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Peter Diamandis, CEO of the X Prize Foundation, wants to use our competitive instincts to make the world a better place. After handing out $10 million to the first private team to achieve suborbital space flight, he's extended his X-prize concept into earthly realms such as automotive engineering, genomics and health care. And while he still sends billionaires to the International Space Station as managing director of the firm Space Adventures, he's lately teamed up with futurist Ray Kurzweil to create the Singularity University, where young entrepreneurs are trained to think about global issues. Ivan Semeniuk spoke with Diamandis about...

GERMAN TEAM PART-TIME-SCIENTISTS ENTERS $30 MILLION GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE COMPETITION Berlin, Germany .– Today, Team Part-Time-Scientists announced its official entry into the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition, marking Germany’s debut in this new race to the Moon. The team joins the $30 million contest that challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch a privately funded spacecraft to the Moon. The spacecraft must complete a series of exploration and transmission tasks as outlined in the competition’s official rules. Team Part-Time-Scientists, headquartered in Berlin, Germany has seven team members and is among 19 teams from...

At the 50th anniversary space conference here Thursday, a fight over the future role of NASA's space program inadvertently took off. If it were up to Burt Rutan, the aerospace engineer known for building a suborbital rocket plane that won the Ansari X Prize, NASA wouldn't be developing a spacecraft to put another man on the moon by 2020. That government mission has already been accomplished, and a repeat performance is "silly," Rutan said during a panel held at California Institute of Technology, CalTech, which runs NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. "Taxpayer-funded NASA should only fund research and not development," Rutan...

The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. (NasdaqGS:GOOG - News) today announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the Moon to win a remarkable $30 million prize purse. Private companies from around the world will compete to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth. The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to...

The X PRIZE Foundation's Competition in Honor of Famed Astronaut Rewards High-School-Aged Teams That Develop an Original Concept to Benefit Personal Spaceflight The X PRIZE Foundation announced the availability of online registration for a new education competition designed to interest students in space, science and technology. The Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award, named in honor of the celebrated Apollo astronaut, will be presented for the first time at this year's Wirefly X PRIZE Cup in October. The award will be presented to the high school team that develops the most creative, new space concept to benefit the emerging personal...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For Robin Williams, Tipper Gore, Richard Branson, and even Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, "X" marked the spot at Google this weekend. That "X" would be the X Prize Foundation--the 10-year-old organization behind the $10 million Ansari X Prize spaceflight competition--which held its charity benefit at Google's headquarters here on Saturday. The star-studded event was a sort of coming-out party to Bay Area investors, socialites and celebrities, in an effort to raise money for a dozen more innovation contests in the fields of energy, medicine and commercial spaceflight.

WASHINGTON - Scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs will be able to vie for millions of dollars in prizes, including a grand prize potentially worth $50 million, under House-passed legislation to encourage research into hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Legislation creating the “H Prize,” modeled after the privately funded Ansari X Prize that resulted last year in the first privately developed manned rocket to reach space twice, passed the House Wednesday on a 416-6 vote. A companion bill is to be introduced in the Senate this week.

Washington, DC (AHN) - In what could be the largest medical prize in history, the X-Prize Foundation says $10 million is up for grabs to the first private team that decodes 100 human genomes in 10 days. The organizers believe rapid genetic sequencing is the next great frontier, and could pave the way for a new era of personalized medicine. It could allow doctors to measure patients' vulnerability to illness and genetic connections to diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. This is the second major challenge from the foundation, which also sponsored the $10 million prize to the team who developed...

As a long time space advocate I have seen many fads, hopes, and dreams come and go in our quest to open the space frontier for everyone. This week something special has happened that has to be commented on. Ms Anousheh Ansari has done something truly wonderful for herself, human spaceflight, and the people of her native Iran. She is not only the world's first female space tourist but the first female born in Iran to go to space. This is a doubly important event in that it has created a global stir among the Iranian diaspora as well as...

