New $50 Million Space Prize for Orbital Flight
NEW YORK, Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ — In an exclusive story in its September 27 issue, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that a new $50 million “America’s Space Prize” is being established by a millionaire space entrepreneur. The prize will go to the first team that can build a commercial space transport capable of sending 5-7 astronauts at a time into orbit.
Aviation Week further reports that millionaire Robert T. Bigelow will be putting up at least half of the money for the new prize to transport astronauts to his new Nautilus “inflatable” space outposts.
Aviation Week was given a look at the inflatable space module development inside Bigelow’s heavily guarded plant near North Las Vegas, Nev. The magazine reports that the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston is providing substantial technical assistance to the Nautilus project.
Bigelow’s “America’s Space Prize” is to be announced this week as part of ceremonies surrounding attempts by the Burt Rutan Scaled Composites “SpaceShipOne” team to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize to reach suborbital space at 62 mile altitude. The America’s Prize, however, is to award five times more money than the X-Prize and presents far greater challenges than the X-Prize, says Aviation Week.
The America’s Prize will require the development of a vehicle that could maneuver and dock with an orbiting space station at well over 100 miles altitude, then survive a reentry back into the atmosphere at 17,500 mph. This is something Rutan’s SpaceShipOne is not designed to do and the NASA space shuttle can do only at great expense and risk.
Bigelow, who earned his fortune as the founder of Budget Suites of America, wants to lease out his Nautilus inflatable modules so companies and government agencies can perform research at far less cost than on board the International Space Station.
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