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.'"

Comments

space prizes

[loid_void]

I can see it now. Space Sailing, Moon Boarding, Zero G MotoCross... ESPN EXXTREME SPACE.

Re:space prizes

[HarveyBirdman]

ESPN EXXTREME SPACE.

Add an X and go for spacepr0n.

The Spice Network presents EXXXTREME SPACE!

Just think, in microgravity everyone has perky breasts!

Just wear those condoms, guys. We don't need your spooge getting in the attitude controls.

One Question

[Enlarge Your Penis]

I'm British. If I develop something, will the NASA reward actually manage to convert the units properly this time?

Re:One Question

[sjwaste]

Mod me down for this if you must, but how on Earth (no pun intended) was the above comment modded insightful? Sarcasm != insight.

But in the spirit (pun intended) of the good ol' USA, we might've missed a couple conversions, but both of our mars rovers are looking pretty good right now, aren't they?

Re:One Question

[Andy Mitchell]

But in the spirit (pun intended) of the good ol' USA, we might've missed a couple conversions, but both of our mars rovers are looking pretty good right now, aren't they?

Don't be too hard on the Beagle.

To understand what happens its useful to know a little of the background of the people and places behind this project.

For many years the BBC used to have a television production facility on the same campus as the open university, where Colin Pillinger works. In this fertile environment Mr Pillinger would of come into contact with BBC employees. Now, the BBC is well known for its innovative techniques in special effects and ground breaking children's television.

With hindsight it is perhaps too easy to suggest that he should not have been so influenced by the construction techniques on the children's television show known as "Blue Peter".

By using the same techniques and the customary large quantities of sticky back plastic, old washing up liquid bottles and lots of sticky tape the team was able to put together a space probe in record time.

An interesting note is that the project nearly had to be scrapped as Mr. Pillingers mum was using fairy liquid and as we all know a small amount of that brand goes a long way and she was not willing to allow her son to have the bottle until she had used every drop. This particular bottle was needed to construct part of the mechanism used to deploy one of the airbags.

This is where the project downfall came from. On their tight British project budget they had no choice but to purchase their own bottle but could only afford the supermarkets own brand. Unfortunately the lower quality of the plastic in this product is now suspected to have caused a catastophic failure to deploy one of the airbags.

While you Americans may be tempted to look down on our brave little attempt this would not be wise as we might then have to remind you about the following probes: mars observer, climate orbiter and the polar lander. If that fails we might then have to mention a nasty incident during the war of 1812 that required the white washing of a well known building located in Washington D.C. :-)

cash prize, like.. the X-Prize?

[sjwaste]

Obviously the $10M X-Prize got a few groups together to be the first. Most if not all of them have put in more money than the prize would bring in for winning, but there's something about our competitive nature as people... NASA should strongly consider this. If you want innovation, make it a contest. There's a ton of people out there who are that damn competitive that they'll sink their own money to win. I personally think it's great.

Re:cash prize, like.. the X-Prize?

[DAldredge]

No, NASA will buy copies of your ship from you, that is how you make a profit and NASA gets a good ship for less of the taxpayers money.

Re:cash prize, like.. the X-Prize?

[Media Withdrawal]

Makes you go hmm, that's for sure. I've been for this sort of thing for a long time, but now I have my doubts.

NASA is very competitive in its own right, having been invented essentially to put the Soviets out of the space biz. After Apollo (mission success?), the Agency refused to die, and, sadly, its competitive culture survived along with it, with dire consequences for progress in space.

Hallway talk at NASA centers is brazenly disdainful of outsiders. This results in frequent miscommunications with contractors. This broken flow of information played a major role in the failure of Mars Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander.

NASA officials routinely steer potential investors clear of launch startups. This happened to the Rotary Rocket engine team, who were labelled "amateurs." NASA recommended its own FasTrac engine instead. Investors went along with it, and Rotary's engine team got canned. BTW, the rotary team re-formed as XCOR, which, on a pathetically tiny shoe-string budget, built numerous rockets and the first rocket plane ever licensed to perform at an air show. Meanwhile, FasTrac limped along into obscurity.

NASA is brutally competitive. It's used every rule at its disposal for over 46 years to keep space exploration within a small, trusted club of fat insiders. It will be trivially easy for NASA to stack its prizes with enough complex filing and eligibility rules to keep the rabble distracted and on the ground.

sweet!!!

[the_2nd_coming]

yes, this is exactly how research on high tech pie in the sky stuff like next generation space vehicles should be done.

then all NASA needs to do is sit back and let private companies do the engineering which means that they can send the rest of the ash over to propulsion research.

this works well because it helps mitigate the investments made by companies that win and the recognition of the win helps future sales of the products based on the new tech.

Re:sweet!!!

[sjwaste]

I agree with you completely. If you look at state run enterprises in general, their industry is usually one where a private company would not take on the risk. I think space is past that. If private contractors are building satellites, pieces of the space station, etc for NASA, the next logical step is for these private companies to build the means to move such objects into space. While it's not exactly profitable yet, the pride factor alone will compel many. Soon enough, private space travel WILL be profitable. Wouldn't it be sweet to take a trip above the Earth before we're dead?

Hmm...

