NASA, Other

A real lunar lander challenge

Mark Whittington (an occasional commenter on this blog) has an op-ed in Sunday’s Houston Chronicle advocating an alternative approach to NASA’s robotic lunar exploration plans. Rather than NASA design, develop, and operate a lunar lander mission (something that has been indefinitely delayed in part because of the agency’s overall budget crunch), he argues that NASA should structure such a mission as a prize competition. “The way it would work is that a prize – of, say, $50 million – would be awarded to the first group to land an instrument package in a predetermined area of the lunar surface, such as the South Pole, and return data,” he writes. “NASA would define what sort of data it is looking for, but it would be up to the private competitors to determine how to obtain it.”

A few thoughts: while the $50-million figure in the article appears to be a notional figure, it may be far too small to garner much interest, given that the costs of such a mission would likely be much higher. One could argue that any venture mounting such a mission could supplement that money with other income streams, like the commercial sale of imagery or other data, but the efforts of companies like Applied Space Resources, LunaCorp, and TransOrbital have demonstrated how difficult it’s been to make the business case for a private lunar mission to close; the additional NASA prize money may not be sufficient to close the gap. Also, it’s not clear that a prize is the best vehicle for this: as described, it sounds like a more conventional data purchase effort, although that may be a distinction with little practical difference here.

46 comments to A real lunar lander challenge

  • kert

    coincidentally, as you all probably know already, Armadillo Aerospace just accomplished a whole successful rehearsal of Lunar Lander Challenge. See the June update and video at armadilloaerospace.com

  • I think this is a great idea, albeit, I also agree that the prize may be a little low. Still, it should be kept relatively low since the idea is to produce dramatically new ideas and technologies. I would advocate that the first production of O2 on the lunar surface (in a tiny demonstration amount) should be one of the earliest prizes since such an achievement would do more than other technology to advance a permanent lunar base.

    — Donald

  • Christine

    Somehow I don’t think even Paul Allen is stupid enough to spend the required $5B on a lander required to win that prize. And he’s pretty stupid lately, just look at FlipStart.

  • Ray

    Also see the discussion on HobbySpace/RLV News: http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=3953#c

    The discussion mainly focuses on the ups and downs of having the MSFC office manage a prize program. The premise of the article is that politically the MSFC Lunar office will be open whether or not it continues to have missions to manage, so what is a worthy goal for it? There is some debate on how suitable a prize program would be for the office.

    As for the $5B lander cost, note that the office is in charge of robotic lunar missions, so the article is proposing a robotic lander. Even the lander that got cancelled was only estimated to cost ~$750M at the time it was cancelled, according to Mark’s article. Now if we go on a limb and suppose that the technical goals of the mission would be scaled back quite a bit to make it feasible with the available funds, and also suppose that the best of several entrepreneurial companies will be more efficient than the single government effort, and finally assume perhaps some sponsorships or side business for the entrepreneur, hopefully the $750M could shrink quite a bit.

    If the available funding still is clearly too small, I’d suggest a prize for a smaller mission (eg: lunar penetrator for seismology, small lunar orbiter, lunar-relevant demo), or a 2nd round of the Lunar Lander Centennial Challenge.

    Ray (Space Prize blog)

  • anonymous

    “Somehow I don’t think even Paul Allen is stupid enough to spend the required $5B on a lander required to win that prize.”

    This would be a prize for a lunar robotic landing. Human landers are measured in the billions; robotic landers in the millions.

    There have been several private efforts to design, develop, launch, and operate a robotic lunar lander mission.

    Radio Shack spent a million or so to explore a couple concepts for advertising-oriented missions at LunaCorp, one a lander/rover and one an orbiter. Each mission was reportedly costed in the low- to mid-tens of millions, but Radio Shack did not follow through, probably wisely since it was likely an inefficient way for a single company to spend advertising dollars.

    Another effort, Interorbital I believe, has obtained the necessary government licenses and clearances for such a mission, but has never appeared to go anywhere from a money or design standpoint.

    IdeaLabs probably got the furthest — to CDR, IIRC — with an internally funded effort that included Tony Spear, JPL’s Mars Pathfinder manager. I believe their concept was a roving lander with two daughter micro-rovers launched on a Minotaur launcher for a total cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million. The rovers would have visited Apollo landing sites in a corporate-sponsored, non-profit educational effort aimed at stimulating youth interest in science, engineering, and math. Unfortunately, the internet boom collapsed and the funding dried up before metal could get cut.

    It remains to be seen whether a lunar robotic lander mission could be conducted for tens of millions in private funding. But when we look at the mission costs for Lunar Ranger, Lunar Surveyor, and the Lunar Prospector missions, recent advances in IT and small mission design, burgeoning small launch capabilities like Falcon I, the fact that radiation hardened electronics and other gold plating would not be required for a short lunar mission, and just the streamlining associated with going private, it seems well within the realm of possibility even without a prize. Add a prize in the low- to mid-tens of millions of dollars and my two-cent projection it would definitely happen, especially if the competitors were allowed to realize other revenue streams (sponsorship, advertising, content delivery, cremated remains or other payload delivery, tech demos, etc.) from their missions.

    “And he’s pretty stupid lately, just look at FlipStart.”

    I don’t pretend to be an IT market expert, but there would seem to a market for a PC-capable device in between the size of a laptop and a PDA. It ain’t gonna change the world like Windows, but it’s an addressable market.

    FWIW…

  • kert

    I believe the CMU IceBreaker was also under consideration for private funding. And you are confusing InterOrbital with TransOrbital ( Transorbital.net )

    I would sell the idea to Honda and let them put a pair of their ASIMOs ( remotely-controlled/assisted ) on lunar surface. That would be a powerful symbol ( though rad-shielding and thermal management problems might cost prohibitively much )

  • There were also several microlander projects being worked on at NASA Ames when the program office was stolen by Marshall. None of them were anywhere near as bloatware as MSFC’s stuff. Trying to have MSFC do a cheap robotic mission is just idiotic. Everyone knew what was going to happen. I know some of the people who were involved with those microlander projects, and most of them were in the $30-60M range, similar to Clementine or Lunar Prospector.

    If there was a $50M prize for a lunar landing with say a 25-100kg payload, I think you’d see someone walk away with it within 5-6 years. And they’d actually make money on the deal. Sure you can’t make money on a project like that doing things the status quo way. But the point of such a prize isn’t to encourage the status quo, is it?

