Four Million Dollars For SE Olympics
(Hat Tip: Cosmic Log)
NASA is committing $4 million dollars in prize money for the X-Prize Cup games in which participants compete by showing off their latest technology for a space elevator.
(Elevator 2010) Our goal is to infect the engineering and science community with our passion for building the Space Elevator, thus making them ambassadors to our cause. As the fruits of their efforts take to the sky every year, we will have demonstrated the feasibility and sheer simplicity of the Space Elevator concept, and will have brought it closer to reality.
Our prize money is provided by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program – a total of $4,000,000 over the next 5 years! To mazimize our return and reduce our risk, we distribute the money in slowly increasing increments, as we ratchet up the difficulty level of the challenges.
Although some may scoff at the idea of a space elevator, NASA’s $4 million offer on the table may be a strong hint at the direction the space program wants to take. NASA’s goal is to make space a highlight in American life again, and the only way to do that is by finding some way of making it affordable to most American businesses.
After all, why should I care about space if I (or any future descendants) are unable to go?
