Space Prizes

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alonzofyfe

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Events in the last few years have suggested that, perhaps, NASA could do more to promote the exploration and development of space if it quit managing its own pragrams.<br /><br />Now, I am a strong believer in testing, so I am not advocating a complete and sudden shift to the model I am describing below. However, I would like to see it tried at least with some smaller lunar missions.<br /><br />For every NASA mission that costs $X million dollars, these people would claim that if they were in charge of the mission that they could make $Y million selling all sorts of goods and services like those you mentioned -- and others -- on the open market.<br /><br />Typically, they would assert that $Y /> $X. That is, they could fly the mission at a profit.<br /><br />They also claim that a lot of this $X million is stupid and wasteful NASA overhead, and that they could launch the mission for N * $X million where 0 < N < 1.<br /><br />Now, in my opinion, their estimates are optimistic. Still, two things that are certain is that $Y /> 0 and that 0 < N < 1, even if N is not as much < 1 as these enthusiasts claim.<br /><br />These enthusiasts are not idiots. They are engineers. They are the people who build SpaceShipOne, built and ran the Lunar Prospector mission, and operate companies like SpaceDev. They work with space hardware, and have an idea of what is required. So, though I think their estimates are optimistic, they are not outlandish.<br /><br />Anyway, from this, it seems to make sense that NASA would be better off if it simply offered to pay some amount of money $Z million < $X million to whatever private entity that could accomplish the objectives NASA had set up for the mission.<br /><br />Then these companies can get an opportunity to try to do what they are claiming to be able to do -- launch the mission for N * $X million, collect the $Y million they claim to be able to collect from private sources, and, on top of that, collect NASA's $Z million to add to th
 
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spaceinator

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Yes!<br />Nasa needs to financially encourage private development and industry in space--- only then will the cost of the technology start to go down significantly.<br />Very little can happen w/out competition between companies.
 
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jmilsom

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Sure. It is a great idea. You should have a look at the Space Business and Technology forum. There are quite a few threads discussing space prizes and how to bring business competition into the space industry. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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radarredux

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I largely agree with the post, but with some caveats.<br /><br /><b><font color="yellow">First</font>/b>, I think the ordering of the prizes is important. For example, before an orbital prize you want suborbital prizes. I would argue that they go (1) more suborbital prizes, (2) orbital prizes (e.g., a sputnik type satellite), (3) cargo delivery prize to the vicinity of ISS, (4) manned access to space, (5) hitting the moon with an object (e.g., Ranger missions), (6) Lunar orbital mission, (7) Lunar lander mission (e.g., keep working after landing), (8) Lunar rover mission (move for a minimum of X meters), (9) Lunar return mission. etc.,<br /><br />These are not an exact ordering, but more of a lattice. For example, someone might want to attempt a Ranger-class mission before a supply mission to ISS. The primary goal is to structure prizes in an order that builds up a private industrial capability.<br /><br /><b><font color="yellow">Second</font>/b>, The plan should be to offer multiple prizes for many of the tasks. For example, the first to put a sputnik-class satellite up gets $X dollars, the next gets 60% of that, and the third gets 40%. The goal is to build up a healthy number of players to avoid a monopoly.<br /><br /><b><font color="yellow">Third</font>/b>, where possible part of the prize should be contract services at a specified rate and number. For example, the first to supply ISS gets $X dollars in an initial prize and a contract for $Y dollars per future supply mission and a guarantee of at least Z missions. The goals are to provide additional financial incentives ro get companies to pursue a goal and to offload ever increasing amount of services to the private sector, even if that costs more in the short run.<br /><br /><b><font color="yellow">Fourth</font>/b>, intellectual property rights need to be worked out. If NASA has a prize for visual images of a specified resolution for certain areas (e.g., for choos</b></b></b></b>
 
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alonzofyfe

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RadarRedux:<br /><br />Regarding your caveats.<br /><br />(1) I agree -- the prizes should be stepped. There should be prizes for earlier missions in order to build up the teams and the experience for going after the later prizes.<br /><br />However, as a starting point, I would like to see NASA simply pick one item and offer a prize for its accomplishment, just to get its own feet wet in offering these types of incentives. It is not necessary to build the whole pragram from scratch on Day 1.<br /><br />Just, pick a simple mission that NASA has planned and use the "prize" model rather than the NASA owned and operated model.<br /><br /><br />(2) I also agree on the multiple prizes. As illustrated in the original post, there should be multiple prizes for the same goal with limitations on the number of prizes that any one team can collect. This will give more teams an incentive to try -- rather than creating an attitude of, "We cannot win, and second place pays nothing, so why try?"<br /><br /><br />(3) If there is an opportunity to attach a "contract for service" to a prize, then this can be a legitimate incentive as well. However, as with the above item, the "contract for service" should not give the whole contract to one team.<br /><br /><br />(4) I am up for negotiation on what happens to the rights. For the most part, I see NASA as offering a prize to the team that can deliver certain data that has a low or nonexistent market value. Anything else that the winning team does along the way in terms of images and the like are theirs to use to collect additional income.
 
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