    As good of an idea as it may be however, Centennial challenges, even if all goes well, is only going to get $8M per year worth of prize money, so it’ll be a while before they could do something this ambitious (unless this year’s LLC ends up being exciting enough that someone in Congress decides to try championing a bigger prize like this).

    ~Jon

  • Anonymous, regarding FlipStart, this appears to be a real market. Check out http://www.oqo.com, and no less than Sony has a rather inferior entry. OQO is a very small company here in San Francisco that did well enough to cough up a second generation product. (Truth in advertising: I am a customer of OQO and very happy with their products.)

    Also, if the rumors of the Russians having some customers for their circum-lunar flights are correct, then there is a market for private lunar exploration in the $100 million range. I think it entirely possible this market could extend to smaller robotic efforts. Likewise, I’d love to see the revival of SpaceDev’s private asteroid prospector mission. I’d even invest in the very modest way that I am capable of investing, if anyone were interested in small investors. . . .

    Which brings up another issue. I invest in public space companies, but that is of limited help to the entrepreneurial space industry. Maybe there should be mechanism for those of us whose investment capacity for any one project is measured in three or four digits — sure, that’s small, but recall the aphorism, “count the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.” If you could get a thousand people to invest $1000 each in a tiny demonstration oxygen plant on the lunar surface, we’re beginning to talk about a small but significant percentage of the money needed to conduct such a mission.

    — Donald

  • anonymous

    “I believe the CMU IceBreaker was also under consideration for private funding. And you are confusing InterOrbital with TransOrbital ( Transorbital.net )”

    “There were also several microlander projects being worked on at NASA Ames when the program office was stolen by Marshall…I know some of the people who were involved with those microlander projects, and most of them were in the $30-60M range, similar to Clementine or Lunar Prospector.”

    Thanks to kert and Mr. Goff for the corrections/additions.

    “As good of an idea as it may be however, Centennial challenges, even if all goes well, is only going to get $8M per year worth of prize money”

    Actually, the FY 2008 request for NASA prizes is only $4 million, unfortunately.

    “I’d even invest in the very modest way that I am capable of investing, if anyone were interested in small investors. . . ”

    I dunno about investment, but I’d make modest contributions towards a lunar robotic lander prize at a respectable non-profit organization like the X PRIZE Foundation.

    FWIW…

  • anonymous

    “I’d make modest contributions towards a lunar robotic lander prize at a respectable non-profit organization like the X PRIZE Foundation.”

    Even if Congress provides the $4 million requested in NASA’s FY 2008 budget, it’s clear that NASA’s prize program won’t be in a position to fund even a minimal, say, $20 million robotic lunar landing prize all by itself. But a few thoughts came to me after making the offhand comment above:

    1) I believe that the legislation governing NASA’s prize authority allows NASA to enter into agreements with non-profit organizations where NASA provides only a portion of the total prize money. The non-profit would be responsible not only for the costs of running the prize competition (which they are today) but also for raising the remaining prize funds. So, at least theoretically, NASA could put, say, $3 million towards a lunar lander prize and a non-profit organization like the X PRIZE Foundation would be responsible for raising the other, say, $17 million of a $20 million total prize by date certain (or the agreement between NASA and the X PRIZE becomes null and void so NASA can reapply those funds to a different prize).

    2) Also per NASA’s prize legislation, IIRC, NASA can hold prize money (the dollars don’t revert to the Treasury if unspent) for a period of up to ten years. So NASA could theoretically put up $3 million in an agreement with the X PRIZE Foundation in 2008, give the X PRIZE folks until 2010-11 to raise the remaining $17 million, and still give competitors until 2018 to win the whole $20 million pot.

    3) As for the X PRIZE Foundation or other nonprofit fundraising, they would logically start with the deep pocket types for major, multi-million dollar contributions — the Allens, Ansaris, and Googles of the world. These, combined with an insurance bet, were the major funders of the original X PRIZE. Maybe there might be another $5 to 15 million that could get raised this way, especially if the prize was named after the contributor.

    4) However, IIRC, the X PRIZE was also partially funded, at least at low level, by small contributions from non-wealthy individuals. The X PRIZE Foundation could repeat this approach, possibly with greater impact given the success of the original X PRIZE.

    5) An X PRIZE-type non-profit might also be able to extend its prize fundraising reach by leveraging the membership of other space non-profits organizations. I could see a box that members could check on the annual membership renewal forms for the National Space Society, Planetary Society, and Space Frontier Foundation if they wanted to contribute an additional, say, $10 bucks to the lunar robotic lander prize (like the box for non-partisan campaign contributions on tax returns). Maybe even professional organizations like the AIAA, AIA, AAS, etc. could do the same with their membership. It’s the sort of goal that O’Neillians, Saganites, and NASA technocrats can all get behind.

    6) That said, the total membership of these organizations probably totals only in the low hundreds of thousands, at most. Even at $10 per member, we’re only talking a couple or few million dollars, and that’s probably too high an assumption given that only a fraction of the membership will check that box. So leveraging significant funds, something reliably in the millions of dollars, from the membership of these organizations would require an incentive to contribute larger amounts.

    7) Per some of Pete Worden’s recent comments regarding virtual particpatory space exploration, one possible approach to incentivizing large individual contributions would be to require camera imagery from the lunar surface of a minimal level, duration, and quality in order to win the prize. Those who have contributed to the prize could get special access to this imagery as a quid pro quo for their contribution, streamed to them at an exclusive contributor’s only website provided by the X PRIZE (maybe set up by Google or some other IT company) with interactive forums, etc. The imagery could be special in terms of timeliness (before it’s on the news or in real-time), quality (resolution, color, etc.), commentary (play-by-play from the team), quantity (full archives), etc. Just like most fundraising efforts, there could even be gradations in membership and associated levels of greater exclusivity and enhancement, depending on the size of contribution. I’m only a market sample of one, but make something like this exclusive and cool enough and I’d easily bump up my contribution from $10 to $100 or $1,000 to have the privelege. And by adding one or two zeros, individual contributions could get bumped from hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions of dollars, maybe even breaking the ten million mark.

    Just some thoughts as to how a lunar robotic landing might get funded even in the absence of a properly budgeted NASA prize program. I don’t know if any of these ideas are new, but they may be worth passing around and sharing with the X PRIZE folks if anyone is close to them. (Ray at Space Prizes Blog?).

