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Win the X-Prize Cup
fitten writes "CNN is reporting that the X-Prize competition may become an annual event. From the site: 'Hoping to build on the momentum sparked by a private rocket plane's dash into space, supporters of opening the heavens to civilians are turning the winner-take-all race into an annual competition that might further fuel imaginations.'"
"into an annual competition that might further fuel imaginations."
Yeah, like the Loebner Prize?
Or maybe not.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I would suggest that the next XPrize be a vehicle challenge.
Develop a zero emmisions vehicle able to travel 1,000 miles, carrying 4 people, minimum distance between stops being 200 miles. No stop may last longer than 15 minutes.
This would essentially emulate a family driving in any EU or N. American country. All while driving a stake through the Oil companies hearts.
Burt Rutan, who IMHO is an aeronautical genious, and his team took years to do this. Is the one year cycle enough to do this right?
Furthermore, having prizes for things like "most passengers" just smacks of safety issues.
Even SpaceshipOne was almost lost on one of its flights. This isnt trivial, things can and will go wrong, and its a very unforgiving environment.
Now if people accept the risks and are willing to go regardless, I respect that. But what I dont want is a bunch of bad press for space travel, and resulting overregulation and fear among the public, resulting from a slew of fatalities at the X Prize Cup.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
I hope this doesn't detract from other more ambitious prizes.
Just getting to space is nice, but I'd like to see bigger prizes for things like orbital flight, rather than reccuring smaller prizes for doing the same old thing a little bit better than the last guy.
I can imagine a cool concept for the X-Prize version 4.0 (or thereabouts).
Pay some space agency to launch a tiny satelite, just a transponder with a n-million dollar check rolled up inside. The first private team to go up and retrieve it in person keeps it.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
I'll second this. As far as the public is concerned, anything less than orbital is a joyride unless it costs less than 10,000$ and can travel around the world (in which case it becomes a replacement for long distance airplane flights).
"She was out of her depth in a shallow pool." -- Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin
Also, let's be a bit more ambitious. With the recent revelation that the American military is working on anti-matter weapons, we can safely conclude that we have "found" the fuel necessary for intergalactic travel. An matter-antimatter engine would have almost limitless power.
So, instead of merely "shooting for low-earth orbit", let's "shoot for the stars". Let's "boldly go where no man has gone before ..."
The America's Cup races are held every four years, primarily because it's a technical series and it takes that long to raise the money, build and develop a boat.
Something to think about though, SpaceShipOne only cost about as a much as a well funded, front running 12 meter yacht program.
If you can scrap up the moolah it's now a legitmate choice, boat or space ship.
KFG
In Scaled Composite's defense, none of the others will ever be their equal, nor better, for the mere fact that SC did it first. Others may eventually overcome SC's design, go higher, have faster turnaround, etc. However, Rutan and co. did it first. Having said all that, I agree with you; I think that annual competitions for different challenges will keep the development going. Highest, fastest, most passengers, whatever, just so the minimum altitude is 100 km.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
I think a more logical idea would be to up the ante and create the x^2 prize or the O prize. Make a new prize for the first to acheive orbit, to make an orbit or two around the world. That would have real world impacts.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
I think this is a good idea, in the sense that it could provide the public with an annual "spaceshow" with exciting events to help fuel interest. Contests would give incentive for new innovations in this area, and it would give smaller, independent teams a chance to make it to the big time once a few large companies start dominating the commercial space industry. The only qualm I have is that without strict regulation, this could be dangerous to those participating in the events, and worse, the spectators. Private sector space travel accidents would severely put off the public, because all this shooting rockets off into space doesn't look too dangerous until people get hurt. And as soon as the public realizes that this is in fact dangerous, they will be a lot more hesitant to pay a small fortune for a ticket, or even to go see a launch.
The X-prize Cup is a good step towards making space travel really lucrative for entrepreneurs, which is what we need if we want to see it really develop into something huge and take off (no pun intended).
I've talked to an professor who made his fortune on technology forecasting, and space was a particular interest in him.
We can expect to see fatalities, but what great exploration didn't?
He predicted where space will finally be commercialized: tourism, travel, ads, what-have you. Eventually, we'll mine in space. One example is 03 (oxygen three). This is a major proponent to fusion. Another prediction is the drive for a space race, the fastest and the furthest into space.
