Ruediger Klaehn wrote in message ...
Kaido Kert wrote:

Joe Strout wrote in message

[snip]
Can you imagine the trophy that would go along with a $1B prize?

Careful, here. How can you get cheap spaceflight when you pay ungodly
amounts of money for it ?

But a prize of $1B for a moon shot is not an ungodly amount of money. You
might even argue that it is way too low.

One of the reasons why small enterprises are sometimes innovative in
developing low-cost methods is that they HAVE TO make do with limited
resources. Give them billions and they'll spend billions too.

You don't give them billions up front. You give them billions once they have
earned it. That is a huge difference.
All correct, i was simply trying to point out that a simple cash prize
model doesnt scale very well, IMHO. Its ok for relatively small jumps
in the state of art, but wont work that spectacularly for so huge
leaps.
A million dollar Orteig Prize with similar goal in 1902 would have
produced nothing but couple dead bodies and scrapheaps, and not that
many competitors.

A gradual step-by step advancement in capabilities and/or different
prizes for different subgoals might be more reasonable for lunar
trips. At some point, appropriate subsidies might work even better.

One point to emphazis is that while prizes produce some technological
advances, the more important advances are within organizations
capabilities that compete for the prize. Experience base, personnel
etc etc. You cant take huge leaps with those.

-kert