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NASA Prize Competition Solicits Ideas and Partners
colonist writes "NASA's prize competition program, Centennial Challenges, is asking for proposals and partner organizations. NASA plans four categories: Flagship Challenges (space missions), Keystone Challenges (technologies), Alliance Challenges (run by partner organizations) and Quest Challenges (students and other groups). You can also submit ideas for prizes."
As a challenge, I'd like to submit that myself and a partner be the first couple to conceive a child in space. If this is Sigourney Weaver - then that can be my prize. Like two peas in a pod.
Stuff that matters.
"Hey look folks, we're in a bit of a fix: we have a $15.5bn/yr budget, but we're stuck with this stupid space station, and we're also afraid to do anything in case we screw up again, and we're a big fat brain-dead administration. So, like, can we give one of you a teensy little big of our big pile of cash to give us some ideas? Thank you in advance!"
I say it's pathetic...
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Do all the Slashdot Eds check the threads for posts slagging them off so they can mod them down or is he the only one who _has_ to?! Hahahahahaha! Fscking priceless!
Last time they had a competition like this, the winning submission was the X-4000 Launch Aparatus, which is yet to be successfully used.
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I can't help but notice the US continuing to press forward in experimental technology that will bring the world closer together, yet we are still in denial about the resulting effects of this.
The internet propelled the world rapidly into an era of global trade and communication and yet the US and most of the general populous continue to legislate and complain as though communication and trade were still a function that required a 12 hour flight, or 2 week ship ride to facilitate. Everyone is whining about globalization, WTO etc.., and then turning around and complaining when their job got outsourced to someone who would take a lower wage and not bitch about union rules and overtime. Once upon a time, this country was built on the backs of people who beleived in an honest days work to feed their families and getting the job done was a matter of personal pride, not of billable hours.
As industries continue to push the boundaries in space technologies, the day imminent where a business man will be able to fly to London, New York, Tokyo, Moscowand back home in the space of a single day. What will happen then when goods can cross the planet in a few hours. If you think illegal trade and outsourcing are bad now, wait another 5 years. I really think the US should start facing reality that it is no longer feasable to hold an economy so far above the rest of the world. Our current rhetoric about trying to secure our borders sounds alarmingly like the same thought that drove China from the World's formost superpower in science, technology, and economy in the 14th century into poverty and isolation.
All this new stuff from NASA sounds great, and I am a huge proponent of space travel. But the moment someone figures out how to do LEO flights, we are going to find that our $7 Trillion deficit and isolationist fantasy that we can still have everything "made in the USA" is going to drive us back into a 3rd world squallor.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
1) First privately funded orbital flight
2)First privately funded lunar rover
3)Compettions to design space habitats
4)Zero-G agriculture projects
5)Contest for student-designed zero-g experiment (to be put on space station and run for period of time)
Maybe, all of these prizes like this and the X-Prize will help hurtle technology forward so we can all get into space.
I will not submit this to them though. I don't think they would choose it.
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Answer these questions three err ye launch your rocketry...
I read the fine article, and came to the conclusion that some NASA higher-ups had to be embarassed by the success of the X-Prize competition and Rutan's SpaceShipOne. So, as a result, they are starting up their own competing competition. It even imitates that Anasari "next" X-Prize competition in the way it is set up. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or something like that.
This should be humorous. I've spent some time reading NASA's publically accessible documents, and they are without a doubt the most overwritten documents I have ever seen. As long as the people involved in the program don't have to maintain NASA-level paper documentation, it might work. I have this sneaking suspicion that the managers NASA attaches to this program might end up killing it by force of documentation.
I am just an
-Obnoxious Twit.
I hope all of these prizes like this and the X-Prize will help hurtle technology forward so we can all get into space.
We develop a spaceship that doesn't explode when it goes up.
Brilliant!
AND (here's the tricky bit) it also doesn't explode when it comes down.
Brilliant!
The X-prize was a very cool idea. Offer cold, hard cash for people who successfully do something new and interesting.
Now NASA is looking for other suggestions for prizes that would have the same effect in other branches of space exploration. More prizes along the same lines could provide incentives for a wide variety of inventions.
So, here's a proposal. Some body (I'm thinking governmental, because I'm an evil liberal) would accept proposals for prizes, accept donations towards specific prizes from governments and private entities. The prizes can be rewards for any sort of accomplishment. For example, if somebody wants to spur leukemia research, they would draw up a request for a new treatment that reduced the mortality rate by 50%. Then they could front as much money towards the prize as they like, and others would be free to donate as well.
The prize organization itself would be in charge of determining whether the requirements of a prize had been fulfilled, and of taking care of the money in the meantime. If a prize went well beyond its expected lifetime--say a prize was offered for something truly impossible, like psychic teleportation, and has simply been sitting around for a decade or two--then the money could be funneled into other prizes.
Other prizes that might be offered:
*An "effectively secure" electronic voting system.
*A carbon nanotube with a strength of 150 GPa.
