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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."
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)
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!
NASA's Centennial Challenges program is just getting started, but it could lead to big things:
Robert Zubrin, The Case for Mars, 1997