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THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION

By Matthias Gründer

The idea sounds quite simple: engineers and inventors from around the world are to be inspired to develop simple and reliable technologies for a practicable space tourist industry, away from the established, state-organised and -financed space sector. The criteria that have to be satisfied are not as demanding as they might have been, for in the first phase what matters is that the craft is flying a genuine space flight: the first person who, as a minimum, safely transports one pilot and two passengers to an altitude of 100km in a sub-orbital flight and back again to earth will receive the $10 million, provided he can repeat the flight within two weeks.

The trustees of the "New Spirit of St. Louis Organisation" foundation, who in May 1996 announced the X Prize, are big businessmen in the tradition of the original "Spirit of St. Louis" organisation of 1927. In that year nine well-to-do citizens donated $25,000 to support Charles Lindbergh who had entered the competition for the Orteig Prize.

The Orteig Prize was one of 50 major aeronautical prizes which had been donated in the USA in the 1920s. Raymond Orteig, a rich hotelier, had promised $25,000, an enormous sum in those days, to the first person who could fly non-stop from New York to Paris. There were nine contenders, and the American public followed their efforts with great sympathy, amongst other things giving further donations which eventually reached $400,000.

Today's X Prize is no longer simply the idea of a few private people wanting to present their home city as a visionary high-tech location, for, as was the case 75 years ago, the matter is once again of interest to broad sections of the public.

Meanwhile twenty different teams are competing for the prize. Most of them come from the USA, but Russian, Canadian, British and even Argentinian inventors are also trying their hand at winning the $10 million, some of them with extremely unusual projects.

Advent Launch Services from Houston, Texas, for example, plans to launch its vehicle from the water surface. It will be towed by a speedboat until it takes off and thereafter climb using its own power. The vehicle is to be powered by a mixture of natural gas and oxygen, and after the controlled descent, the machine will return to the take-off point, where it will set down horizontally once more on the water. No information is currently available on the status of the development work.

The PA-X2 capsule from AeroAstro of Herndon, Virginia, will take off atop a conventional rocket and then return to earth with the aid of a parachute. The company already has some experience in the satellite business. In 1996 a preliminary engine test took place, but since then the project has been shrouded in silence. The "Lucky Seven" from the US Mickey Badgero & Associates is supposed to work in a similar fashion, but once again no further information is available on it.

The "Ascender" space plane from the UK company, Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd. is somewhat different. Powered by two Williams-Rolls FJ44 jet engines, it is to climb to an altitude of 8km, at which point it will then be conveyed by a Pratt & Whitney RL10 rocket engine to 100km. A remote-control model has already completed aerodynamic flight testing.

Canadian Arrow from Ontario is planning to launch its capsule of the same name with a two-stage rocket based on a German manned spaceflight project, the A 4, that was published by the British Interplanetary Society back in 1946. The craft will parachute-land on the water's surface, but apart from some extremely attractive computer graphics, there is as yet no information available on the status of the work.

The Cerulean Freight Forwarding Co. from Oroville, Washington, is planning a vertical take-off and landing spacecraft called the "Kitten" which should be operational within 18 months of obtaining secure financing. Cosmopolis XXI from Russia is a rocket module which could be taken to altitude on the back of a Myasishchev M-55 Geofisika space launcher. No further information is currently available, and the relevant internet address leads nowhere.

daVinci, a rocket stage which is to be carried by the world's largest hot air balloon to an altitude of approximately 13km, where its engines will then ignite, comes from Canada. Landing will be by parachute.

Most of the other projects sound the same or similar. The offerings range from a flying saucer from Discraft Corp. of Portland, Oregon, through the towed Eclipse Astroliner from Kelly Space and Technology or the air-fuelled Pathfinder from Pioneer Rocketplane through to the Thunderbird from Starchaser Industries of England.

Even Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites Inc. has registered for the X Prize contest with the futuristic high-altitude Proteus aircraft, yet once again the company has not issued any information as to how it is to be implemented. At least, no information can be tracked down on the internet.

The bottom line is that the whole competition appears to have entered a state of crisis. Apart from a few projects which simply do not appear to be implementable, everyone involved is keeping a low profile. The internet sites specified on registration provide only scant information, if any, and in many cases all one can see is the most recent update in order to clarify that some progress would appear to have been made.

There are somewhat starry-eyed plans around, whose implementation would depend on using self-developed rockets powered by Russian engines. Evidently the train of thought in such cases was that after the collapse of the Soviet space programme there would be powerplants stockpiled in Russia which could then be purchased on the cheap. But the Russians know the market value of their technology and are not prepared to give it away at a knock-down price.

So unless the competition regains some of its earlier impetus soon, there is a danger that it could peter out. But of one matter there is no doubt, namely that none of the teams has succeeded in attracting sufficient funding. On the other hand, in this respect the rivals are in good company: even the Foundation has only managed to collect six out of the ten millions of dollars that were promised.

From page 42 of FLUG REVUE 3/2002