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NASA Eyes Cash Prizes Of Its Own
joeldg writes "Wired is reporting that NASA is considering offering cash prizes for space innovation.
'Lembeck said NASA would consider offering $10 million to $30 million in prizes to encourage private investors to develop space vehicles. Such prizes appear compatible with the vision for space exploration released last week by a White House commission that studied President Bush's plan to send Americans back to the moon and possibly to Mars.'"
Much of the advancement in early flight was related to similar contests of the time.
plus-good, double-plus-good
If you're hoping they'll convert newtons to pounds for you you're out of luck.
But they might be able to give you a league for your foot.
hard landings are considered crashing into the moon, like some proposals meant to crash and cause a crater to form and to see what is down in the moons crust.
a soft landing is like the moon landings, nice and soft...
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/topics/gettospace.ht ml#prizes
I used to work on a DARPA-funded project, and I can tell you - almost certainly.
There has been a push w/ governmental agencies, including NASA, to use COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) products. A private company researches and develops a certain product product (which NASA could do as well), but can then sell the products to a variety of outlets for profit (which NASA is forbidden to do). So NASA buying a one-off of a COTS component pays only a fraction of the R&D cost that the company spent making it.
As an example, I know of a group that needed a very linear high-bandwidth op-amp for a project. Such an op-amp within their specs didn't exist, so they began the intensive effort of designing one themselves. Halftway through the process another company (maybe Burr-Brown? I forget) put a device on the market that did meet their specs. Although they spent time/money on the research, they still saved out in the end because they just bought and used that op-amp without wasting further development efforts.
The big win for COTS comes from the fact that NASA and other governmental agencies and labs CANNOT sell products for profit, but private companies CAN. For example, the lab I worked in (not my group, though) did alot of radar research. After proving new radar concepts would work, companies like Lockheed-Martin or Raytheon would go and build many of them, making millions of $$$ for themselves. Such is the life of research ;-)
make world, not war
Here's the official and wikipedia links to information on NASA's Centennial Challenges Program, which is what the article is presumably referring to. The contests haven't been decided on yet, but currently things like "very low cost spacecraft missions", "breakthrough robotic capability competitions", and "revolutionary technology demonstrations" are under consideration.
Speaking of, has anybody heard about what happened at the Centennial Challenges Workshop on June 15-16? I haven't been able to find any reports on it. Hopefully at least one slashdotter attended...
The successful suborbital flight of Space Ship One has left NASA in shock. Their first post-flight spin was that suborbital flight was not *that* big a deal and that orbital flight was waaaaay harder. Now they hint around about offering prizes of their own. The problem with NASA is not that they don't have smart people. The problem is that their bureaucracy tracks down and snuffs out any creative (read 'different') thinking before the words 'what if we tried...' are ever heard.
the incident you infer reference to was the loss of a NASA probe that didn't quite make it intact to Mars. Pretty darn hard to achieve the correct orbital parametrics with the differences between the two systems. It was not NASA but two different development teams working for a NASA contractor in Colorado that screwed up. One worked their part of the contract in metric units, and the other in English units. The project management never bothered to question the units worked in, nor provide the appropriate management oversight that would have discovered the anomalies. The result was the loss of a $250 million dollar Mars probe. I worked for that prime contractor, although not in that location, and not on that project. (Thank goodness.) Believe me, there was plenty of embarrassment to go around (including NASA.)
Which would be really great if NASA's budget worked as a big sum of money they're free to spend any which way they choose. However, thanks to Congress and earmarked funding, that is nowhere near the current reality. From the CAIB Report (Volume 1, Chapter 5, Pg 8):
Because NASA has a lot of overhead (the goverment uses NASA to funnel support to our aerospace industry, like food stamps is used to subsidize our farmers and grocery industry. It doesn't upset the WTO).
IOW, NASA's base cost would be 50%-500% more than a small companies. That is where the cost savings comes from. And don't forget, NASA doesn't really build anything, the subcontract most of that work out to large aerospace corps.
Heh, as flamebaited as this is, I suggest you go take a look at the movies on the Armadillo site. They're getting very close to launching the big rocket and testing it's landing. Armadillo's got a rocket (it's a prototype) that can launch straight up and then hover to a landing. Doesn't look like they've tested the thing flying around in the atmosphere yet, though.
Impressive stuff, in spite of your flamebait-colored eyeglasses.
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