Tuesday, October 05, 2004

The X-Prize is Just The Beginning. CNN.com is reporting that Peter Diamandis, who brought us the X-Prize, plans to continue the program on an annual basis to keep innovators innovating. It will now be known as the X Prize Cup: The first X Prize Cup will be held in 2005-06 at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, a vast military installation. It will then move to an area 30 miles north of Las Cruces, where a facility dubbed the Southwest Regional Spaceport will be built. Teams will compete in five different categories to win the overall cup: Fastest turnaround time between the first launch and second landing, maximum number of passengers per launch, total number of passengers during the competition, maximum altitude and fastest flight time. So flying 62 miles high twice in two weeks was only the first step. Maybe in a few years (or decades) there might be a billion dollar cash prize for going to Jupiter and back. Maybe after that, light-speed travel? Who knows? And it makes me wonder what other fields of endeavor could benefit from a fat cash prize like this. A cure for the common cold? Cheaper, cleaner ground transportation? Anti-gravity? Artificial intelligence? Web code that works consistently in every browser? What do you think? [Gadgetopia] 7:31:48 PM    comment () Reuters.  Rumsfeld recants the truth after "misstatement."  Politics trumps reality yet again.  Rumsfeld, during a question-and-answer session before the Council on Foreign Relations, had been asked to explain the connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network -- one of the U.S. arguments for launching a war on Iraq.  He replied: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."   [John Robb's Weblog] This isn't the first time someone in the Bush Administration has slipped up and told the truth, and I doubt it will be the last. The distinguishing characteristic of this administration is that they're very bad liars. 6:25:58 PM    comment () Cool, But Fake, Fighter Jet. Urban Legends Reference Pages: Photo Gallery (F/A-37): Snopes has a bit this morning about an email forward claiming to have pictures of the "new" F/A-37 Talon. The pictures are cool, but it's a fake plane used for filming an upcoming film called "Stealth" starring Jamie Foxx. An intelligent, next-generation drone fighter plane develops a mind of its own and an American pilot must go up against it. Too bad — cool-looking plane. [Gadgetopia] Curiously, the imaginary fighter bears a slight resemblance to the YF-22 from Macross Plus--a fictional prototype fighter which is destroyed when the pilot goes up against a next-generation drone fighter controlled by an out-of-control artificial intelligence. 2:48:01 PM    comment () I'm catching up on news from the weekend. The most important story is certainly SpaceShipOne winning the X Prize! The flight took place on the anniversary of the Sputnik launch that began the space age in 1957, and beat the X-15 altitude record that stood for over forty years. Here's a collection of stories from around the web: SpaceShipOne Wins X-Prize [SciScoop] End the War on Freedom SpaceShipOne Wins the X Prize [Wired] Rolls Were Nothing to Flip Over [Wired] SpaceShipThree, Government Zero [Blognarik] Congratulations SpaceShipOne! [Blognarik] SpaceShipOne captures X Prize [Gadgetopia] SpaceShipOne Wins X Prize [inessential.com] You pays your money and you takes your ride [Adam Smith Institute Blog] Hack the Planent Burt is one of us [Samizdata.net] This is the day [Samizdata.net] Rutan reports on SpaceShipOne rolls [Samizdata.net] The Final Frontier [Mises Economics Blog] 10:12:54 AM    comment ()

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