*A lightbulb that uses 1% of the energy of incandescent bulbs.
*A good Linux driver for WiFi card X.
*Gweneth Paltrow's phone number. Okay, maybe not.
*A way to make soy taste like meat, without putting it through an animal first.
I figure there should also be some sort of moderation system apart from money, so that good ideas that lack funding can get the attention needed to attract said funding.
Any improvements to be made, or fundamental problems with the idea?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
If I had an Idea, I could submit said Idea in hope of gaining a prize. That is a great idea. To reiterate, my idea is to have an idea to submit. With the Nasa prise as further encouragement, there's no telling how far my ideas could go. I could even come up with an idea so ingenous that it could create other ingeneous ideas in other people just by having them think about it. Now that's a brilliant idea. Of course the idea could become so powerful it would take over scandanavia, but I'm willing to accept that probible outcome.
Heck, it beats Canada.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I found an interesting website that acts kind of like what I had in mind. WhyNot?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
'Cold Hard Cash' wasn't exactly the motivation behind the winners of the X-Prize. Im not sure of the numbers but i think they spent 200M building a spacecraft to win them 10M. These people are in it for the advancement of their science (or their name in a history book or on a plaque, or the commerical success - enter Ricahrd Branson).
This is true, and my writeup does overlook the other motivations you mention. Nevertheless, those motivations would still be in play.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I'm trying to figure out how Bush can be blamed for this, but I can't. Perhaps I need to be enlightened.
The big problem with such prize systems, as I see it, is when they give prizes for something that in and of itself has a low intrinsic monetary or other value. This means that there is little or no motivation other than the prize, and thus effort made towards it is completely wasted if or when someone else gets there first. This is often compounded by unrealistically small amounts of prize money for the amount of time, resources and risk involved.
:-)
:-)
Of course, you can collaborate with others, but then the prize is diluted, and you're still stuck competing against other teams.
I once wrote some code for someone on Slashdot who offered some sort of bounty for the first to finish, but it only required a couple of days' work, when I would otherwise have had nothing to do, and before I put any substantial effort in, I contacted the guy and made sure there was no one else seriously trying to solve the problem. And, of course, it was GPLed
The X-Prize is completely different, of course -- the end result achieved does have intrinsic value, and would be worthwhile even if the prize did not exist
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Quest Prize Suggestion:2 Million For: First human in space wearing nothing but saran wrap!
After having stated the obvious, I propose that we focus on technologies that have dual use. For example, matter-antimatter technology could be the basis of a futuristic rocket engine, and that same technology could be the basis for a space shield to shoot down Chinese nuclear missiles.
NASA's Centennial Challenges program is just getting started, but it could lead to big things:
Robert Zubrin, The Case for Mars, 1997
not sure a loss of 190 million dollars is much of a motivation!
Moderators don't bother to think anymore.
Except for the ones who want to mod me up.
We call this distributed prize system "the market". You may have heard of it.
so basically nasa is outsourcing the job that the dod outsourced to nasa... ah beaurocracy at it's best
All the torrents you could want.
X-prizes in other areas of science/technology? Looks like they've already thought of that.
When I first read this, I thought you were being funny. (I don't mean to disparage your post - you have some good ideas.) My first thought was, "Don't we already have that?". If I have an idea for how to reduce Leukemia mortality, I send a (grant) proposal to the NIH, and they review it and send me money if they think my idea has merit, and I have the means to carry it out.
I guess the way this is different is:
After thinking about it in more detail, I think such a program could complement the existing grant structure in various government organizations. (NSF, NIH, DARPA, etc.)
Ben Hocking
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Is this that thing they call "sarcasm"? I've been on Slashdot so long, it's hard to tell.
Now, despite the fact that the X-prize wasn't nearly enough to cover the research and development costs of even one of the teams, it spurred competition by creating interest and by setting a concrete goal.
You're insistent that "the market" functions better than any prize system could. And yet the X-prize was offered, and suddenly research started moving forward. Why hadn't the market impelled people to work with that sort of single-mindedness before then? Do you think that not having the prize in place would have significantly delayed things?
I'm not sure what the magic formula is that made the X-prize so successful. I certainly don't know if the same technique can be scaled up to bigger projects or down to smaller ones. But I find your dismissive sarcasm somewhat unhelpful.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Has he posted his oblig. Roland-ad-revenue link yet? Did I miss it? I sure hope I did. :-)
One of the keys to transportation economy is the time value of money -- and that translates into velocity.
For example, one of the fallacies of asteroidal mining proponents is that you can afford to bring the stuff back to earth. The problem is the round-trip times start killing you due to interest costs on the capital equipment.
If you had nuclear rather than chemical propulsion that helps, but you still have problems with the shear mass of fission systems.
What you ideally want is aneutronic fusion of light atomic nuclei in a device that has a very high specific power. The worst you have to do is provide gamma ray shielding and you may actually be able to do round-trips to the asteroid belt in weeks.
Anyway, here is an excerpt from the relevant legislative language:
Seastead this.
