Adefactoresult of the above rules means that the "space ship" should be cheap to build and run.

Role of the X-Prize

Till today only goverments have largely contolled space access. In an era when capitalism has proved to be the only viable model, private industry has to take over from the state in this "final frontier".

This means that space sccess will no longer be beyond the reach of the common man. He will be able to afford and enjoy the pleasures of space.

Critical to the fulfilment of this dream is the development of space transport which can accomplish it's task in the easiest and cheapest way. The X-Prize is the catalyst which will give the impetus to the private space industry.

Who is participating?

20 teams have entered the contest as on June 2, 2001.

The following may join :

• canyonspaceteam.org : Canyon Space Team is working on a HTOL-TSTO/ Air-launch vehicle
• sff.net/people/dburkhead/spacecub.htm : David L. Burkhead's SpaceCub concept

Other projects of interest:

• rocketguy.com : Brian 'Rocketguy' Walker wants to hold the altitude record by going 48 kms up in his own reusable rocket.
• armadilloaerospace.com : John Carmack, the famed programmer of Id Software (the folks who have developed the Doom and Quake series of PC games), is working on a VTOL vehicle.

Problems that plague this novel venture

Perhaps the biggest roadblock here is that the competetion is'nt really as hot as the organizers would like you to believe. There is very little testing of 'real' equipment. Some of these guys don't even have a website. Of the contestants that do have a website only few actually update them. Last checked, the latest news at rocketplane.com wass dated Feb1999. Yep, you can call that old. One can only wonder how they will manage to get investments without marketing themselves in the right way. With the recession in the world economy beginning 2001, it is unclear how the competitors will manage to get revenue.

Speaking of investments, money is all what it is in the xprize. NASA pours billions of dollars into their projects, and still fails at most of them. The contestants and many X-Prize supporters believe that it is due to their lack of innovation and their narrow minded approach to new ideas. It would be interesting to see how private parties strech their tiny resources to produce something that can carry 3 human beings to 100 kms above the earth( and bring them back). To accomplish this task, new ground must be broken in the field of aerospace technology. Will some obscure private company would be the first to do this? But only time will answer this question.

It is indeed correct to say that organizations which want to participate in this revolution and are brimming of new ideas, but most don't have the finance to fulfill their objectives. One can be confident of a company say Boeing or business plane manufacturers to do the job, but at present only Scaled Composites seem to be in this business for a long time. Atleast these people have some experience and a regular source of income!. This is the reason why Scaled is one of the favorites to win the prize, even though they have not unveiled their entry. Most of the contestants are startups in this high-risk, low gain business. Most are however, led by people who are well known and respected in the industry.

X-Prize is not the only place where all the action is happening, some like XCOR Aerospace and Starbooster are also working on RLV technology.

Who'll Win?

The golden question, eh? As of Jan 2002, it is difficult to even predict who'll manage to start, let alone win. Scaled Composites, already mentioned, is among the favorites right from the start. In recent times StarChaser Industries has managed to attract a lot of interest due to their regular and increasingly bold flight tests - of REAL rockets. Their means of collecting funds - using sponsorships, selling their Newsletter and StarChaser merchandise are indeed new to the traditional space lauch business.

DaVinci got a lot of attention sometime ago, and Canadian Arrow wowed many people with their full-scale model at various air shows. Bristol Spaceplanes are busy building a 2nd flight test model. They also participated in a few exhibitions where they displayed a static Ascender mockup.

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