NASA Planning Six More Centennial Challenges

FleaPlus writes "NASA has announced plans for six more Centennial Challenges for space-related technological achievements. The X Prize-inspired competitions will have cash prizes of up to $5 million. The challenges are for an orbital fuel depot, a lunar-capable all-terrain vehicle, a pressure suit, a long-term rechargeable power system, a micro reentry vehicle, and a maneuverable solar sail. NASA is currently requesting feedback comments on its current draft of the contest rules."

Comments

space elevator

[Anonymous Coward]

that orbital fuel depot sounds like a great place for one of those space elevators.

Hey NASA,

[quokkapox]

Could we please focus on robotic exploration of the greater solar system, for now? It's cheaper, safer, and it stimulates development of better robots and computers that drive them. It's cheaper to send multiple generations of machines than one generation of manned spacecraft.

We're having enough trouble convincing ourselves to keep Hubble (a robot currently in orbit) operational.

You kicked out that nitwit, an encouraging step. Now defy Bush's grand plan for the boondoggle of manned Mars exploration and keep doing good science.

Re:Hey NASA,

[MichaelSmith]

Now defy Bush's grand plan for the boondoggle of manned Mars exploration and keep doing good science.

Thats right, lets never go anywhere. How about we explore Antarctica with robots while we are at it. Much cheaper in the long run. Find a rock you can't climb to the top of: send a better robot next year.

I'm sorry, some people (not slashdot people, I know) want to do more than sit on their backsides for their entire life. Some of us were born to go places.

Not for a minute do I expect the US government to pay for that to happen. What I do expect is for them to not feed billions of dollars into the companies who have the expertise to provide launch services, to the point where it costs 100 million dollars to get anything into orbit at all.

Sorry for the rant. We are not going to get cost effective access to space (for humans and machines) while LM and Boeing are so addicted to revenue from NASA.

5 million doesn't seem like alot.

[masterpenguin]

In the grand scheme of things, a 5 million dollar prize doesn't seem like alot of money. With trillion dollar budgets, and billions going to nasa, 5 million is a drop in the bucket.

Re:5 million doesn't seem like alot.

[Vengeance]

Right. It's not a lot. In fact, it's positively miniscule.

If you can think of a better way for NASA to get the technology it wants for damn near free, let them know.

Reentry vehicle?

[ColaMan]

Hmm. A smaller version of MOOSE would almost do the trick for the reentry one. Would need a bit of avionics though.

(Goes off to look up old General Electric patents)

Centennial ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What 'Centenial' are we talking about here? NASA wasn't founded util the 1950's so any centennial of NASA is still many decades away.

Good Science is what you make of it.

[Shivetya]

The advancements generated to put men on Mars are not all known to us at this time. Just as we did not know the effects of going to the moon in the 60s.

Is it a boondoggle to set hard goals? If man is going to have a presence in space then we need to start the work now. Sure we've been to the moon before but staying there is a whole new ballgame. Orbit? Been there, done that, hell we are practically trapped in it.

Robots to the stars? Sure, but until we start pushing ourselves out there all we are going to have is the naysayers holding us back forever. Get there and then the naysayers can off to their next project.

I suggest to quite a few /. readers that if any other leader had proposed going to Mars and the Moon again it would have been received a whole lot differently. NASA is finally again moving forward, we finally have someone who killed that damn shuttle program. Can you imagine being saddled with that damn system for another 20 years? The rest of the world would have been watching us from up there instead of looking to the stars to find us.

Sometimes good science requires setting and then obtaining goals that others find silly or wasteful. Go look in history back at many of the major discoveries. You will find quite a few many labeled as folly until it was done