    FWIW…

  • I contributed what I could afford at the time to the X-Prize. However, I’d probably be willing to gamble a little more if I ended up with a stake in the winners. How about something similar to the X-Prize, but with “investments” rather than “contributions.” That is, if I invested, say, $1000 toward the seventy percent of the project funded by the X-Prime-Prize, I would “own” one-thousand dollars of that fraction of the project, entitled to my minute percentage of any profits. I’m sufficiently confident that, if space industries ever take off, oxygen supply will be one of the first and biggest comodoties, that I’d be willing to gamble with the intent of at least my descendents making money on it.

    — Donald

  • Thomas Matula

    Actually much of the X-prize money actually came from an insurance policy the X-Prize foundation took out on having to award the prize. In the industry its called “hole-in-one” insurance and is fairly common for marketing promotions like contests and sweepstakes. So the X-prize foundation only had to raise enough to cover the premium for the insurance policy. The gamble the insurance company took was that no one would win the prize by January, 2005. The insurance company lost the gamble, but only by 3 months and it could have easily won if their had been any major problems on the flights as occurred with the June 2004 flight of Spaceshipone.

    http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/Interviews/Advocacy/PeterDiamandis.html

    I don’t believe th X-prize foundation has ever revealed the amount of the premium but I would be surprised if it was more then 50% of the prize and probably was less. So they basically were doubling and perhaps even tripling the donations they received.

    Still, if Paul Allen had not opened his pocketbook the X-prize would had been a failure as none of the other teams were even close to flying and the vast majority had not gone beyond the viewgraph stage. And Paul Allen spent 25 million to win it, hardly a good business decision.

    And this is the fundamental problem with any space prize or prizes in general. Only if the investment required is in the range of the amount an individual, or a small club, is able to raise will it be done. Other wise forget it as its not a practical model for a business or for serious investors to pursue. If you look at the history of prizes, from the second longitude prize to the Orteig prize to the X-prize, the amount of funding needed to win was within the ability of an individual, or a small group, to provide with NO expectation of a financial return.

    It would be interesting to see a $50 million prize for a lunar lander. And you could probably do it without have to raise more the about $20 million if you took an insurance route as the X-prize did. But I don’t expect anyone would win it. And quite honestly the $25 million would probably be better spent funding a lunar mission on its own, as the Planetary Society has been doing with its Solar Sail missions.

  • kert

    going from LEO to lunar surface would need about 6500 m/s delta-v. Just about the only launchers fitting the 20 mil budget would be Falcon 1, so around 600kg to LEO.
    Can you even build a 600kg LOX/H2 stage ? i dont think this fits together for a lander, even less for rover. 20 mil aint enough unless you get a free launch.

  • kert

    The smallest currently existing LH2/LOX engine would probably be the one that ISAS built for their RVT test vehicle. I couldnt find any precise details, but it was reported to be regen-cooled 10 KN thrust class ( approx 5-6 times less than RL-10 ) and scratch-built with deep throttle capability. It would be interesting to know more precise specs.
    Maybe it would indeed be possible to build a stage around such an engine that would be able to go from LEO to lunar surface. Anyone call Yoshifumi Inatani, the guy behind the RVT program ?

  • anonymous

    “Can you even build a 600kg LOX/H2 stage ? i dont think this fits together for a lander, even less for rover. 20 mil aint enough unless you get a free launch.”

    The prize doesn’t have to pay for the mission by itself. SpaceShipOne reportedly cost at least twice as much as the $10 million X PRIZE, for example. If there’s enough fame associated with achievement (and I think the first private lunar landing would qualify) and/or a follow-on market (less clear here but possible if the rules don’t restrict payloads) folks will absorb the hit.

    Thumbnailing it, I wouldn’t go much below $20 million and more would be better. But that size of prize should theoretically attract missions with estimates in the cost range of prior private lunar robotic efforts ($30-$60 million).

    FWIW…

  • Donald,
    The problem with small investments in non-public companies is that what few avenues there are end up being real legal minefields. Any time a company takes money from a non-qualified investor, even through loopholes intentionally created by the SEC, they’re putting themselves at a huge risk. You can even do it with all the safeguards and the purest of intentions, and still end up in Uncle Sam’s One-Star Hotel. Ask my dad.

    If you aren’t a qualified investor, per SEC definitions, you’re probably stuck with publicly traded companies, or donations. In addition to prizes, I know of some organizations like the Space Studies Institute that take donations and use them to fund space research projects. The donation would even be tax-deductable. But getting any sort of “upside” is going to be tough. That’s just the way the SEC works, and it isn’t going to change for a bunch of space enthusiasts.

    ~Jon

  • Kert: Can you even build a 600kg LOX/H2 stage ?

    What about electric propulsion or solar sails, or something new (e.g., tethers)? The Japanese are attempting very low cost planetary missions, so far without notable success, but you’ve got to give them credit for trying, and trying and trying again.

    Jon: Thanks for the discussion. (And, sorry about your Father.) Would some kind of holding institute, that took “donations” and invested them in the entrepreneurs be a solution? (I like that better anyway, since the institute could, in theory, be a more knowledgeable investor than I could ever be.) If the institute earns money, there would need to be some way to get that back to the small investors. (Maybe services like free or low-cost suborbital rides, rather than cash, which in turn would help the fledgling industry and allow me to use or sell my benefit. If credit card companies can pull stunts like that, why not the space community?).

    I’ve had money essentially stolen from me in public investment, e.g., when when a certain large American satellite manufacturer lied about their prospects, paid off large investors in the bankruptcy proceeding, and left the rest of us with nothing. (I would have accepted pennies on the dollar, or shares in the reorganized company, but getting nothing at all, while probably “legal,” was not acceptable to me.) In today’s sorry corporate environment, public investing is not exactly safe, either.

    — Donald

  • Bill White

    Anonymous writes:

    7) Per some of Pete Worden’s recent comments regarding virtual particpatory space exploration, one possible approach to incentivizing large individual contributions would be to require camera imagery from the lunar surface of a minimal level, duration, and quality in order to win the prize. Those who have contributed to the prize could get special access to this imagery as a quid pro quo for their contribution, streamed to them at an exclusive contributor’s only website provided by the X PRIZE (maybe set up by Google or some other IT company) with interactive forums, etc. The imagery could be special in terms of timeliness (before it’s on the news or in real-time), quality (resolution, color, etc.), commentary (play-by-play from the team), quantity (full archives), etc. Just like most fundraising efforts, there could even be gradations in membership and associated levels of greater exclusivity and enhancement, depending on the size of contribution. I’m only a market sample of one, but make something like this exclusive and cool enough and I’d easily bump up my contribution from $10 to $100 or $1,000 to have the privelege. And by adding one or two zeros, individual contributions could get bumped from hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions of dollars, maybe even breaking the ten million mark.