The X Prize Cup, an annual space and air show held in southern New Mexico, is currently selling tickets to its two day festival on Oct. 20 -21 at Las Cruces International Airport. This year's Cup will launch three competitions with more than $2.5 million in prizes, including the Lunar Lander Challenge, which is a NASA-supported prize effort showcasing the ability of private companies to develop a next-generation lunar lander, according to the event's Web site; the Vertical Rocket Challenge, described as another lunar-landing-technology-focused competition; and the Space Elevator Game, which tests more than 20 teams to use light to...

Organizers of next month's X Prize Cup announced today that their ticket window is officially open for business, with prices ranging from $10 for daily admission ($5 for kids and students) to $250 for a VIP ducat with access to the flight line, food and an open bar. Active military personnel can get in for free (check the Web site for details). The headliner for the Oct. 20-21 event at the Las Cruces Airport in New Mexico is the Lunar Lander Challenge, during which rocket teams will vie for $2 million in NASA-backed prizes. To figure out the favorites, check...

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A Russian-built rocket carrying the world's first female space tourist lifted off Monday in Kazakhstan on a flight to the international space station. Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, was accompanied by a U.S.-Russian crew on the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule.

A young Iranian-born American woman who rallied her wealthy family to underwrite a $10m (£5.3m) competition for the first private spaceflight will soon get to experience for herself the thrill of being a space tourist. On Tuesday, Anousheh Ansari was confirmed as the replacement for Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto as a fare-paying passenger onboard the next Russian rocket mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Lift-off for the Soyuz capsule that will carry Mrs Ansari and two members of the next ISS crew is scheduled for 14 September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. In her quest to fly in space,...

It may not be as heady as the X Prize, but the Space Frontier Foundation is planning what you might call the B Prize for space-related business plans. The payoff for the best pitch? Entrepreneurial glory ... plus a $1,000 poker chip, awarded by an investor at the foundation’s annual conference in Las Vegas next month. XCOR Aerospace's Rich Pournelle, a guy who is well-versed in the world of space entrepreneurship, sent along the call for entries for the NewSpace 2006 Business Plan Competition. Pournelle emphasized that the entries need not be restricted to rocket ships.

HOUSTON, TX (May 25, 2006) - Trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust announced today that the first-ever Heinlein Prize will go to Dr. Peter H. Diamandis. The Heinlein Prize was founded to reward individuals for making practical contributions to the commercialization of space. Dr. Diamandis will be honored at a dinner and award ceremony on July 7, 2006 at the St. Regis Hotel in Houston, Texas and receive $500,000, a gold Heinlein Medallion, the Lady Vivamus Sword (as described in Heinlein’s book Glory Road) and a Laureate’s Diploma.

Anousheh Ansari, co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI) and multi-million co-contributor to the X-Prize foundation, is in training in Russia as back up cosmonaut to SFP Daisuke Enomoto (Japan). Sources in the US are revealing that the role model will begin full training from April, at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC).

LANCASTER - The country is entering a second space age, one driven not by Cold War rivalries, but by the challenges of maintaining and further promoting the nation's historic excellence in space enterprise. "The second space age must feature exploration of the universe while achieving synergy among commercial, civil and military space programs," said. Rep. Ken Calvert, speaking at the Antelope Valley Board of Trade's 2006 Business Outlook Conference on Friday. Maintaining the nation's focus on space enterprise is important even as the country faces budgetary challenges such as those brought on by war or natural disasters. "We can not...

They are not international and there are not going to be any gold, silver, or bronze medals, but the Centennial Challenge s program is competition at the highest level. Ever since Peter Diamandis revived the idea of prizes back in 1996 with the X Prize (later renamed the Ansari X Prize) the concept has been slowly taking hold in the US and elsewhere, first with the DARPA Grand Challenge for robotic vehicles and Robert Bigelow’s America’s Space Prize, and now with these NASA prizes. Before the US Congress passed the NASA authorization bill in December of last year, the space...

