A correspondent pointed out to me earlier this week an interesting piece of legislation. HR 5336, the Space and Aeronautics Prize Act, was introduced by Rep Rohrabacher last month, just before Congress adjourned for the election. The bill calls for a “National Endowment for Space and Aeronautics” that would run prize competitions “that have the potential for application to the performance of the space and aeronautical activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” The bill would specifically create a $100-million prize for a privately-developed manned orbital vehicle, similar to Robert Bigelow’s America Space Prize.
The timing of this bill’s introduction is a bit odd, since the bill has effectively zero chance of any consideration before the end of this Congress. (The lame-duck session starting next week will likely be quite short, with no time to consider new legislation like this.) Presumably similar legislation will be introduced next year; it’s my understanding that the House Science Committee has been studying prize legislation in general.
This looks like good news.
What’s the significance of the “endowment”?
Is it that donations can be made to an endowment but not to NASA?
How about legislation that grants a tax deduction for money donated into a fund that is invested and grows until paid out to the mother of the first child conceived and born away from the Earth?
No deadline for payout. The money simply grows until paid. 20 years, or 120 years? Doesn’t matter.
After all, isn’t settlement the real goal of space advocates?
Creating such a fund doesn’t require an act of Congress. Just set it up as a non-profit and people will get the tax deduction.
As for government funding prizes, it’d be nice if it came straight out of NASA’s budget, but I’d really rather not see MORE of MY money going to compete with private organizations that are spending voluntarily contributed funds.
The purpose of the bill is usefull, in particular in that it greatly increases the maximum amount for particular prizes in relation to the Centennial Challenges program. However, there are some problems with the specifics. Most importantly, the funds appropriated are only available for 2 years. It would be difficult to see companies devoting serious resources to an orbital prize without knowing the prize funds would be available when they complete the vehicle. It does allow for private property to be put towards the endowment, which would not be subject to bi-yearly appropriations, but untill the base endowment reached a significant amount, the usefulness would be greatly limited, and might tend to deplete itself through minor prize payouts prior to achieving significant amounts.
Another big problem is the 150 million cap on yearly prize amounts. This functionally excludes the possibility of a lunar (or NEO or Mars) prize. I can see why they would want to keep the endowment from being depleted in one shot, but it still limits the useful prize options in a way that would be best left to the administrators of the endowment, especially if the funds are from the public rather than appropriated through Congress.
I also wonder whether setting up an endowment is a way of passing on fund-raising responsibility to the public while seeming to support space activities, so as to avoid the need to actually fund either the endowment itself or the Centennial Challenges program to the levels where they will be useful. Again, the authority to hold appropriated funds for prizes over at least five years (just my shot in the dark, it might need to be longer or shorter depending on the goal) seems to be the most important issue, rather than focusing on private donations.