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NASA Gets Back Into The Rocket Science Game

In a typical NASA project $50 million barely covers the cost of the artwork
Cape Canaveral FL (UPI) Nov 16, 2004
NASA is taking a cue from the private sector and stepping up plans to award prize money for space missions, technology demonstrations and student outreach contests, while at the same time looking for partners to help run the competitions.

Fresh off its successful venture to raise and award $10 million for a pair of private sub-orbital spaceflights, the X Prize Foundation of St. Louis is front and center in the government's Centennial Challenge program, first as a role model and second as a potential administrative partner.

As an advocate of commercial space transportation, the group is most interested in a recently announced private contest for a five-passenger reusable orbital space vehicle. Robert Bigelow, a hotelier and aspiring space tourism developer, has offered a $50 million purse for what he calls America's Space Prize - much to the chagrin of the international space community.

Contest rules stipulate the winner will fly a vehicle capable of carrying at least five people to an altitude of 260 miles (400 kilometers) - about the altitude of the International Space Station - twice within 60 days.

The first flight can carry equivalent passenger weight, but the second journey must include at least five spaceflight participants. The ships must orbit Earth at least twice and both flights must be completed by Jan. 10, 2010.

Unlike the X Prize, which was awarded to Aerospace Ventures of Mojave, Calif. - a partnership of aircraft designer Burt Rutan's firm Scaled Composites and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's venture-capital outreach organization - there are no prohibitions about making use of government funds in the vehicle's design or construction.

That is particularly important because NASA may end up involved in the America's Space Prize.

Initially, Bigelow had intended for NASA to put up half the prize money, but when the agency balked, he upped the ante to $50 million on his own. Brant Sponberg, head of NASA's Centennial Challenges program, said during a presentation Monday in Washington, D.C., that the agency was not out of the game.

We've talked about potential partnering, Sponberg told workshop participants. There is interest by my management, especially as it plays into our larger strategic plan.

NASA envisions four tiers of competitions - including spaceflight missions - involving ventures such as the America's Space Prize. Sponberg's team wants to earmark between $5 million and $50 million per year for one or two of what he calls Flagship Challenges.

In addition to orbital spaceflight, flagship missions may include a lunar robotic lander, which would demonstrate soft-landing techniques; a miniature re-entry vehicle to return small payloads from the space station or other spacecraft, and a solar sail that would be used to maintain and boost a satellite's orbit.

Currently, a satellite's lifetime is limited by the amount of fuel it carries onboard to maintain orbit.

A fourth proposed flagship mission would stimulate design and creation of a vehicle that can use a planet's gravity to enter orbit and change its orbital plane.

The only gravitationally assisted technique that has been used so far is called aerobraking, a time-consuming process that requires a spacecraft to tweak its orbit repeatedly by dipping into a planet's atmosphere over a period of months.

NASA's next prize tier includes three to five contests per year in the range of $250,000 to $5 million each. NASA would sponsor and administer one group, called Keystone Challenges, on its own. A second group in the same award bracket, called Alliance Challenges, would draw from the non-profit, academic and commercial sectors to administer and possibly co-sponsor the competitions.

Sponberg outlined 16 possible contests in these categories, including:

- an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, that could stay airborne for 30 days - a technology that could serve as a platform for remote sensing equipment;

- an autonomous cargo-carrying UAV;

- a more flexible glove for space-walking astronauts to use during hand-intensive activities;

- light-weight, low-power drills for off-planet subsurface exploration and mineral extraction;

- an all-terrain vehicle for transportation on the moon;

- novel deployable telescopes that could be used on space-based observatories, and

- new radiation shields.

The last class of challenges being developed under the new NASA program would include prizes of up to $1 million and are intended to increase measurably the number of students pursuing careers in math, science, technology and related fields, as well as increase overall scientific literacy. These contests, called Quest Challenges, would be open to partnerships at any time.

Before NASA can formally initiate its big-ticket contests, it must win congressional authorization to up the ante on its Centennial Challenges program. Currently, the agency is allowed to award only $25,000 in prize money.

A House bill introduced last month by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wants to give NASA permission to sponsor competitions with a cash prize of up to $100 million. The bill, called the Space and Aeronautics Prize Act, outlines a contest for a three-passenger spacecraft that orbits three times and returns safely to Earth.

It also includes provisions for NASA to accept advertising partners, promote space development and encourage private donations to support joint space ventures with private companies.

NASA's spending plan for fiscal year 2005, which began Oct. 1, requests $20 million for Centennial Challenges. The House approved full funding, but the U.S. Senate halved NASA's request to $10 million. The federal budget for this year remains pending.

Nevertheless, NASA wants to hear from potential partners interested in developing and running its big-ticket Centennial Challenge programs by Dec. 17.

Most of the challenges will be externally focused and wide open in nature, Sponberg said. Teams of non-profits, students, hobbyists - anyone - can compete.

Anyone in the United States, that is. About the only people NASA does not want to hear from are non-U.S. concerns, though Sponberg said he is willing to make exceptions if a particular person, agency or facility is key to a contenders' proposal.

We're assuming all of our prize competitions are United States only, he said.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of by United Press International.

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Washington (UPI) Nov 11, 2004
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