    Given the intense competition in the cell phone industry, and the growing possibility of live video feeds to your cell phone, get Verizon, or Cellular One, or Sprint to pony up $20 million in exchange for exclusive video and data content.

    Didn’t the Boston Red Sox sign a Japanese ball player largely in anticipation of a Tokyo cable TV deal?

    Anyway, I hsve long wanted that Verizon spokesman to answer an astronaut’s call from the Moon “Can you hear me now?”

    In the alternative maybe try a video version of the 900 call.

    Call 1-900-Got-Moon at $1.99 a minute to get live streaming video from the rover.

  • Back when I helped run the Artemis Society we looked at all sorts of ways for non-qualified investors to participate and they all ended up running afoul of the SEC. It is also very difficult for companies to take “donations” without severe tax consequences. About the only way that works is for donations to go to a non-profit that then purchases a mission from a commercial company. Anything that smacks of compensation or consideration back to the donor in the form of interest, equity or cash gets a severe once over by the SEC.

    The SEC has lots of lawyers looking at all the ways people try to get around the laws. They’re pretty much sewn up every loop hole I’ve ever found.

  • Here’s one suggestion I like:

    The base mission prize is $20 million to soft land 100kg on the moon and have it phone home with some limited imagery requirements. Then depending on what that 100kg does you get “bonus” payments. I.e. if its a rover and it successfully roams for 24 hours you get an extra $10 million. If it can do a sample return then you get another $20 million. If it can take back off again multiple times (lunar hopper) then you get another $15 million. Etc…

    I like that because it leaves future prize options open and does look more like a data purchase agreement in prize form.

  • kert

    ::What about electric propulsion or solar sails, or something new

    Something like that would work only for LEO to lunar orbit leg of the trip, for soft landing in vacuum i dont see any other possibility than the highest ISP chemical rockets there are, in this weight class at least. And combining two propulsion systems on so small a vehicle is probably a no go.
    Its apparently hard to get decent ISP and mass ratio out of small vehicle, and getting the 6500m/s from a 600kg stage could be just barely possible, but would leave little room for useful payload.
    However, with the modern miniaturization it might be possible. I mean, you can get MEMS 6-axis IMUs nowadays weighing a few grams, micro-scale electric motors weighing next to nothing and so on. It could be doable.

  • Ray

    Anonymous said: “1) I believe that the legislation governing NASA’s prize authority allows NASA to enter into agreements with non-profit organizations where NASA provides only a portion of the total prize money.”

    In fact at Space Access ’07 Ken Davidian (Centennial Challenges) described disussions NASA had with Bigelow Aerospace on a jointly-funded prize. Bigelow isn’t a non-profit organization, but it’s a similar approach to what you described.

    “Just some thoughts as to how a lunar robotic landing might get funded even in the absence of a properly budgeted NASA prize program. I don’t know if any of these ideas are new, but they may be worth passing around and sharing with the X PRIZE folks if anyone is close to them. (Ray at Space Prizes Blog?).”

    No, I don’t personally know the X PRIZE people; the Space Prizes blog is just a hobby based on a grad school paper I wrote. However, if you have a well thought out suggestion or comment, you could contact Ken (Centennial Challenges). He gives his email here (I’d recommend emailing him directly rather than going through Clark as Ken mentions in a comment): http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=3947

    You could also check the X PRIZE contact page: http://www.xprize.org/contact.html. (Maybe try Will Pomerantz).

  • Ray

    Thomas Matula wrote “And this is the fundamental problem with any space prize or prizes in general. Only if the investment required is in the range of the amount an individual, or a small club, is able to raise will it be done. Other wise forget it as its not a practical model for a business or for serious investors to pursue. If you look at the history of prizes, from the second longitude prize to the Orteig prize to the X-prize, the amount of funding needed to win was within the ability of an individual, or a small group, to provide with NO expectation of a financial return.”

    This isn’t necessarily true. As Anonymous mentioned, there are other reasons besides the prize itself a competitor might want to try to win the prize. Publicity is one possible reason. Companies spend a lot on advertising, image, and the like. If a prize can be set up to be something the public (or the customers of certain companies that are potential competitors) is interested in, a valuable incentive is in place. Publicity for the prize-granting organization is another factor. If the X PRIZE Foundation (or whoever) can make money selling tickets to watch the competition, go to the fancy award ceremony, give exclusive media deals, and so on, they can (if they cover their prize operations costs) help fund the prize that way. Another factor is the value to the competitor company of doing whatever is needed to win the prize. If the thing that the prize is being awarded for could become a market (eg: Ansari X PRIZE), the cash value of the prize may just be the extra push that makes it worth the competitor’s effort.

    It all depends on the details of the individual prize. We will have to see with the new X PRIZEs that are out now (Archon Genomics X PRIZE, Automotive X PRIZE). It looks like they have a serious publicity effort going on and they’re attracting some corporate interest. You can also look to history for corporate prize efforts. For example, the Super Efficient Refrigerator Prize was attempted by some big companies and won technically by Whirlpool (a large company), but lost on market grounds (they didn’t sell enough fridges). ie prizes can scale to corporations.

  • I think there should be no artificial requirements inject into this. No minimum mass, no south pole (especially if not in line-of-sight to north hemisphere of Earth).

    It will be enough to see it done at all. One reasonable restriction might be to prohibit an Apollo site or Russian site.

    My microlaunchers design would involve a landed mass of less than 100 grams and use a laser diode for data transmission and I would like to not be ruled out.

  • Jonas Barnes

    Is there any reason for the SEC’s rules about qualified investors? You guys make it sound pretty sinister, like the only point is to keep the common man from getting into business at the ground level. If it really is that bad, aren’t there other countries where that’s not a problem, where prizes and small-investment efforts could be based? And surely there are venture capital funds ordinary people can buy into that invest in space startups.

  • kert

    hm. actually. wouldnt a nice simple prize for lunar lander be a free LEO launch ? You build and launch the payload, we compensate the launch price for you on successful lunar landing.
    Of course rights to data and so on would be shared.

