DARPA getting that X-prize type feeling

Need proof that small prizes can stimulate big expenditures of effort
and money into tech research?

It seems DARPA is taking a page from the X-prize's book.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03293/232431.stm

They want to stimulate lots of research into technology for a robot
(robotic car, really) that can drive itself at high speed through the
desert, but they don't want to spend $100 million doing it. Solution:
offer a $1 million prize to the robot team that wins the race--and
then just sit back and watch.
According to this article, it looks like over $2 mil in labor and
parts has already been spent to win the $1 mil prize by the CalTech
and Carnegie Mellon teams alone.

If this turns out the way the Army hopes, maybe DARPA will start
offering prizes for other things...like space access?

Tom Merkle