Aldridge Commission recommends big space prizes

From the report: "Given the complexity and challenges of the new vision,
the Commission suggests that a more substantial prize might be
appropriate to accelerate the development of enabling technologies. As
an example of a particularly challenging prize concept, $100 million to
$1 billion could be offered to the first organization to place humans on
the Moon and sustain them for a fixed period before they return to
Earth."

Zow! I don't for a moment believe any such thing will happen, but it
sure is neat to see it recommended in an officially commissioned
report...

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

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Joe Strout wrote in message ...
From the report: "Given the complexity and challenges of the new vision,
the Commission suggests that a more substantial prize might be
appropriate to accelerate the development of enabling technologies. As
an example of a particularly challenging prize concept, $100 million to
$1 billion could be offered to the first organization to place humans on
the Moon and sustain them for a fixed period before they return to
Earth."

Zow! I don't for a moment believe any such thing will happen, but it
sure is neat to see it recommended in an officially commissioned
report...

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 ?
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.

-kert

In article ,
(Kaido Kert) wrote:

Joe Strout wrote in message
...
From the report: "Given the complexity and challenges of the new vision,
the Commission suggests that a more substantial prize might be
appropriate to accelerate the development of enabling technologies. As
an example of a particularly challenging prize concept, $100 million to
$1 billion could be offered to the first organization to place humans on
the Moon and sustain them for a fixed period before they return to
Earth."

Zow! I don't for a moment believe any such thing will happen, but it
sure is neat to see it recommended in an officially commissioned
report...

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 ?

$0.1B to $1B is not an ungodly amount for placing humans on the moon,
sustaining them a while, and returning them to Earth. It might just be
enough to spur a company to actually do it, but then again, it might not
(and the company that won the prize, might still lose money in the short
term, though presumably they and their competitors would leverage that
into profitable businesses thereafter, just as is happening with the
X-Prize).

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.

But they're not proposing to give anyone billions. They're proposing to
give the *winner* of the contest an amount up to one billion. The
contestants will be making do with limited resources anyway, both
because they have no guarantee of winning (and thus recouping their
costs at all), and because even if they win, they at these stakes they
will certainly hope to make a profit.

There is a big, huge, enormous difference between "here's a big bag of
cash, go build us something" and "here's a bag of cash you will get if
you are first to achieve a specific goal, otherwise you get nothing."
Interesting that virtually all past space development has used the
former model.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
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Joe Strout wrote:
$0.1B to $1B is not an ungodly amount for placing humans on the moon,
sustaining them a while, and returning them to Earth. It might just be
enough to spur a company to actually do it, but then again, it might not

The big problem with kind of scenario is getting the operating capital
to cover the cost of meeting payroll and bending metal during the
years between start-up and the awarding of the prize.

There's no shortage of companies willing to try, and some of them
might even be capable, but there is a massive shortage of billion
dollar pots of cash sitting around for them to tap into. Prizes work
well for modest goals, like the X-Prize or say 1M resolution pictures
of the moon, but they are not likely to work for larger projects.

Even worse, how many companies can survive burning someone else's
capital to stop short (for whatever reason), or spending the full
billion and losing. This isn't like the internet bubble where a lot
of companies can win big.

(and the company that won the prize, might still lose money in the short
term, though presumably they and their competitors would leverage that
into profitable businesses thereafter, just as is happening with the
X-Prize).

They'd better have a damn good business case from the get-go, or they
won't even get a chance to try. It's the same chicken-and-egg problem
that plagues us in so many ways.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Derek Lyons wrote:
Joe Strout wrote:
$0.1B to $1B is not an ungodly amount for placing humans on the moon,
sustaining them a while, and returning them to Earth. It might just be
enough to spur a company to actually do it, but then again, it might not

The big problem with kind of scenario is getting the operating capital
to cover the cost of meeting payroll and bending metal during the
years between start-up and the awarding of the prize.

That is a valid, painful problem.

There's no shortage of companies willing to try, and some of them
might even be capable, but there is a massive shortage of billion
dollar pots of cash sitting around for them to tap into. Prizes work
well for modest goals, like the X-Prize or say 1M resolution pictures
of the moon, but they are not likely to work for larger projects.

A minimal manned lunar mission is not necessarily all that
big of a project. The new development hardware dry mass
involved could be as little as about a ton's worth,
half of which is a 1 man capsule, the other half of which
is mostly tanks and a little bit legs and rocket engines.

I'm waiting to hear back from SFF about whether the paper's
accepted for next month's Return to the Moon V conference
in Las Vegas, but one could get a pretty good idea of
what will be in that by looking at my older Lunar Millennium
and some of my newer capsule stuff.

If it's not accepted to RTTM-V then I'll probably just
post it.

Even worse, how many companies can survive burning someone else's
capital to stop short (for whatever reason), or spending the full
billion and losing. This isn't like the internet bubble where a lot
of companies can win big.
[...]
They'd better have a damn good business case from the get-go, or they
won't even get a chance to try. It's the same chicken-and-egg problem
that plagues us in so many ways.

These are valid, painful problems.


-george william herbert

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 ?

I agree that you won't get CATS by just throwing money at the problem. That
is why the NASA approach of "give us 20 billion USD and we will develop
CATS" is so ridiculous.

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.

-kert

In article ,
Ruediger Klaehn wrote:
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.

Indeed, that's the sort of number you want for a prize: it's too small to
make it a profitable project for a traditional aerospace company like
LockMart, but it's large enough to offer some hope of a big payoff to more
innovative competitors.

...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.

If you pay people for making an effort toward a goal, the rational thing
for them to do is to maximize effort while making very slow progress.
(When you think about it, this explains many things.) Whereas if you pay
for results rather than effort...
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

(Henry Spencer) wrote:
If you pay people for making an effort toward a goal, the rational thing
for them to do is to maximize effort while making very slow progress.
(When you think about it, this explains many things.) Whereas if you pay
for results rather than effort...

You get huge dinosaurs with deep pockets who can afford to produce the
results. What you don't get is young innovative startups who can
barely make payroll producing significant results unless they too can
get acess to deep pockets.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

(Derek Lyons) :

(Henry Spencer) wrote:
If you pay people for making an effort toward a goal, the rational thing
for them to do is to maximize effort while making very slow progress.
(When you think about it, this explains many things.) Whereas if you pay
for results rather than effort...

You get huge dinosaurs with deep pockets who can afford to produce the
results. What you don't get is young innovative startups who can
barely make payroll producing significant results unless they too can
get acess to deep pockets.

Still dening that Armadllo AeroSpace for less than $2 million dollars has
gone further than NASA with $1.2 Billion I see.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

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