We may come to expect a few fatalities, granted. In the greater scheme of exploration, this is just the dawn of a new beginning.
Yeah, and only 2,000$ per pound, and with a 1% chance of your package being incinerated in the upper atmosphere!
But to answer your question... no. SpaceShipOne couldn't go that far point to point. At 100km, it could make it that far if it *also* had a velocity of ~7800 m/s at that altitude.
However, on the subject of deliveries, it does remind me of something else. I had a friend who worked as a translator for the army during the cold war. She took part in the inspections of one of those regular disarmament agreements, in which both sides agreed to destroy so many missles, and then used it as an excuse to get PR while scrapping their old missiles that they didn't wany any more. The inspectors were there to probe into any space small enough to possibly hide a treaty-limited item.
Well, over there, she got to talking to the Russian equivalent of a (Colonel? I forget what she told me). Anyway, she mentioned to him how much of a waste it was, to see these complex pieces of machinery that can go anywhere in the world in half an hour just be scrapped. She told him about how she had done calculations, and that you could retrofit an ICBM, fuel and launch it, and use it as an intercontinental pizza delivery system. You put the raw pizzas in the top, and they're cooked on reentry, and then the pizza "warhead" parachutes down. If enough pizzas were in demand in a given location to fill the warhead, the delivery cost (assuming you don't have to pay for the missile) would only be 10-20$ per pizza.
According to her, he looked at her like she was completely insane.
"She was out of her depth in a shallow pool." -- Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Carmack's Armadillo team are working with hydrogen peroxide monopropellant engines. Although less powerful than bipropellants (eg. liquid oxygen and kerosene), these might also reach orbit if enough stages and/or boosters are used. They've probably still got a better specific impulse than the hybrid engine in Space Ship One.
Also, even if all these things were built just to win the X-prize, the knowledge gained can still be built upon to take the nxt (much more challenging) step.
This is not a sig
If they're going to evolve the X-Prize. They should raise the bar a bit more. SpaceShipOne has won the X-Prize for making it into the fringe of space, but now the prize should be extended to being able to safely complete an orbit and come back down.
Specks
Batteries not included
My guess is that the next challenge would be to make a ship that could transport people to and from the ISS...
As far as i know, the russian non-tripulated ships are the best for material sending (cost effective that it)...
So there is now real need for a maned ship that can transport the crew of the space station...
(of course... after that, the next step would be a private space station).
If one disaster happens- watch how fast private funding dies. All moneys will evaporate quickly.
Best solution is pick volunteers from heroic officer corp. Make random selection mandatory, then honor burned spacemen with shiny brass plaque.
I suggest you read Slashdot
The main idea of this competition was to get things going. Would this cash have been used for something like this if there was no X-Price?
Wow. $30 million invested for two brand-spanking new plane designs (developed over EIGHT YEARS), one of which goes to space and back....you think this is big budget?!?
- The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. -
I say, keep the contest going evey year as it is, but introduce a new prize 5 years down the road or so with higher goals in mind (orbit if its at all feasable). That way you still get new players entering the game looking to get in on the first prize, and you can keep the established teams reaching further and further.
We dont just need one company who can go into orbit, we need lots of them. And untill investors see profits starting to roll in from the early runners, capital for new projects will be harder to come by.
actually Team NZ were trying to get $100M US for their next challenge so X-prize becomes positively cheap looking at it that way. And compared to new 747 size plane at around $200M and upwards - wouldn't be surprised if some of the bigger airlines would consider financing these ventures - Richard Branson can't have all the tourism market....
Terran, or solar escape velocity? Local, or general?
At local terran escape velocity of 10 kps, you're about ready to start lunar colonization. At local solar escape velocity of about 42 kps, you're ready to start mining the Oort cloud for volitiles (for space colonies and/or terraforming Mars and Venus) and any other fun stuff out there. At base solar escape velocity of about 620 kps, you can get anywhere in the solar system, and have a decent start on leaving it.
Of course, it's not all fun and games now. As reported earlier, there's already people trying to make a fast buck off of it.
So, any guesses until the first private race to the moon?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.