A Saint Louis University professor and a contender for the X Prize plan to unveil Thursday their plans for a space vehicle that would take passengers into orbit to the International Space Station. Paul Czysz, professor emeritus of aerospace engineering, is teaming up with Ontario-based PlanetSpace and Canadian Arrow, a competitor for the X Prize, to develop the orbital vehicle, called the Silver Dart. The vehicle is based on a hypersonic glider Czysz helped test in the early 1960s.

The X Prize Foundation has completed a study on how the Federal Government—NASA—can establish cash prizes to spur human-carrying orbital spacecraft. A Human Orbital Vehicle (HOV) challenge would build upon NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. Presently, however, that effort is limited in the size of prizes offered by the space agency, now no greater than $250,000. NASA’s Centennial Challenges are contests to stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration and ongoing NASA mission objectives. Numbers of Centennial Challenges have already been put in place, from tether and beam power competitions to astronaut glove development and making oxygen out of the...

Beside the war in Iraq and the scrap over the President's Supreme Court nominee, last month's announcement of the Rocket Racing League--the what?--came off as comic relief. What's this, a new Jetsons movie? Or could George Plimpton be risen from the dead and writing spoofs? The Rocket Racing League, though, is no put-on. It's real, the brainchild of Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., the private-space-travel entrepreneur, and Granger B. Whitelaw, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and two-time Indy 500 team winner. Diamandis was the force behind last year's Ansari X Prize, won by Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne for kissing the boundary of space...

Two former rocketeer rivals are teaming up to develop privately-built spacecraft, officials with both groups said Friday. Canada’s London, Ontario-based firm PlanetSpace and the Romanian aerospace company ARCA – both past competitors in the $10 million Ansari X Prize contest for suborbital spaceflight – are pooling their expertise or a joint space project. While some details of the partnership remain under wraps, the collaboration will likely include the sharing of technology and other resources, PlanetSpace officials said. “We both have capabilities to bring to each other,” PlanetSpace president and CEO Geoff Sheerin told SPACE.com. “It’s a good fit to test...

The news that NASA is talking to the X Prize Foundation about supporting a series of Centennial Challenge competitions to encourage the design of rockets for use on the Moon is pretty good news. If all goes well, NASA will offer a purse—perhaps a million dollars or more—to the winning team. The only question is, what exactly is the prize for? According to the NASA press release there will in fact be two prizes “tentatively named the Suborbital Payload Challenge and the Suborbital Lunar Lander Analog Challenge.” Both the space agency and the foundation are expected to work out the...

Masten Space Systems announced Wednesday that it strongly supported the recent agreement between NASA and the X Prize Foundation to develop two suborbital Centennial Challenges and that, pending announcements on rules, it looked forward to participating. While the two new Challenges are restricted to suborbital ranges, they represent increases in altitude and technology that push the marketplace forward. The Suborbital Payload Challenge is a prize for the first team to achieve altitudes useful to scientific research payloads, such as astronomical and atmospheric research instruments and longer-duration micro-gravity experiments. These altitudes are typically in excess of 200 kilometers and as high...

NASA wants to teaming up with the X-Prize foundation to fund two new competitions to develop technology for sub-orbital space vehicles, as part of its Centennial Challenges program. Subject to statutory budget approval, NASA will stump up prize money of more than $250,000 for each competition, while the X-Prize Foundation will handle the business of running the contests.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - Several thousand space enthusiasts swarmed to the city's airport for a glimpse of a future in which you might just as easily book a rocket to space as you would a plane to Las Vegas. The final day of X Prize Cup Week in New Mexico on Sunday drew a throng of would-be astronauts, entrepreneurs and curiosity seekers. They milled about the wind-swept airport grounds transformed for the afternoon into a Tomorrowland-type theme park. The organizers' goals were to show off what clever things entrepreneurs are doing to get into space, and to promote the X...