It would be better to shut down NASA and give us our tax dollars back so that we can fund the X-Cup through private initiatives.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"Seems to me like they are trying to embrace, extend and extinguish the X prize concept much like another monopoly we know."
I don't know why NASA attracts so many conspiracy theories: I guess it's part of being a high-profile government agency.
There is a simpler explanation of why NASA is organizing the Centennial Challenges: it saw how the Ansari X Prize and the DARPA Grand Challenge produced good results for space tourism and DARPA, so it will use this idea too.
And it is a good idea. The advantage of prizes over grants is that no money is given until the actual task is completed, and then all the money is given to the winner.
I agree with you that intellectual property is a very important issue, but instead of talking about it here, you should contact the Centennial Challenges people directly. If their rules are bad rules, then do not enter their competitions and try to persuade them to change the rules.
I say, just build a large ship, enough for say 50 people or so and launch them into space. Fuel up in orbit and launch towards the nearest earthlike planet. Give them the basic plant life generation, etc. I think you will find a whole lot of volunteers to try this and I think human ingenuity will get them out of things that come to pass, such as running out of food/water, oxygen, etc. When faced with death, you come up with some great ideas.
- Creativity is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein
Yeah, it needs a great moderation system... let's have Taco design it!!
In the eighties, the Air Force planned what was basically a giant crossbow to launch disk-shaped payload vehicles carrying satellites. just stunning. I now know that about half the 12.2 billion/year goes to crak to think of these dumbass ideas. What is next, a 500 meter musket rifle?? eventually we will get into massive uzi's in order to get into orbit i guess...
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
Pure systems don't work. Pure free market systems would inhibit innovation because many innovatiosn come from things with little or no intrinsic monetary value. Innovation is also expensive, it's economically more favorable to get a monopoly and never ever change your product again.
You always have to have a mix of private and public industry. Public like Universities and private like Monsanto. One to research new ideas, and one to refine old ones.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Prizes have been used for a long time to develop things for which there is no apparent short-term profit - the X-prize was inspired by the aviation prizes of the 20's and 30's. Before that there were various prizes for things like navigation aids during the Renaissance period. I'm not saying that they don't work. My point was more that trying to slap a bounty on every conceivable idea, all under the purview of some centralized body, will result in an incredible amount of bureaucratic overhead and waste.
Errr. WRONG. Allen & Rutan did not spend $200 million to develop/build SS1. Allen invested $25 million which was enough to complete the project.
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What about some goals/prizes to propel things along towards tethers, skyhooks and space elevators? Materials of specified tensile strength/weight, self-supporting tethers of specified length, deployment of orbital tethers at various lengths and altitudes, etc.
Steve
So instead of one prize for a really large sum and prestige, we'll have an entire program of prizes at all sorts of dollar levels spread across dozens of sub-projects.
Oh sure. That works great. We wouldn't think NASA would take a simple thing and over-engineer it, would we?
I love the space program. Really I do. But NASA has lost all of my respect as an agency. The FAA has a motto of not only regulating air travel but also promoting aviation among regular people. NASA's charter should have been written this way, and half of the money should be spent accordingly. NASA should not own space travel for all Americans. Lower the cost to LEO by a 1000-fold and watch the economics of space travel change. Change the nature of the problem -- stop continuing to frame the problem in terms that make the solutions difficult or impossible.
We could have done this 20 years ago. How many more billions are we going to spend on giant complex fireworks for PhDs and test-pilots to fly?
fairy muff - still more than the prize is worth tho.
I think thats the most appropriate moderation I've ever recieved on slashdot.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I'm not proposing slapping a prize on every conceivable idea, just the ones that people/corporations/other government agencies consider worthwhile to fund. I just think it's an interesting idea to have some way of streamlining the process of offering the prizes. It doesn't matter much to me whether it occurs under a new government agency, an extension of an old one like the NIH, or a private foundation. I think I may have gotten things off on the wrong foot by getting the Feds involved.
Run properly, the management would only amount to a few percent of the actual money being disbursed. I know that a properly managed government agency is a huge stretch of the imagination for many people, and not without reason.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Especially when you've actually worked with government agency, and seen the "management" first-hand. :P
I do agree that the prize concept is a worthwhile one. But I have a hard time seeing it work in a federal context. Based on my own experience , there's a high likelihood of the prize competitions coming with multiple layers of rules and requirements, and most likely an innate bias towards whatever the governments "preferred" solution. Not saying they'll all turn out that way. But a private org like the X-prize foundation, which just wants to get some problem solved, is a whole different beast than a government agency, which typically wants to specify the solution ahead of time.
You're insistent that "the market" functions better than any prize system could. And yet the X-prize was offered, and suddenly research started moving forward. Why hadn't the market impelled people to work with that sort of single-mindedness before then?
Because of a short-sighted treaty that prevents commercial exploitation of space. The market was essentially eliminated from play.
If the US pulled out of that treaty, there'd be no need for the X-prize.