[CompSurfer]

The question is, are prizes of 10 to 30 million USD enough for corporations to spend that much or more developing space tech? Would it be cheaper than NASA developing the same things in-house? Or would the prize money be better spent on NASA projects?

Re:Hmm...

[grozzie2]

Nasa with it's current beaurocracy couldn't even consider writing the proposal that proposes creating a committe which would ultimately reccomend a study, without spending this much money.

The prizes are to small considering the scale of the achievements required. X-Prize was a 'radical' venture, with a 10 million dollar prize, but that's just for sub-oribital. If you want to truely inspire a 'gold rush' mentality, it's not hard. Set a worthy jackpot for an 'impossible' task.

The current environment of government contractors hanging around the 'space business' today just couldn't survive without a few open ended contracts to manage/maintain equipment on a cost plus basis. Serious prizes will generate serious ingenuity to win them. If Nasa offered 10% of it's annual budget in this fashion, they would achieve on the order of 10,000% the results they currently get by feeding the beaurocracy with nothing but money, money, and yet more money.

If you think about it logically, a martian sample return mission done by current nasa methodologies, would require a multi billion dollar budget, and it would still be looking at a high probability of failure. A billion dollars payable on reciept of 25kg of martian soil. this is not a contest, it's an offer to purchase. Publicize the offer, and verify the 'terms of purchase' via published documents. Sit back, wait. Somebody will deliver.

This is actually perfect for the existing bearocracy. They can get out of the business of doing scary things that kill people, but still keep enough beaurocrats on staff to administer the payouts. Not really a lot of change from what nasa is today, a 'space agency' that doesn't fly into space, just spends money.

The true elegance of this scenario, it's a results oriented system, that precludes any opportunity to pork barrel with the money. Fair value for work done will probably bankrupt a few companies currently working on Nasa projects tho, especially if contractual terms are changed from cost-plus to a results oriented system.

Re:Hmm...

[wass]

Would it be cheaper than NASA developing the same things in-house?

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 ;-)

Re:I'll start

[Anonymous Coward]

$1000 if you take my mother-in-law and don't come back.

Early flight was the same

[DonGar]

Much of the advancement in early flight was related to similar contests of the time.

don't crininalize the model rocket enthusiasts.

[Camel Racer]

Maybe step one would be not to criminalize model rocketry

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/launches/ro ck etry_future_000823.html

and

http://www.sas.org/E-Bulletin/2003-02-28/feature s/ body.html

Re:don't crininalize the model rocket enthusiasts.

[ratsnapple tea]

Would it be too much trouble for Slashcode to automatically make links out of text starting with http://? Just a thought.

In Other Words...

[MaineCoon]

... NASA wants some of this spotlight, and will gladly make hints of support and pose for the camera.

NASA has a budget of USD$16 Billion for this year alone. $10M to $30M?

Lets see prizes in the range of $100M on up. That would make the financial investment risks FAR easier to swallow, and we might actually see more serious commercial enterprises make the attempt.

Seeing SpaceShipOne's successes makes me dream of a brighter future. I'd love to see serious interplanetary space travel within my lifetime.

Re:In Other Words...

[aelbric]

Yeah, it's not like that tax money came from private enterprise or the private taxpayer in the first.......oh, wait

how about 100 billion for a space drive?

[0111 1110]

100 billion USD to the first person to invent a workable interstellar propulsion system that could theoretically make it to alpha-centauri within 300 of our years (yes, you'd have to have sex in space). Any takers?

Finally, a reasonable use for NASA launch money

[nasor]

Considering the roughly $900 million that NASA spent on the X-33 shuttle replacement before simply canceling the project, or the $400 million that they spend on each shuttle launch, I certainly think they should be able to spare a hundred million or two as a prize for someone can develop a private, x-prize style orbital vehicle.

We live in a very strange world

[ArcticCelt]

I just opened my browser on slashdot and I saw two news, one under the other but very different.

One is about a group of hard working scientists who dream of a world where new possibilities are created and human kind evolve to a higher level and the other about a group of litigious bastards who dream of a world where they have so much money that it leaks through their ass and everybody listen to the same crappy music made by some fake overpaid artist.

Mmm, we live in a very strange world. :|

Re:Help mummy!

[bobhagopian]

The parent post is pretty insightful, IMHO. NASA's biggest problem in the last 20 years has had nothing to do with engineering, but with public relations. Add to it two major accidents and you're left with a pretty unhappy public questioning (unfortunately) the need for NASA. Imagine the kind of hell NASA would have to pay if it suffered another accident. NASA is already under tremendous scrutiny by Congress; what would happen if Congress was given yet another reason to cut the NASA budget? How much worse would public opinion get? Now consider the alternative: NASA offers a monetary prize for private companies seeking a route to space. The risks are the same -- people may die, and unlike the parent, I believe that NASA cares about these people. However, NASA avoids the added risk of organizational self-destruction. I've been pretty impressed with NASA in past years. Unlike many governmental organizations, they don't seem to demand credit for everything that is done; if someone gets to space on their own, NASA will be cheering them on. A monetary prize just allows them to promote the exploration of space (with all the risks that it carries) while avoiding the one extra risk of permanently turning the tide of public opinion against it.