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THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER - The new $30 million space race

Mark Krynsky — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:00:11 -0800

While Nasa’s manned moon landing project has been shelved, hi-tech companies around the world are going head-to-head in a new space race. At stake is not just $30 million in prize money for the winner, but billions of dollars worth of lunar natural resources. Tom Gara reports

CNET News - X PRIZE Sets Sights on Next Challenges

Mark Krynsky — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:54:38 -0800

Having already set private space travel in motion, the organizers of the X Prize are ready to unveil the future of the cutting-edge competitions.

On May 15, at a gala fundraising event to be held at George Lucas' Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, X Prize Foundation Chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, along with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and "Avatar" director James Cameron will unveil their five-year vision for the famous awards.

X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis.

(Credit: Diamandis.com) The X Prize first gained fame for its promise of a $10 million prize to the first private team that could put a manned spaceship into space twice in two weeks. That prize, which was announced in 1996, was won in 2004 by inventor Burt Rutan and his SpaceShipOne project.

MSNBC - Humobots in space

Mark Krynsky — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:14:13 -0800

Despite the cancellation of NASA's back-to-the-moon program, the next steps on the moon will likely be taken sometime in the next decade under human control. It's just that the humans will be using a robot to take them. The space agency's paradigm shift just might bring a shift to robotic telepresence as the next-best thing to walking on the moon.

DISCOVERY NEWS - Visualizing the Electric Car 2015

Mark Krynsky — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:08:37 -0800

Contests like the X Prize use the power of prize to throw the doors open on a problem to get all of us, or some among all of us, to go to work on a solution. (The secrets of crafting a prize are revealed by X Prize Founder Peter Diamandis here). The Automotive X Prize will award $10 million this year to the team that best addresses the challenge of developing a production scale vehicle that gets a least 100 miles per gallon.

WALL STREET JOURNAL - The Case for Private Space

Mark Krynsky — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:36:09 -0800

Government agencies have dominated space exploration for three decades. But in a new plan unveiled in President Barack Obama's 2011 budget earlier this month, a new player has taken center stage: American capitalism and entrepreneurship. The plan lays the foundation for the future Google, Cisco and Apple of space to be born, drive job creation and open the cosmos for the rest of us.

DISCOVERY NEWS - NASA Launches Private Firms into Space Race

Mark Krynsky — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:34:41 -0800

NASA may be getting ready to end work on its Orion capsule, but private firms working on three, separate passenger spaceships are just getting started.

The vehicles are part of a new "fly commercial" initiative outlined by the Obama administration, which is requesting $6 billion over the next five years to develop alternative transportation for ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. With the space shuttles retiring, the U.S. government is dependent on Russia for space taxi services.

POPULAR MECHANICS - Peter Diamandis X Prize CEO, NASA and Private Space - X Prize CEO Thinks Obama's 2010 NASA Budget Good for S

Mark Krynsky — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:16:40 -0800

Today PM caught up with Peter Diamandis, the CEO and chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, at the Google Lunar X PRIZE summit at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. News that private space will be playing an expanded role in NASA's 2010 budget has created a buzz among the competition's 20 teams. "Everyone's excited this might mean a chance for a much larger market for the technology that the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams are creating," Diamandis says. Here's his personal take on the budget.

USC - Viterbi School of Engineering - X Prize Lab@USC Starts Up

Mark Krynsky — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:45:34 -0800

The X Prize Foundation, the non-profit organization that nurtures big-prize lures to encourage talented researchers to tackle big problems, has come to the University of Southern California.

AOL NEWS - New NASA Budget Could Boost Private Space Enterprise

Mark Krynsky — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:18:42 -0800

(Feb. 1) – With NASA's Constellation program cut from the budget President Obama proposed Monday, private companies have the chance to play a bigger role in the next space race.

While the budget request for fiscal year 2011 eliminates the Constellation program – which would have replaced the space shuttle with new rockets to return humans to the moon and ultimately land them on Mars – it provides funds for NASA to work with private industry to provide transportation to the International Space Station (ISS) and take on other exploratory and scientific projects.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden briefed reporters Monday afternoon about the budget, calling it a "bold challenge" from Obama for NASA "to become an engine of innovation." He emphasized that the space agency's budget is rising by $6 billion over the next five years to facilitate, in part, the "growth of new commercial industry."

LOS ANGELES TIMES - The private space race takes off

Mark Krynsky — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:07:07 -0800

Within the next decade, the stereotypical space traveler may no longer be a square-jawed fighter pilot but a wealthy Internet geek with deep pockets.

Or at least that's what a crop of gutsy space entrepreneurs hope.

For half a century, venturing into space has been the primary domain of governments that can afford to spend billions of dollars to develop and send massive rockets into orbit. But modern-day industrialists believe a privately funded commercial space industry is poised to blast off.