  • Jake

    The SEC’s qualified investor rules aren’t entirely silly – in most cases the main reason someone goes through the increased hassle of raising money a couple hundred bucks at a time rather than in one or a few shots is because it’s easier to convince the man on the street to invest in a bad idea, either on purpose or completely innocently.

    VC funds will probably have minimum investment levels in the $100k range, or higher.

  • Folks, there ARE alternatives to Centennial Challenges and charity.

    Ames is in Northern California.
    The Speaker of the House is from Northern California.
    Senators Feinstein and Boxer are Majority Senators
    Senator Shelby is a member of the Minority Party in the Senate.

    Need I say more?

  • anonymous

    “Given the intense competition in the cell phone industry, and the growing possibility of live video feeds to your cell phone, get Verizon, or Cellular One, or Sprint to pony up $20 million in exchange for exclusive video and data content.”

    This is a really good idea. The downside could be that the phone companies might not be interested since the content is years into the future and unpredictable. But they might put down some millions now for the rights to exclusive content some years into the future, even if they don’t know exactly when it will be delivered. The possibility should definitely be explored with those sponsors.

    “The base mission prize is $20 million to soft land 100kg on the moon and have it phone home with some limited imagery requirements. Then depending on what that 100kg does you get “bonus” payments. I.e. if its a rover and it successfully roams for 24 hours you get an extra $10 million. If it can do a sample return then you get another $20 million. If it can take back off again multiple times (lunar hopper) then you get another $15 million. Etc…”

    Dividing the prize into purses according to capabilities demonstrated is also a good idea. I’d just suggest keeping the capabilities as generic as possible to encourage different approaches. For example, instead of specifying roving, hopping, etc., the goal should be accessing X number of lunar surface sites at least Y kilometers apart. How the teams do that — rovers, hopping, daughter landers (penetrators), etc. — should be left to them.

    “I think there should be no artificial requirements inject into this. No minimum mass, no south pole (especially if not in line-of-sight to north hemisphere of Earth).”

    Agreed. No requirement to the base prize other than telemetry and video back. The prize should not specify landing location and should leave it up to the teams how much other mass, equipment, and payloads they want to bring along.

    “hm. actually. wouldnt a nice simple prize for lunar lander be a free LEO launch ? You build and launch the payload, we compensate the launch price for you on successful lunar landing.”

    Up to what amount?

    “Folks, there ARE alternatives to Centennial Challenges and charity.

    Ames is in Northern California.
    The Speaker of the House is from Northern California.
    Senators Feinstein and Boxer are Majority Senators
    Senator Shelby is a member of the Minority Party in the Senate.

    Need I say more?”

    That would work for some prizes, where events are held at certain locations at certain times, but not for this one. This particular prize can’t be restricted to a particular state or congressional district. The teams, launches, and operations need to be allowed to come from and happen anywhere.

  • Ray

    Jim said: “Folks, there ARE alternatives to Centennial Challenges and charity.

    Ames is in Northern California.
    The Speaker of the House is from Northern California.
    Senators Feinstein and Boxer are Majority Senators
    Senator Shelby is a member of the Minority Party in the Senate.

    Need I say more?”

    Anonymous said: “That would work for some prizes, where events are held at certain locations at certain times, but not for this one. This particular prize can’t be restricted to a particular state or congressional district. The teams, launches, and operations need to be allowed to come from and happen anywhere.”

    You’re misinterpreting what Jim is saying. He’s going back to the premise of Mark’s original article, which is that the MSFC Lunar robotics office is politically there to stay, but in time won’t have a mission, so give it a prize mission. Jim is challenging that assumption of the article, suggesting that Ames, to paraphrase U2, “steal it back”.

  • Ray

    Anonymous said (many posts ago; I had trouble posting in reply): “I believe that the legislation governing NASA’s prize authority allows NASA to enter into agreements with non-profit organizations where NASA provides only a portion of the total prize money.”

    In fact at Space Access ’07 Ken Davidian (Centennial Challenges) described disussions NASA had with Bigelow Aerospace on a jointly-funded prize. Bigelow isn’t a non-profit organization, but it’s a similar approach to what you described.

    “I don’t know if any of these ideas are new, but they may be worth passing around and sharing with the X PRIZE folks if anyone is close to them. (Ray at Space Prizes Blog?).”

    No, I don’t personally know the X PRIZE people; the Space Prizes blog is just a hobby based on a grad school paper I wrote. However, if you have a well thought out suggestion or comment, you could contact Ken (Centennial Challenges). He gives his email here (I’d recommend emailing him directly rather than going through Clark as Ken mentions in a comment): http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=3947

    You could also check the X PRIZE contact page: http://www.xprize.org/contact.html. (Maybe try Will Pomerantz).

  • Ray

    Thomas Matula wrote (many posts ago) “And this is the fundamental problem with any space prize or prizes in general. Only if the investment required is in the range of the amount an individual, or a small club, is able to raise will it be done. Other wise forget it as its not a practical model for a business or for serious investors to pursue.”

    This isn’t necessarily true. It all depends on the details; prizes have their stregths and weaknesses. As Anonymous mentioned, there are other reasons besides the cash value of the prize to compete for an innovation prize, including public relations, advertising, and making an R&D investment that makes sense for your business, but where the business case doesn’t quite close without the prize.

    Plus, you can always offer a prize where the cash value is as big as the equivalent cost-plus contract – but without the risk of paying without the goal being achieved, or paying more as the program is delayed (as happens from time to time in aerospace contracts). Large prizes attract large businesses.

    The X PRIZE Foundation has a couple prizes that seem geared towards businesses: the Archon Genomics Prize and the Automotive X PRIZE. We’ll see how they go. The Super-Efficient Refrigerator Prize was “won technically” by Whirlpool Corporation (but lost on market grounds). On the prize sponsor side (businesses using prizes to get things done) InnoCentive is in the “matchmaking” business of awarding what amount to prizes for meeting various scientific challenges.

  • Thomas Matula

    Ray,

    The examples you gave were of existing business, with existing revenues using a small percentage of their R&D and/or marketing budget to pursue a prize for PR purposes, not as a business model. And often these prizes are on going ones like the Collier Trophy. For example Lockheed just won it for the F-22, but that was not why they built it. They built it because they had an assured revenue stream (i.e. government contract) for it.

