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Rules Set for $50 Million America's Space Prize
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that The rules have been set for Robert Bigelow's $50 million 'America's Space Prize'. The gist of it is that the winner needs to get a crew of five people up 400km, complete two orbits of the Earth, and then do it again within 60 days. I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!
It seems like spaceship one spent significantly more than 10 mil on their first ship. Is 50 mil a large enough reward for other participants?
The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth; It doesn't say that it actually has to orbit twice though, just reach the velocity necessary to do so.
No.
The basic problem is not that we do not have enough power, it is that we have too many people stuffed in a limited volume (I'm going to avoid having to have two meanings of "space" in this comment, dammit!). Getting to space efficiently allows us to have a larger volume in which humanity can live.
It doesn't solve every problem in the world, but being to run very very far away from your problems helps. It's how the U.S.A. got started.
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active.
If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations. The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong.
This contest also has the potential to create an international incident.
The rules say that only 20% of the vehicule can be expendable. Why have this requirement at all? If someone can send a ship cheaply and reliably that doesn't meet this rule, then why not?
Stephen
Rutan's accomplishment was impressive, but as has been pointed out in other discussions, it was essentially a high-flying airplane rather than a true spaceship, and doesn't scale well. Anyone who wins this prize will have built something much more directly applicable to real space travel.
...
Which isn't to say I don't want Rutan, or someone else whose approach is essentially aviation-based rather than big-boom-straight-up-based, to get it. When I was a kid, I spent endless hours reading my Dad's old 50's sci-fi collection, and somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that a real spaceship has a needle nose and delta wings
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The idea that we should escape the world and live in space...
Why not jsut say lets live on water? Sure as heck easier to get to, and you can have sub-aqua settlements for those hoping to have gone to space.
Benefits of living on water:
No rocket accidents
Cheaper to ferry supplies
Less Gamma radiation
If the global warming occurs, water prices (like land prices, get it!) will plummet! Coastal regions will always be prime real-estate! (for the land views)
You can use desalinisation to drink sea water, you can use devacuumisation to magic up water in space.
You can have solar power and wind power and wave power.
You have a comfortable 1G, and sea level air pressure, and a salty air that will put a healthy hue in your cheeks.
Topless sunbathing.
Can move around the oceans, and fish.
Benefits of being in space:
0g sex
wearing silver clothing
Well I can think of a few more arguments, but going to space 'to live there' is so dumb, living in the desert is easier and cheaper than living in space. Many poor people with camels already do it!
Recycling and filtering our pollution is easier than recycling and rebreathing space station air.
Terrorist attacks are worrying on a space station, which brings us to the question:
So why do people want to go to space and offer prizes for new space technology?
Not for living! not for Star Trek/Wars/n!
But for commercial flights, transports, satellites, RIAA, Micheal Jackson and Military purposes.
So there, I hope we are all done pandering to the space race, as we will be living int he oceans before we live on mars.
Actually, we will all be dead from all the new space weapons.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
What we really need to do is offer a prize for someone to convince all the myopic NIMBY types to give the pebble bed reactors a try. And yes, if you want to build one in my backyard, go right ahead.
3 years might have been nice, but 5 years seems a little too long to me
Sorry, 3 years is infeasible for the kind of development this will take. How long was SS1 in development? This is at least an order of magnitude more complicated.
I'm not sure 5 years is possible, but I'm hoping to be proved wrong.