X-Prize Cup Site Chosen: New Mexico

savuporo writes "MSNBC reports: "The X Prize Foundation and the New Mexico Office of Space Commercialization are joining forces to stage the multifaceted X Prize Cup, a two-week-long event that allows for privately financed, passenger-carrying space vehicles to compete for prizes.' The first Cup is expected to be held summer, 2006, while 2005 will probably see a 'Public Spaceflight Exposition.'"

Comments

Golly

[z0ink]

I wonder how many UFO chasers will come out of the woodwork when some metal falls from the sky.

Cool

[use_compress]

3rd tier US private industry is catching up to the Chinese government!

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

3rd tier US private industry is catching up to the Chinese government!

Not until they get someone into ORBIT eating kung pao chicken.

Re:Cool

[SEWilco]

How do you eat Kung Pao Chicken from a tube with chopsticks?

Um... I think you do it with the chopsticks.

Free rides?

[multi-flavor-geek]

So, where would the best place to hitchhike be, after all, I do need to get back home to my home planet one of these days...
I am guessing that I will have to do a bit more than flash the driver (as if I was female anyway) to get a ride, arrgghhh. Maybe they follow the unspoken rules of the road (watch Dogma)!

Wrong Name!

[Pavan_Gupta]

Whoa, let's make sure we use the name, "Ansari X-Prize" Hell, if I'd paid my way into that name, I'd be damned annoyed if my name wasn't mentioned!

X-Prize takes the lead

[qaffle]

Watch, X-Prize contestants are going to make it into space before NASA does again.

And going up with the Russians doesn't count.

Sheesh. Why not in the United States?

[AtariAmarok]

You'd hope they would host this in the United States instead of a foreign country!

Re:Sheesh. Why not in the United States?

[screwballicus]

It's often suggested that war is god's way of teaching Americans geography.

You see, we have a critical problem here.

America hasn't had a civil war in a rather long time.

Kabul and Baghdad are familiar names, but when it comes to your own state capitals, what military operations do you have to associate with them?

Now unfortunately, we've got a bit of a paradox here. You might ask, if America can make neither heads nor tales of the world around it without a war waged upon some part of its geography, how does America figure out what to wage war upon in the first place?

That's easy. You just shoot at one of the parts you don't know much about yet. Chances are, it'll either be 1) The Enemy or 2) Adequately trivial that it doesn't matter whether it's the enemy or not.

So learning American geography should be fairly systematic. Just go over the bits you're pretty sure about, figure out the parts you're missing, and launch something at it. More than likely, it'll be either an axis of evil or sufficiently politically irrelevant that there's no harm done. But Fox News will report what it's called. And then you'll know. And knowing's half the battle: GI Joe.

Re:Sheesh. Why not in the United States?

[NineteenSixtyNine]

Sit down. New Mexico and Colorado both belong to Texas and we can take them back any time we want. We just don't want to is all.

explosion!

[LordChaos]

Ha.. I read that as "Public Spaceflight *Explosion*". Probably not a word you would want to use in that context ;)

How lucky to be New Mexico

[beatleadam]

First you get the lucky destinction of having Trinity getting Hot first in the sands of New Mexico only to be followed by this Rocket Launch!

Only wimps use LOX

[Anonymous Coward]

They should merge this with the various human-powered vehicile competitions held on desert flats and roads from Nevada to New Mexico. I for one want to see a human-powered space vehicle.

Whoa, slow down there...

[hjf]

Whoa, slow down there, maestro. There's a *New* Mexico?

Re:Whoa, slow down there...

[jjeffries]

It's a marketing gimmick. They're going to wait for the public outcry then bring it back as "Mexico Classic."

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

[Silvrmane]

And Santa Fe kinda looks like Mos Eisley as you are driving into it in your Land Speeder. Perfect place for a space port. :)

Subscriptions?

[AtariAmarok]

"New Mexico Magazine"

Do they mail that to the United States? Sounds interesting.

Don't you mean...

[Stealth Potato]

"Pepsi presents Ansari X-Prize"?

Re:Interesting Prize Categories

[ncurses]

I can see the new Guinness record now: 35 college students fit into rocket powered vw bug.

Re:Interesting Prize Categories

[Anonymous Coward]

I like number four especially when the crew ends up lost In space with nothing but a damn robot and a snivelling doctor all because the wanted maximum altitude

What an Honor!

[Anonymous Coward]

To the Governor of New Mexico:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Congratulations! New Mexico has been determined to be sufficiently desolate and barren enough that the possibility of launchpad explosions and space debris raining from the sky pose little or no threat to the general population of your great state. Therefore, we are pleased to annouce that we are awarding the X-Prize Competition Site to New Mexico. We also looked at a small, uninhabited atoll in the Pacific Ocean but we found that it would be cost-prohibitive to provide portable toilets at that location on such short notice.

Yours,

The X-Prize Competition Site Selection Committee

Re:100 kilometres up is not orbital!

[karnifex]

Take it from a former resident of New Mexico: if something can be built to withstand an Albuquerque summer, it will withstand launch, orbit, and re-entry.