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico - – Despite its grand finale ending with an unexpected bang, the Personal Spaceflight Expo held here today as part of the Countdown to the X Prize Cup was a success, attracting thousands of onlookers who explored space capsules, rubbed elbows with astronauts and watched high-performance rocketry shoot through the sky. They even watched a few mishaps in what is billed as the emergence of rocketry for the masses and public space travel. The whole event, which ran from October 6 - 9, was organized by the X Prize Foundation and hosted by the State of...

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- Preparations are in full swing for the Countdown to the X Prize Cup—a celebration of a new generation of private passenger-carrying spaceships built for speed and to foster space tourism. An array of spaceship concepts will be spotlighted during a Spaceflight Exposition, to be held here October 9 at the International Airport-Las Cruces, along with entrepreneurs, engineers, and pilots involved in the projects. Peter Diamandis is the mastermind behind the Countdown to the X Prize Cup, and is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the X Prize Foundation.

  Artist's concept of racer. Rocket Racing League    X-Prize man launches rocket race  Peter Diamandis, the man behind the $10m X-Prize for suborbital space travel, has brought forward his new initiative: the Rocket Racing League. The RRL will see Grand Prix-style races between rocket planes, flown by top pilots through a "3D trackway" just 5,000ft (1,500m) above the ground. The first "X-Racers" will be built for the series, but it is hoped new teams will soon enter with novel designs. Events will be staged across the US, culminating in a final in New Mexico.     The Rocket...

NEW YORK -- Traffic cops beware, there’s a whole new league of speed demon in town. A private group of rocketeers has banded together to create the Rocket Racing League with aims at blurring the line between competitive racing and human spaceflight. Their vision: A fleet of at least 10 stock rocket planes flown by crack pilots through a three-dimensional track 5,000 feet above the Earth. “This is where innovation begins,” said league co-founder Peter Diamandis, who unveiled the new rocket league here today, in an interview. “It’s all part of the same…mission, which is to make space personally accessible...

Hartford, CT (PRWEB) September 26, 2005 -- UP Aerospace, Inc. (www.upaerospace.com), the world's only operational, private space-launch company, will exhibit its renowned "SpaceLoft" rocket at the upcoming Countdown to the X PRIZE CUP. The X PRIZE CUP event will take place at the Las Cruces International Airport, New Mexico, on Sunday, October 9th, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Visitors can take photos along side a SpaceLoft rocket, and discuss the space-flying capabilities of this unique spacecraft with the principals of UP Aerospace. The SpaceLoft rocket will make history on March 27, 2006, as it will be the first rocket...

SAN LUIS OBISPO - The nation's youth need something new and exciting to inspire them to be the creative geniuses of tomorrow, Burt Rutan believes. Rutan, arguably one of today's most creative geniuses, thinks commercial manned spaceflight is the answer to that challenge. Rutan outlined his vision for the future of personal space travel for the masses Friday at his alma mater, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The noted aviation designer - seen by many as responsible for launching a new era in spaceflight with his SpaceShipOne spacecraft - was honored by the university during its annual Fall...

The first official presentation of the ORIZONT vehicle took place in the Constitution Place. For the first time, the general public and media was informed about this vehicle, may be the most important private European initiative in the field of manned space flight.

New Mexico's new Spaceport Authority met for the first time last Wednesday to start making plans for a new commercial spaceport in the state. "Now we move into implementation," Spaceport Authority Chairman Rick Homans told Space.com after the meeting. A site of 27 square miles, about 45 miles north of Las Cruces, has already been designated as the Southwest Regional Spaceport. The Authority will begin work on an environmental impact assessment within the next month, Homans said, and hopes to have an FAA license to operate as a spaceport by the end of next year. Homans said the Spaceport Authority...

iiiklMOJAVE, Calif., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- XCOR Aerospace, Inc. has announced that the company will conduct multiple flight tests of the EZ-Rocket during the weekend of October 6-9 at the inaugural Countdown to the X PRIZE CUP in New Mexico. Flights will take place between 11am and 5pm at the Las Cruces International Airport. Piloting the EZ-Rocket during its several demonstration flights will be Col. Richard A. Searfoss ret. USAF, a former NASA Astronaut and Chief Judge of the Ansari X PRIZE. "This is a marvelous chance for people to get up close and personal with rocket powered vehicles," said...

