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NASA Prize Program Releases Workshop Report
colonist writes "NASA's prize competitions program, Centennial Challenges, held its first workshop June 15-16, 2004 to brainstorm ideas, define rules and set prize amounts. The post-workshop report (PDF) is available. New ideas for challenges should be sent to <ccideas@hq.nasa.gov>. The Centennial Challenges program is supported by the X Prize Foundation, the Aldridge Commission and some members of Congress, but not all."
I am very happy to see that NASA is taking the next generation of spacecraft very seriously. It is rather sad that it took two accidents to see that they really did need a new space craft.
Hopefully it will get into space sooner and revive public interest in the space program though, since the private sector is very influential in pushing technology forward.
is that if a project horribly fails it, NASA doesn't have to pay! No risk!
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
Let's make a challange to transport humans to Mars by 2030, wouldn't that be fun?
It would be a complete gas! That is, as long as we use Nuclear Rockets. I *don't* want to have the travelers sitting around for a year and a half while they wait to get to their destination. A NERVA rocket (1960's tech!) could get the astronauts there faster and cheaper. If properly developed, it could even make Mars trips practical.
Personally, I'm thinking that NASA needs to be financially broken down by:
- Science (Deep Space Probes, etc.)
- Engineering (New *cough* propulsion methods)
- Vehicles and Launch Support
Congress would fund each of these individually, according to their needs. This way the long term projects (Remote Terrestrial Observation, or exploring Europa) would not be confused with shorter term projects (vehicle design) and Congress won't can the projects because "they're taking too much time and money".
In addition, Congress can then see a very real return on the money they spend. Invest in a new engine, see the results in 2-3 years. Invest in a vehicle (must be based on existing components put out by the engineering department) and see the results in 2-3 years. Invest in a science probe and see the results 10 years later (as the plan calls for).
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Remember these are prizes, meaning a contest of many parallel efforts which if NASA attempted would surely exceed budgets. It's like paying for a product, not the r&d of all efforts - which is what nasa has essentially been doing (10-30 mill "in house" wouldn't buy very much). No matter how you look at considering all facts, 10-30 mil isn't shit when considering the product produced. Especially when you consider NASA products normally cost amounts that begin with "B". C'mon - just think about the X-prize; 10 million for a reusable spacecraft? How much do you think Nasa would spend on the same endeaver. I would guess SEVERAL *B*illion.
ymmv
Beat NASA to the Moon. As a "Friendly" competition, the goal would be to beam back pictures of a NASA lunar probe as it lands.
They've got some good stuff there. A lot of "solve problems that have dogged NASA for a while" sort of things -- lightweight radiation shielding, tanks that can be used for long-term storage in space without the contents boiling off, stuff like that. There's a few big X-prize-ish challenges, like an orbital x-prize mission, a better sub-orbital mission, etc.
And there's even some talk about some projects oriented at the hobyist or student, most specifically a space suit glove. They were seriosuly considering either lending out vacum chambers or providing the plans so that you could build one for around $300. Which I thought was especially good.
Gentoo Sucks
Actually, the whole point is that these aren't even enough for big corporations.
The whole point of such prizes is to get college teams, small startups, and millionare h4x04z like John Carmack to work on them. Because they'll probably be questioning assumptions the whole way.
It's also a cost-multiplier effect. For every dollar spent by NASA, severl more dollars will be spent by financial backers, losing teams, etc.
And the big thing is, for normal projects, to get it going, you just need to be good at powerpoint. For this one, no success = no money. So it really prevents folks from blowing money because they've got it. Or assuring NASA that the breakthrough technology that's needed to make the design work will be ready shortly (a la the X-33's lumpy composite fuel tanks that didn't actually work)
Gentoo Sucks
$30 million would probably not even pay for the studies necessary to decide which project should get funding in NASA-land. If they get any results at all from such a tiny amount of money, it's a real bargain compared to doing it in-house.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
SpaceShipOne isn't very useful for going anywhere, without major mods.
Which is OK. SpaceShipOne and the X-prize was mostly there to show that it was possible, not necessarily to actually build the production vehicle.
After SpaceShipOne flies some number of missions, they will probably have a pretty good idea for what the cost of a production space vehicle, operated like an airplane, would cost, so that folks can write up believable business plans to attract investors and not come off looking like pie-in-the-sky whackos.
Gentoo Sucks
My guess is that Rutan's going to have to prove an orbital flyer before they actually take him seriously. Opponents will simply point out that the stresses and heat problems go up exponentially with speed. Since speed is what you need to achieve orbit (much more important than altitude), he'll have a hard time convincing the opponents.
What SpaceShipOne did do is prove that space travel is open to development by small companies. Once he claims the X-Prize, Rutan should have no trouble in finding investors for an orbital space-plane.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
NASA continues to search desperately for ways to divert attention from their core failure areas. (No new launchers in 30 years, a space station with no mission, and space shuttles that blow up.) Congress needs to pull the plug on all NASA activities not directly related to putting stuff in space. General R&D funding should be done through the NSF and NIST, which have the charter to do that. NASA does not, and it's not very good at it. NASA is really good at taking credit and putting big color pictures of irrelevant stuff in their PR materials. But as a scientific R&D operation, they're a flop.