Prizes vs Market Guarantees

IMO, the main problem with prizes is that prizes do not do
much to encourage sponsorship or investment in competing
teams. Corporate sponsors spend their budgets a year or
two in advance. Individual sponsors are hard to come by
in sufficient numbers and/or size of contributions to have
much effect. Investors do not look at winner-take-all
contests as good investment opportunities.

Prizes can be effective if more effort is put into
mechanisms to provide funding for competing teams.
Special exemptions from the myriad of securities laws
could be especially helpful. Runner-up prizes would
also be helpful. Most helpful, however, would be market
guarantees that would guarantee minimal usage for any
concept that met the originally stated goals for that
concept. This latter implies that the stated goals are
sufficiently attractive to the sponsoring entity
to justify the guarantee.

As to the goal that qualifies for the prize, incremental
goals have much to offer. However, no more altitude
goals, please: 100 km at low speed is already outside
the normal abort corridor for getting to orbit. The
goal should emphasize velocity at any appropriate altitude
--not altitude without reference to speed. This is the
road to orbit. IMO, the next goal should be enough velocity
to enable a "once-around" capability or more. Payload might
be small--or alternatively enough to accommodate one or two
persons.

All this having been said, I would like to see-under the new
space policy announced by the president--market guarantees of
up to $500 million to each of as many as ten teams attempting
to provide alternate manned access to ISS and to Hubble.
Another aspect of such a policy might provide 50 percent tax
credits to investors in one of these companies. Any taxpayer
could invest up to ten percent of the taxpayer's tax bill. The
taxpayer would qualify for the 50 percent tax credit and would
also be considered an "accredited investor" with respect to various
state and federal securities laws. Companies competing for the market
guarantees would be subject to fraud prosecution, but would otherwise
be exempt from securities laws with respect to advertising and
aggregate amount of an offering to investor/taxpayers. Market
guarantees would go to the first ten teams meeting acceptable
qualification criteria with respect to concept sanity check and
the qualifications of at least the team leader. (The rest of the
team can be hired, once funding is available; leave "management
team" evaluations to the investor/taxpayer--in fact, leave all
but basic, minimal qualification criteria to the investor/taxpayer).
Failure to meet stated milestones, including stated funding
milestones, could jeapordize market guarantees--thus opening
another slot for another team.

(note: this was originally posted as a reply under Mars Prize,
but no one seemed to notice it there).

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com

(Len) wrote in message . com...
snip

....... IMO, the next goal should be enough velocity
to enable a "once-around" capability or more. Payload might
be small--or alternatively enough to accommodate one or two
persons.

snip

I suggest the next goal could be the slightly-easier "half-around"
capability, say, traveling 12,500 miles in less than 2 hours and
repeating it within a week. This could have commercial applications,
allowing an individual or package to reach any point on the planet
(well, any point with an appropriate landing site) quickly.

(Bill Bogen) wrote in message . com...
(Len) wrote in message . com...
snip

....... IMO, the next goal should be enough velocity
to enable a "once-around" capability or more. Payload might
be small--or alternatively enough to accommodate one or two
persons.

snip

I suggest the next goal could be the slightly-easier "half-around"
capability, say, traveling 12,500 miles in less than 2 hours and
repeating it within a week. This could have commercial applications,
allowing an individual or package to reach any point on the planet
(well, any point with an appropriate landing site) quickly.

Yes, but only slightly easier to do than "once-around," which
has additional applications.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
( http://www.tour2space.com )

"Len" wrote in message
m...
(Bill Bogen) wrote in message
. com...
I suggest the next goal could be the slightly-easier "half-around"
capability, say, traveling 12,500 miles in less than 2 hours and
repeating it within a week. This could have commercial applications,
allowing an individual or package to reach any point on the planet
(well, any point with an appropriate landing site) quickly.

Yes, but only slightly easier to do than "once-around," which
has additional applications.

