Centennial Challenges

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The Centennial Challenges are NASA inducement prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams.

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Challenges

As of August 2005, four Challenges have been announced: the Tether Challenge, the Beam Power challenge, the Moon Regolith Oxygen (MoonROx) Challenge, and the Astronaut Glove Challenge. Each of these challenges are being done in collaboration with an outside organization. Further challenges are still being planned.

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Tether Challenge

This competition, being done in partnership with the Spaceward Foundation[1], has the challenge of constructing super-strong tethers, a crucial component of a space elevator. [2] A contest in 2005 will award US$50,000 to the team that constructs the strongest tether, with contests in future years requiring that each year's winner beat the previous year's by 50%.

This challenge and the Beam Power Challenge were the first to be announced by NASA, on March 23, 2005.

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Beam Power Challenge

This is a competition to build a wirelessly-powered ribbon-climbing robot, also done in partnership with the Spaceward Foundation[3]. The contest involves having the robot lift a large payload within a limited timeframe. The first competition in 2005 will award US$50,000, US$20,000, and US$10,000 to the three best-performing teams.

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Moon Regolith Oxygen (MoonROx) Challenge

This head-to-head competition, planned for Summer 2006, will reward US$250,000 for the system capable of extracting 2.5 kilograms of oxygen from 100 kilograms of artificial lunar regolith in 4 hours or less[4].

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Astronaut Glove Challenge

This competition will reward US$250,000 at a competition in November 2006 to the team which constructs the best-performing astronaut glove [5]. The basic idea for the competition was first proposed in Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings blog[6].

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Suborbital Payload Challenge

Announced at the XPrize Cup Expo, this challenge will be run by the XPrize Foundation once the NASA authorization bill has passed and the purse size has been allocated. This will be the first prize where the purse is over $250,000. The goal is to achieve suborbital altitudes that provide enough linger time for the kind of microgravity research NASA needs.

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Suborbital Lunar Lander Analog Challenge

Also announced at the XPrize Cup Expo and run by the XPrize Foundation, this prize is for a VTVL suborbital rocket that can achieve the altitudes and launch energies that are equivalent to what would be needed for a lunar lander.

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Telerobotic Construction Challenge

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Planetary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Challenge

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Other proposals

The Challenges have not been finalized. Candidates include:

Challenges will be organized into one of four categories: [7]

  • Flagship Challenges: "To encourage major private space missions," these are expected to be multi-million dollar prizes for more major goals, such as robotic lunar landers or human orbital spaceflight.
  • Keystone Challenges: "To address technology priorities"
  • Alliance Challenges: "To leverage partnerships," contests organized in collaboration with non-government partners
  • Quest Challenges: "To promote science, technology, engineering and math outreach"
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Origin

The Centennial Challenges are based on a long history of technology prize contests, including the Longitude prize (won by John Harrison), the Orteig Prize (won by Charles Lindbergh), the Ansari X Prize (won by Scaled Composites), and the DARPA Grand Challenge (won by Stanford University). A key advantage of prizes over traditional grants is that money is only paid when the goal is achieved. A 1999 National Academy of Engineering committee report[8] recommended that "Congress encourage federal agencies to experiment more extensively with inducement prize contests in science and technology". A 2003 NASA Space Architect study, assisted by the X PRIZE Foundation, led to the establishment of the Centennial Challenges. The prize contests were named "Centennial" in honor of the 100 years since the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903.

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Budget

For Financial Year 2004, each prize will be $250,000 or less.

The Financial Year 2005 budget includes $20 million for Centennial Challenges. Prizes larger than $250,000 will be offered if legislation (2005 NASA Authorization Act) allows them.

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See also

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External links

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Official (NASA)

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News

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Unofficial (non-NASA)

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News

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Opinion

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