Hack A Day Prize is a Trip To Space (Video)

Last month, at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014, Timothy Lord spotted a guy wearing a very large piece of headgear that included two crossed wrenches. The guy turned out to be Mike Szczys, Managing Editor of hackaday.com, which says, "The Hackaday Prize will send one person into space for building the next evolution of hardware." That's certainly of interest to the hardware hacker/maker crowd. How they're going to arrange the space flight (probably one of those "just above the atmosphere" hops) isn't specified, but even so the contest is an interesting idea, and the Hack A Day site seems to have some interest hacks and tutorials on it. So go ahead and enter the contest -- and don't forget to take your camera with you on your flight into space, because we'll want to see pictures! (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

I'd like to buy a vowel

[tepples]

Somehow the name "Mike Szczys", like so many Slavic or Welsh names, reminds me of an old article in The Onion titled "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia".

Shit, not again

[frovingslosh]

We have already discussed this. The cost of a trip to space is so high that the average guy can't afford to win it and (as has happened before) would have to decline it, otherwise the taxes on the "prize" would ruin you.

This prize could financially ruin you

[frovingslosh]

Generally, Birthday gifts are not taxable. But winning this "prize" could financially ruin you, at least if you live in the U.S.A., since you would have to pay taxes on it. Federal tax and, in most states, state and maybe even a local tax. We have already had someone who "won" a trip to space who had to decline it since there was no way that he could afford the taxes on it's supposed value. Even the cost of a sub-orbital trip is a lot more than I could afford to pay the taxes on, and I expect that many others feel the same way. So if you are going to offer a prize like this then you should either offer a cash equivalent (which you can pretty much expect most people would choose out of necessity, even though they might only get to keep about half of it) or sweeten it with the trip plus enough cash to cover all taxes (including the taxes on the extra cash).