Comments on: Gingrich still eyeing prizes

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:14:55 +0000

I like it, but it isn’t a panacea, though it would be a major driver of advancement.

NASA’s current prizes for 2008 are three-hundredths of 1 percent of their budget… $4 million.

…the prize Newt suggests is $5 billion for a permanent lunar base, $20 billion to get to Mars and back.

He also proposes:

Twenty-year tax-free window for any profits from space tourism and manufacturing

Create a 50 percent tax credit of up to $50 for space tourism raffle tickets

Permit 100 percent expensing of all investments in private space developments so they can be written off in one year.

By: Chance

Chance — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:37:53 +0000

You’re right on reader.

By: reader

reader — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:17:22 +0000

>>99% or more of all businesses fail eventually.

Thats why its important to get at least 100 on the starting line. Too big leaps in capability, like a multibillion dollar mars prize, wont do that.

By: Ferris Valyn

Ferris Valyn — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:45:58 +0000

Vladislaw – the problem with that line of thought I think is clearly shown by the reason cited for not giving more money to centennial challenges. I can’t remember it word for word, but it was something along the lines of “money has to be earmarked, that is sitting around, that could go to do something actually useful”.

Or something close to that.

By: Chance

Chance — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:12:57 +0000

I agree incremental prizes are the way to go. Isn’t that kinda what NASA is already doing, or did that fall through?

With private human space flight, I think it is important to realize that in the long term 99% of these business ideas will fail. 99% or more of all businesses fail eventually. From mom and pop operations to huge corporations, most fail in the first year, fewer last 10, even few last 25, and so on. What are there, maybe a hundred businesses over 200 years old? My point is that while disappointed when a company like RpK has problems, it doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm much because over the long term, that 1% is in there somewhere. Maybe it’s SpaceX, maybe it’s one whose founder hasn’t even been born yet (I hope not), but it’s out there.

By: Vladislaw

Vladislaw — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:14:20 +0000

I thought the analogy he used was an “America’s Cup”. If the USA offered 5 billion it would not cost a DIME. Not until someone actually did it. If it was made as a prize to race AROUND mars and not do the boots on the ground mission type it would be cheaper but would it be worth it? We know how to do habitat ( the ISS ) but we are not versed in deep space propulsion for manned flight. 5 billion dollars would be cheap in my mind to get a reliable propulsion system. If we budgeted it EVERY year and made it the ANNUAL 5 billion dollar America’s MARS cup RACE it would still be CHEAP at 5 billion a year AND you would be more likely to develop competition because it is an annual RACE not a one time “winner take all” stunt.

By: MarkWhittington

MarkWhittington — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:49:24 +0000

Iâ€™ve read Newtâ€™s chapter of space in his Change book and it is a somewhat mixed bag. He begins with a critique of NASA that many will find familiar, though one that seems more relevant for 1998 than 2008. The space shuttle and space station are turkeys. The Mars Polar Lander (which Newt confuses with Mars Pathfinder) and Mars Climate Orbiter demonstrates dysfunction. The reason that the critique is ten years old is that the shuttle is going away and every American Mars probe since have been successful.

Newt comes out for a twenty billion dollars Mars prize and a five billion dollar â€œLunar Base Prize.â€ He refers to an â€œaerospace leaderâ€ who thinks these are great ideas (Iâ€™ll be you that the â€œaerospace leader is Zubrin.) NASA will be consigned to space science and â€œcutting edge researchâ€â€”whatever that means.

Newt does have some good ideas for some tax and regulatory incentives to help commercial space. He mentions the Centennial Challenges but seems not to have heard of COTS. He repeats the canard of the â€œfour hundred fifty billion dollarâ€ Mars mission without citing a source for the figure.

In all, I think a subpar performance coming from one of politicsâ€™ better, more imaginative minds.

By: John Benac

John Benac — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:41:36 +0000

read the full text of the current space prize bill being proposed by the senator from Texas by following the link at http://www.actionforspace.com

Then use the link at actionforspace.com to write a letter to your representative telling them that you support the bill (if you do, of course.)

By: reader

reader — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:59:55 +0000

I need to repeat that IMO all sorts of teh funnay men entering these prizes do more harm than improve credibility of the whole idea of private spaceflight. RPK fiasco is a good ( well, bad ) example, as were a good third of the original X-Prize entrants.
I forgot one in the previous post: Lunar Lander Challenge. Something needs to be done to improve the turnout from entrants to people actually getting to flying hardware, and again, there are some circus artists in the game.

More prize money couldnt hurt either.

By: reader

reader — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:55:57 +0000

There is a perfectly good lunar prize already. Fund that and follow-ons just a wee bit higher, and then fund logical follow-on prizes like ISRU demos of various sorts and finally a manned landing stunt as well.
Way more effective than martian dreaming at current state of the game.

Even CATS prize reinstantiated would be effective and give good boosts to increasing interest in space. Take any of the Centennial Challenges and double the funding, throw in some more cash for third COTS entry as well.
Hell, even X-Prize rerun with maybe slightly bumped up requirements for repeatability, with second and third place prizes too would make loads of sense at this point.

All this is way more efficient than trying to sponsor a pie in the sky multibillion mars prize that will likely attract more clowns and kooks than serious investment.