    [[[Plus, you can always offer a prize where the cash value is as big as the equivalent cost-plus contract – but without the risk of paying without the goal being achieved, or paying more as the program is delayed (as happens from time to time in aerospace contracts). Large prizes attract large businesses.]]]

    No large investor owned business is going to pursue such a price. They have a fiduciary duty to shareholders not to take such risks. If they did, and lose as is the likely outcome as 24 of the 25 X-prize teams lost, they could be sued by their stockholders. Indeed even regulators might pursue them for failing in their fiduciary responsible.

    Note the one common decision making model used in business to determine how much to invest in a project is the expected revenue (the prize) versus the probably of receiving it. In the case of the X-prize the probably was 1 out of 15 or 4 percent. (.04 * $10 million = $400,000). $400,000 dollars is the most a firm would logically invest on winning it.

    BTW, Although figures are hard to come by, and the X-prize teams were driven by emoption and not logic, it is interesting to see that other the Paul Allen they followed this model. I estimate from reading press releases that the total investment of all the 24 losing X-prize teams together was only around $6 million dollars, or an average of only $250,000 per team. It short the model held and the ONLY reason the X-Prize was successful was because it amused Paul Allen to spend $25 million on winning a $10 million prize, then giving it away to Burt Rutan and the other contractors. Not really something you want to base a space program on.

    Of course I am handicapped by coming from a business strategy background and so I am as used to analyzing why something “succeeded” as well as “failed”.

    As such NASA is correct in keeping the prizes in the range where non-millionaire individual or small groups of hobbyists will be able to complete. Its their only hope to produce something useful.

    Again I wouldn’t oppose a lunar landing prize as I don’t see a lunar prize doing any harm. But its not going to close any business models as alt.space folks believe.

  • anonymous

    “You’re misinterpreting what Jim is saying. He’s going back to the premise of Mark’s original article, which is that the MSFC Lunar robotics office is politically there to stay, but in time won’t have a mission, so give it a prize mission. Jim is challenging that assumption of the article, suggesting that Ames, to paraphrase U2, “steal it back”.”

    If Mr. Muncy meant that ARC should steal back the lunar robotic office, by all means, I’d support small, rapid, Worden-esque precursor missions (they might actually be able to pull something off for $20M per year) to dated MSFC BattleStar Galacticas that take a decade to field.

    If Mr. Muncy meant that NASA’s prize program should become captive to ARC, MSFC, or other parochial interests and earmarks to secure funding, I’d advise against that to the extent that it places limitations on whom the program can partner with, where the competitions are held, and who can compete, especially in the case of a lunar robotic lander competition where teams, launches, and ground operations need the flexiblity to originate anywhere.

  • anonymous

    “The examples you gave were of existing business, with existing revenues using a small percentage of their R&D and/or marketing budget to pursue a prize for PR purposes, not as a business model.”

    That’s not true for the cases Ray quoted.

    Many established companies went after the DOE energy efficiency prize in order corner an appliance market and get that DOE stamp of approval. It wasn’t a PR stunt (who wants to watch a refrigerator run?) and involved substantial R&D dollars from companies like Maytag.

    In the DARPA Grand Challenge, Oshkosh Truck Corporation, a publicly held manufacturer of defense and industrial trucks with dozens of product lines, competed both years and was one of the near-winners.
    (There were probably others I’m not aware of.)

    In the Archon Prize, two of the four competing teams are privately held, for-profit biotool companies and that prize has only been going for a year or so.

    And although it has yet to be fully rolled out, this article on the Automotive X PRIZE claims that traditional manufacturers are contemplating entries along with small companies.

    http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=120844

    “No large investor owned business is going to pursue such a price. They have a fiduciary duty to shareholders not to take such risks. If they did, and lose as is the likely outcome as 24 of the 25 X-prize teams lost, they could be sued by their stockholders. Indeed even regulators might pursue them for failing in their fiduciary responsible.”

    The examples above show this to be wrong. Public and private companies can and do compete for technology inducement prizes.

    “And often these prizes are on going ones like the Collier Trophy. For example Lockheed just won it for the F-22, but that was not why they built it. They built it because they had an assured revenue stream (i.e. government contract) for it.”

    This is mixing apples and oranges. The various X PRIZEs, the DARPA Grand Challenge, and NASA’s Centennial Challenges are all examples of technology inducement prizes — i.e., they incentivize the achievement of specified technology goals.

    The Collier Trophy is an ex post facto prize for the greatest aerospace achievement in the past year. The Collier Trophy is the Oscar of the aerospace industry. It doesn’t incentivize solutions to any particular technology challenge; it’s just a pat on the back from your aerospace peers for a job well done.

    “Note the one common decision making model used in business to determine how much to invest in a project is the expected revenue (the prize) versus the probably of receiving it. In the case of the X-prize the probably was 1 out of 15 or 4 percent. (.04 * $10 million = $400,000). $400,000 dollars is the most a firm would logically invest on winning it.”

    This is faulty analysis. A real business case would look at more than just the value of the prize and the probability of winning it. A well constructed prize will have substantial follow-on markets that far outweigh the value of the prize itself as well as high and positive visibility that has value in and of itself for commercial outfits.

    And history shows that more prize backers than than just Paul Allen will spend multiples of the value of a prize purse in order to win it. Although Charles Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Atlantic-crossing Prize with his $10,000 Spirit of St. Louis plane, Admiral Richard Byrd destroyed a $100,000 Fokker airplane and his backers bought him another in his attempt to win the prize — spending on the order of 8 times the prize value by one team alone.

    “As such NASA is correct in keeping the prizes in the range where non-millionaire individual or small groups of hobbyists will be able to complete. Its their only hope to produce something useful.”

    This is very shortsighted. As interesting and promising as they are, due to their small size, NASA’s prizes are so far limited to component toys and Earth analog stunts. Like the X PRIZE, NASA should be going after complete, space-capable systems that the agency could actually use, and that requires prizes about an order of magnitude larger than what the agency is offering.

    “Again I wouldn’t oppose a lunar landing prize as I don’t see a lunar prize doing any harm. But its not going to close any business models as alt.space folks believe.”

    Based on the estimated costs of various private efforts to mount a lunar robotic landing to date, a $20-60 million prize would go a long way to recouping the costs of such a mission, potentially covering the entire cost. And if the prize was constructed such that the teams had the freedom to realize other revenue streams from their missions (sponsorship, advertising, content delivery, cremains or other memorabilia delivery, tech demo payloads, etc.), no team would have to rely on winning the prize to recoup their costs. And if NASA was a sponsor, the prize rules could be constructed to align with future NASA needs for robotic payload delivery to the surface of the Moon, laying the building blocks for a future market.