I believe that true orbital capability has sufficient revenue capability
that prizes for it could well be redundant. A more incremental goal
would be nice for boosting SLV capabilities. It would have to be
well selected and marketed to achieve the desired result. Perhaps
something along the lines of Houston to Tampa and back in under
a week. 3-4 km/sec between those two might be more
of a reasonable possibility for the next few years.

Whatever type goal is chosen like this must have enough pizzaz
to capture imaginations and interest. Hollywood to Honolulu
has a nice ring, though perhaps a bit much V in the near term.

"johnhare" wrote in message m...
"Len" wrote in message
m...
(Bill Bogen) wrote in message
. com...
I suggest the next goal could be the slightly-easier "half-around"
capability, say, traveling 12,500 miles in less than 2 hours and
repeating it within a week. This could have commercial applications,
allowing an individual or package to reach any point on the planet
(well, any point with an appropriate landing site) quickly.

Yes, but only slightly easier to do than "once-around," which
has additional applications.

I believe that true orbital capability has sufficient revenue capability
that prizes for it could well be redundant.

I believe that and you believe that--but unfortunately
investors do not generally see the full potential of
an orbital capability. That's why market guarantees
would be useful.

....A more incremental goal
would be nice for boosting SLV capabilities. It would have to be
well selected and marketed to achieve the desired result. Perhaps
something along the lines of Houston to Tampa and back in under
a week. 3-4 km/sec between those two might be more
of a reasonable possibility for the next few years.

Whatever type goal is chosen like this must have enough pizzaz
to capture imaginations and interest. Hollywood to Honolulu
has a nice ring, though perhaps a bit much V in the near term.

Designing for a point-to-point capability would be another
distraction from designing for an orbital capability. Why
not encourage the real goal. I think that the point-to-point
market is overrated with respect to the relative economics of
existing alternatives; going for the orbital capability seems
to yield a much better potential-return-to-difficulty ratio.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
x@tour2space. com (change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com

"Len" wrote in message
om...
"johnhare" wrote in message news:3mUYb.29479
I believe that true orbital capability has sufficient revenue capability
that prizes for it could well be redundant.

I believe that and you believe that--but unfortunately
investors do not generally see the full potential of
an orbital capability. That's why market guarantees
would be useful.

I must have mixed your points somewhere. Market guarantees
for performance only would be very usefull. IMO, prizes
have the drawbacks you have mentioned several times for
the very large investments, too risky. For fully orbital, I
think maret guarantees would be vastly superior to one shot
prizes.

....A more incremental goal
would be nice for boosting SLV capabilities. It would have to be
well selected and marketed to achieve the desired result. Perhaps
something along the lines of Houston to Tampa and back in under
a week. 3-4 km/sec between those two might be more
of a reasonable possibility for the next few years.

Whatever type goal is chosen like this must have enough pizzaz
to capture imaginations and interest. Hollywood to Honolulu
has a nice ring, though perhaps a bit much V in the near term.

Designing for a point-to-point capability would be another
distraction from designing for an orbital capability. Why
not encourage the real goal. I think that the point-to-point
market is overrated with respect to the relative economics of
existing alternatives; going for the orbital capability seems
to yield a much better potential-return-to-difficulty ratio.

I depends on the percieved difficulty level of reaching orbit vs
point to point for the prize scenerio. I do agree that point to
point markets are less likely, and less lucrative, than full orbital
capability. It may be however, that a high profile point to point
prize, may seem more attainable to a larger number of contestants.
It is a step beyond the X-Prize that might possibly produce
vehicles just one generation from orbital RLVs.

One thing that would concern me about a very well funded prize
is that the usual suspects could possibly put together a subsidary
company to pick it up without seriously affecting the status quo.
The amount of the prize needs to be kept below what they think
it would cost to attain, and below their threat radar if possible.
I don't believe it is beyond belief that shady book keeping and
gaming the rules would circumvent the intent of the prize. As
above, market guarantees to multiple groups would be much better
for orbit.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
x@tour2space. com (change x to len)
http://www.tour2space.com