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N-Prize Founder Paul Dear Talks Prizes For Nanosat Race
Rob Goldsmith writes to point out this interview with Dr. Paul Dear, founder of the N-Prize, and explains: "For those of you who haven yet heard of the N-Prize, the N-Prize is a £9,999.99 (sterling) cash prize which can be claimed by any individual, or group, who are able to prove that they have put into orbit a small satellite. The satellite must weigh between 9.99 and 19.99 grams, and must orbit the Earth at least 9 times. This project must be done within a budget of £999.99 (sterling)."
"For those of you who haven yet heard of the N-Prize, the N-Prize is a $19,636.90 (dollars) cash prize which can be claimed by any individual, or group, who are able to prove that they have put into orbit a small satellite. The satellite must weigh between 0.35 and 0.71 ounces, and must orbit the Earth at least 9 times. This project must be done within a budget of $1,963.67 (dollars)."
...some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant...
£999.99 could probably buy enough menthos and coke to launch the projectile.
It's pound sterling, but I guess that £ only stands for pound so they felt it necessary to say sterling too. Whatever, I'm from Georgia and played in the mud as a child, so I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be trying to answer this.
WHY!?
Is this some prototype for a global diamond delivery system? Serious, apprise me of the value of putting less than an ounce of something into orbit. And it's the "orbit" part that's tricky. A sufficiently large model rocket can do Alan Shepard-esque sub orbital flight. But to then pop it into orbit with a "circularizing burn" is tricky... on a budget.
I'm trying to not be a troll here, but this prize is designed to develop a $2K ICBM for very tiny payloads. If you put VX gas into something that might survive reentry, you'd have the plot for an Austin Powers movie. I'd call it "MoonShagger: It's a gas gas gas."
From the rules at http://www.n-prize.com/ --
15. Piggybacking and Shared Resources
Entrants may not 'piggyback' on other aerospace projects (for example, by launching a satellite as a passenger on a larger launch vehicle). If they do so, the entire cost of the launch will be considered part of the budget of their N-Prize entry. Similarly, no two entries (whether simultaneous or consecutive; whether by the same entrant or different entrants) are allowed to share the cost of common hardware (for example, if a single launch vehicle carries two satellites, then the total cost of the launch vehicle will be considered part of the budget for each of the two satellites).
My spoon is too big.
What a brilliant marketing meme: with just one borderline-ludicrous sentence, he managed to get many thousands of people talking, got his name in the news, launched a website, and promoted the website creation company, all at practically no cost, backed up (should someone ever achieve the borderline-ludicrous challenge) by a home-equity loan. The publicity-to-signal ratio is huge, at miniscule cost.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
It's a pound that's 92.5% pure
*Prices* look like 9,999.99 so they appear small.
*Prizes* should look like 10,000.00 so they appear big.
The full, official name pound sterling (plural: pounds sterling) is used mainly in formal contexts and also when it is necessary to distinguish the currency used within the United Kingdom from others that have the same name. Otherwise the term pound is normally used. The currency name is sometimes abbreviated to just "sterling", particularly in the wholesale financial markets, but not in amounts; so "payment accepted in sterling" but never "that costs five sterling". The abbreviations "ster." or "stg." are sometimes used. The term British pound is commonly used in less formal contexts, although it is not an official name of the currency. A common slang term is quid (plural quid).
The term sterling is derived from the fact that, about the year of 775, silver coins known as "sterlings" were issued in the Saxon kingdoms,[6][dubious - discuss] 240 of them being minted from a pound of silver, the weight of which was probably about equal to the later troy pound. Because of this, large payments came to be reckoned in "pounds of sterlings", a phrase that was later shortened to "pounds sterling". After the Norman Conquest, the pound was divided for simplicity of accounting into 20 shillings and into 240 pennies, or pence. For a discussion of the etymology of "sterling" see Sterling silver.
The currency sign is the pound sign, originally with two cross-bars, then later more commonly £ with a single cross-bar. The pound sign derives from the blackletter "L", from the abbreviation[citation needed] LSD - librae, solidi, denarii - used for the pounds, shillings and pence of the original duodecimal currency system. Libra was the basic Roman unit of weight, derived from the Latin word for scales or balance. The ISO 4217 currency code is GBP (Great Britain pound). Occasionally, the abbreviation UKP is used but this is incorrect. The Crown dependencies use their own (non-ISO) codes: GGP (Guernsey pound), JEP (Jersey pound) and IMP (Isle of Man pound). Stocks are often traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX (sometimes GBp), when listing stock prices.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The simplest way to launch satellites is to design a great big gun. The U.S. did some experiments with this with Project HARP. They were abandoned because manned flight required lower g-forces. However, if you just wanted to put a satellite into orbit, then guns can make sense.
Unfortunately, the last guy to try this (Gerald V. Bull), went on to attempt to build a super-gun for Saddam Hussein, and then mysteriously got shot (possibly by Israel's Mossad).
I'm not sure I want to win this contest. There have been quite a few projects in the area, and they all get canceled.
If you can get something in orbit for about $2k, I don't see why an upper weight limit would matter. Satellites are made as light as possible to keep down the cost of the launch, so I would think the goal would be to make the thing as heavy as possible within that budget. Whole thing seems stupid.