    Highly speculative? Sure. A business case that can’t close? Not necessarily.

    FWIW…

  • Thomas Matula

    anonymous

    The key point, and the difference from the X-prize and the proposed lunar prize, is that none of those companies was betting the farm on winning the prize. The amount they invested was such they could afford to lose it without having a major impact on the firm’s bottomline. And even if they lost they did gain promotional value, just as if they sponsored a NASCAR racer. And all of those prizes had clear links to gaining marketing share, even if the firms lost. I suspect Oshkosh Truck Corporation right now is looking at leveraging what it learned to build robotic vehicles for the military. Where is such a market for the lunar lander? I view the DARPA prize as more of a contract competition like the one the Army Force held in 1934 for a new bomber.

    And yes, Anthony Fokker did gave Commander Byrd another plane as publicity for his new American company. But Commander Byrd already had given the tri-motor a PR boost by flying it over the North Pole the year before without any prize other then the glory of being first. That was part of Fokker’s marketing strategy for the plane. And since Anthony Fokker owned the majority of his firm he could do what he wanted. Also the Transatlantic flight of the Fokker Tri-motor a month after Lindbergh carrying mail and passengers did increase sales. Unfortunately Paris was fogged in, but they still proved the Tri-motors potential to existing customers. As it did when other aviation pioneers used it for flights. But who will buy more landers from the winner of the lunar challenge?

    And that is the key to the Lunar Challenge – where are the follow-on markets for the technology? NASA? I suspect not. NASA likes to reinvent the wheel for almost every mission with new instruments and technology. One doesn’t see long series of spacecraft anymore as with Ranger, Lunar Orbiter or Surveyor. NASA new model is one or at most two off mission, then one to radical new technology. So it would be just another one off mission to them. ESA or a foreign country? ITAR.

    And so who would compete? The logical ones by your example would be the aerospace majors like Boeing, Lockheed, Northrup-Gruman. By why would they spend $200 million to do a mission for a $50 million prize when NASA would contract with them for it anyway if they want the data. And no real PR value in it for them. Just the opposite as Congress will ask why they did a mission for a $50 million prize and then are bidding $300 to do a lander to NASA specs.

    And the small alt.space start-ups won’t be anymore successful raising the money then the X-prize firms were for the X-Prize when there is even less of a follow-on market. The lack of a good near-term business case is exactly why firms like Lunacorp failed. Sub-orbital tourism was at least a potential market for the X-Prize winners to show as a follow-on market, IF you had enough money to get through the regulatory maze. BTW I noticed Virgin Galactic’s original $125 million dollar investment is up to $275 million.

    http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article1896434.ece
    June 7, 2007
    Branson raises $225m for his space odyssey
    Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor

    I wonder how much higher it will go before Spaceshiptwo flies or Branson has enough and pulls the plug. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

    But the bottom line is that lunar missions would still be one-shot events even with a lunar challenge, leaving it to the realm of hobbyists with deep pockets since with no follow on markets you don’t have a business plan. A prize, no matter how big, is not a substitute for a stable market. Nor will it create a market if none existed before. That is the weakness of prizes. And why none of the winners of the human-powered aircraft that won the prizes offered for human powered flight are building human powered planes.

  • Ray

    Anonymous says more or less what I would have said, as far as the potential value of a well-designed and managed prize involving businesses is concerned.

    As far as the specific case of the proposed lunar prize, Tom has some points that such a prize would need to be designed to address. I could make up ideas for other space-related prizes where the potential follow-on market is more easy to envision than with the lunar lander – things that might help existing comsats, etc. For the publicity angle, competitions like the existing Lunar Lander Challenge have the advantage of a large crowd actually watching it, as well as potential business (suborbital rides, etc).

    For a real lunar mission prize, the design of the prize could be such that there are 2nd and 3rd place prizes, which might alleviate some of Tom’s concerns. They could also be arranged as a series of related prizes (kind of like many Centennial Challenges are now), corresponding to potentially multiple lunar missions. A series of prizes could also solve the political problem of the MSFC office’s job (although it’s debatable whether they’d be an appropriate prize manager – see the RLV News discussion on this – I linked to it near the beginning of this thread). Alternately, part of the prize winnings could be a certain amount of NASA lunar business at a fixed price. The problem is that the more of this that you do, the more expensive it gets for NASA, which makes it less and less feasible given NASA budget issues.

  • kert

    At present day, i’d see “Lunar Challenge” as say, free launch on given launcher, say, a Delta II, on TLI trajectory. Lets say, with two or three slots available.
    Couple of rounds of competition on ground ( like Darpa Challenge had qualification rounds ) and the best of them will be launched.

    Maybe extra cash prizes based on successfully sending back data, successfully landing or maybe some other accomplishments. Or offering a followup science mission to the best performer.

  • Thomas Matula

    Hi Ray,

    Instead of prize program why not a simple bounty program for lunar samples? Bounties programs are something you could build a business plan around IF they are reliable. Generations of hunters and trappers, and the firms that supplied them, built their businesses around the government predator bounty programs. Yes in the process they drove most of the large predators to near extinction, not good, but the focus here is on economic effectiveness. And it was a very successful program in terms of industry creation and technology development for that specific mission.

    Below is a presentation I made in 2005 showing how such a bounty program would enhance planetary defense while jump starting a NEO mining industry.

    http://www.tlmatula.com/nsp/nspmatula7.ppt

    A similar one focused on lunar sample return could do the same for lunar missions. Unlike prizes there are no single winners. The winners are those best able to repeatable conduct missions at below the bounty price. It rewards economy of scale and sustainability, not one shot stunts. Its something to build an investor driven business model around, with attractiveness to investors (via predictable ROI) increasing for every mission.

    So how about the government offering $100 million for every 5 Kilogram sample returned by private firms from the lunar surface? This is $20 million a Kilogram. less then the roughly $500 million a kilogram (2005 dollars) paid by the government for the Apollo sample. The sample must be at least 25 kilometers from the last sample returned. A map will be posted of successful sample missions so firms would know where not to sample. And there would be basic requirements for protecting the samples from contamination to ensure their scientific value. You could also add some basic science measurements for the site as well. Anything over the 10 pounds which went to the government would be owned free and clear by the firm and any revenues from it would be tax free. Unlike X-prize program it would emphasis repeatability. And unlike the X-Prize actually serve to build a new industry of lunar resource development.

