background makes them automatically suspect is a witch-hunt.
The basic science of missiles is understood - the science of the X-Prize is on developing a re-usable vehicle that can make multiple trips within a couple of weeks. I'm not an expert, but I'd be surprised if X-Prize technology ends up getting used in ICBM's.
Sponsoring the X-Prize doesn't mean the Ansaris have exclusive access to its aerodynamic secrets.
The most popular movie in Iran right now is a satire of religious extremists. Of course they do hold most of the political power, but this isn't a heirarchal society where every person of Persian background (including US citizens) is trying to build a bomb for the religious right.
"Absolutely the only thing stopping them is fear of retribution ala Afghanistan or Iraq"??? I'd love to hear you back that up. It seems to me, that a determined state could make an anonymous terrorist attack of some kind. Anyway, the war on Iraq isn't retribution for anything; even Bush doesn't claim that, I don't know why you would. The war on Afghanistan may be retribution at heart, but the Taliban (or the people of Afghanistan) didn't attack the US.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Just to put this into perspective, the expected financial reward for the company that wins the Joint Strike Fighter contract is $200 billion.
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.
(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.)
e) Rain delays = Kirsten Dunst runs onfield in that pink shirt = best. ratings. EVAR!
The reuse of ICBM's could enable us to wage global nuclear war in a more environmental friendly and economical way. Oh, wait...
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.