    Some folks will say this is just data purchase with a new name. Fine, if it gives it political traction. But I know of at least 2 private lunar ventures I worked with that this would revive and finally allow them to have a viable business plan. By contrast a lunar challenge would not have any impact on them. I expect there would be others. Indeed, this might even tempt firms like Boeing and Lockheed to use their expertise to join in. More important, it would move the proposed lunar challenge out of the realm of a stunt contest like the X-prize into a real market capable of creating a real industry. And of directly benefiting the VSE by allowing hard data on lunar resources and possible base sites.

    It would also stimulate the launch industry as firms purchase blocks of launches to force prices down per flight with an distinct advantage for those launch firms that lower costs. (Yes, Elon Musk would smile if their was such a program… and we would see just how economical an EELV or Sealaunch could be) And also demand or support services like an L2 Halo comsat to support far side sample return missions, financial services and insurance, post flight processing that meet the standards of bounty, etc. ) none of which a one shot lunar challenge prize would stimulate. And it will also drive continued innovation as any strategy or technology that reduces mission cost per pound of sample returned will go right to the firm’s bottom line. Do you really need retro rockets and parachute for re-entry? Or could you design a capsule that would survive an aerobraked 200 g surface impact with its sample intact… Let the lunar sample bounty decide…

  • Thomas: I love your ideas, here. Great thinking.

    How about breaking it up into smaller segments and extending it to finished, marketable products. Offer a bounty for X kilograms of lunar or asteroid-derived LOX delivered to the Space Station’s orbit. Or, better, several parts of that process, e.g., $n for mining, $n for processing, $n for getting a local product (rocks and/or oxygen) into lunar orbit or off the asteroid in tact, $n for aerobrake into Earth orbit (or, to the surface in the case of rocks). This could keep the cost per development relatively small, a lot of the initial technology development could be done on Earth, and it could result in multiple companies competing for the same and different market segments, potentially avoiding monopolies. Each segment may be useful for multiple markets: e.g., the lunar surface to lunar orbit segment would apply to rocks and oxygen alike.

    — Donald

  • Thomas Matula

    Donald,

    Those are possible extensions. I think the key would be to keep it simple at firms and closely linked to VSE to get the first act passed by Congress. Then expand it as the industry develops.

    Right not just have the capablity to return lunar samples on a routine basis from multiple sites would be a major advance in technology and would really help plans for lunar development.

    In terms of goals like orbital LOX or fuel I would favor more open ones. $/lb of lox delivered on the lunar surface, no matter the source (moon, NEO Earth, Mars…) then let the market decide. Same with LOX to LEO or Water on the Moon. A set price regardless of source and turn industry loose. It would be interesting to see the different vetures, from high-g single function maglifts on Earth to lunar, NEO and even martian mining for water and LOX. Let the market decide.

  • Thomas, nothing there I disagree with. I would suggest that the first oxygen-related goal be the Space Station orbit, rather than the lunar surface, because there is an already existing market for the product at the former location. Likewise, for rocks, the first goal should be Earth’s surface, because that is where the market (scientists) is located.

    — Donald

  • Adrasteia

    BTW I noticed Virgin Galactic’s original $125 million dollar investment is up to $275 million.I wonder how much higher it will go before Spaceshiptwo flies or Branson has enough and pulls the plug.

    Virgin Galactic is just marketing for the rest of the Virgin brand. As long as he roughly breaks even I’m not sure he cares.

  • Thomas Matula

    If that is his strategy then it says a lot about the viability of space tourism as a business model, and all the more reason for investors to shy away from the small firms that are looking to make a profit out of it.

  • Ray

    Tom: I think all of these ideas (prizes, bounties, data purchase) are sensible variations on the idea of getting NASA (or any similar space agency) to purchase services from private entities rather than building everything itself. A bounty program like the asteroid one in your slides, or the lunar return one you described, of course gives industry a greater incentive to develop a long-term business than a single prize of the size of 1 bounty. Such a program would be appropriate in cases where the value (to, for example, NASA) of meeting the objective doesn’t diminish much after the first accomplishment, or first few accomplishments. On my space prizes blog a while ago I posted an idea about a prize for discovering an Earth impactor.

    http://spaceprizes.blogspot.com/2006/09/planetary-society-space-prize.html

    I imagined this as an incentive prize for Earth-based observers that might give focus to amateur as well as professional astronomers, and might result in image processing and similar automation improvements for NEA detection and characterization. An pre-detected impactor that might destroy a car or house might earn a smaller prize than one that would destroy a city. I think it’s similar to your idea for actual space missions to asteroids in that a bounty would work, since it’s something that continues to have value even after won the first X times.

    I think a bounty could have similar types of PR advantages (especially in the early phases) as prizes. You could even call it a “prize” depending on which word the public likes more. The down side, of course, is that it’s probably even harder to get the funding for multiple awards. You can also blur the distinctions with an ongoing prize program with multiple awards for the same accomplishment (perhaps, or perhaps not, with gradually diminishing award values). Possibly even better would be straightforward follow-on business of some sort related to the accomplishment.

  • Bill White

    In my opinion, Ray, this misses the target:

    Tom: I think all of these ideas (prizes, bounties, data purchase) are sensible variations on the idea of getting NASA (or any similar space agency) to purchase services from private entities rather than building everything itself.

    NASA improving its procurement policies is a very good thing, but the mission critical task should be creating private sector demand for space flight. Unless prizes facilitate a follow on private sector market which views NASA (and tax payer funding) as irrelevant to their business case, we continue to run on the starter motor rather than the main engine which is the globalized world economy. Wikipedia estimate the global gross world product at $60 trillion dollars for 2005 – finding a few billions for space exploration is simply a matter of finding the right place to plug in a hose and I suggest the US taxpayer is NOT the best long term source for filling that hose even if taxpayer financing can and should play a role in getting us started..

    I can (sort of) drive my car down the street using only the starter motor but it is far from satisfactory.

    Of course I support well crafted prize programs and Congress should fund more of them. But prizes are not the goal, prizes are merely one tool to try and engage the private sector economy in the business of space exploration and commercial space exploitation.

    Keep our eyes on the real prize, as it were.

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