Rocket designer launches own firm after stint with X Prize winner Burt Rutan Huntsville native Tim Pickens' passion for rockets - and a little help from space entrepreneur Burt Rutan - helped him launch Orion Propulsion a little more than a year ago. Business is good for the Madison-based startup, its president said recently. "We've done more than $1 million (worth of business) in the last nine months."

At 3:00 PM on July 27, 2005, the past met the future in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I was standing in one of the huge grass parking lots of Wittman Field, the home of the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture fly-in, when I looked up to see Burt Rutan’s White Knight aircraft doing a flyby carrying SpaceShipOne. As I watched, the carrier aircraft and its famous payload turned and climbed like the high performance combination it is. The piercing scream of the jet engines drew the attention of anyone who had not yet looked up. With Mike Melvill at the controls the...

OSHKOSH, Wis. - When SpaceShipOne rocketed into space over Mojave last year, claiming the $10 million Ansari X Prize, the feat represented, not the end of a journey to create the first privately funded, manned space program, but the launch a new era of human spaceflight. "We're on the verge of the most amazing period of human evolution ever," where humankind begins to move off this planet and into space, said Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation. Going into space is a "moral imperative," Diamandis told visitors to the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2005 on Thursday. The annual...

Invent the Lever Dennis Polhill / Alex Schroeder Opinion Editorial July 13, 2005 If one could put $100 in the bank and get back $4000, one would be a fool to not do it. A $10 million prize offered by a St. Louis group has stimulated $400 million in research and development since 1996. Equally important, the X-Prize accomplished in eight years what NASA considered impossible. The contest motivated Burt Rutan to build the world's first privately funded spacecraft. Space Ship One went into space for the third time on October 4, 2004 to win the X-Prize. Since X-Prize inception,...

A hovering spacecraft prototype, a zooming rocket plane, demonstrations and blastoffs galore are on the schedule in October for the first-ever X Prize Cup, a follow-up to last year's $10 million suborbital space race. Don't expect any space-launch competitions this year at Las Cruces' airport: This is strictly an exposition and exhibition, operating under the Federal Aviation Administration’s rules for experimental aircraft. But there will be liftoffs, takeoffs and rocket flames, during a four-day event aimed at setting the stage for contests to come, said Peter Diamandis, chairman and founder of the X Prize Foundation.

The personal spaceflight revolution is headed for a liftoff this October in New Mexico. Officials of the X Prize Cup announced today in Las Cruces, New Mexico that a roster of rocket activities will take to the air October 4-9 at various locations in Southern New Mexico, including Las Cruces and Alamogordo. Last April, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson declared the October dates as X Prize Cup Week in New Mexico. He noted that it would be a week-long showcasing of personal spaceflight projects, test-flight activities, educational outreach, as well as aircraft fly-ins and tributes to the history of the...

The launch of Virgin Galactic last year and the news that Sir Richard Branson planned to take paying passengers into space suggests the Ansari X Prize has achieved its goal in providing the catalyst for commercial manned space travel. You and many thousands of other future astronauts from across the globe have brought that goal another step closer. The Virgin Galactic team has been busy putting the foundations of the business in place and dealing with the enormous interest the initiative has generated. It has taken longer than we had hoped to respond to you and we would like to...

The X-37 -- an unpiloted, reusable spaceplane – made its first captive-carry flight today under the wings of the White Knight, flying above Mojave, California desert. The Boeing, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA-supported vehicle had undergone a systematic step-by-step pre-flight checkout. At the Mojave, California Spaceport Scaled Composites' White Knight carrier plane had previously taken the X-37 for repeated runs down the runway – all in preparation for today's liftoff and return landing of the twosome. Tagged by DARPA as an Approach and Landing Test Vehicle (ALTV), the X-37 will undergo captive carry flights, followed by high-altitude drop...

The future looks bright for civilian suborbital spaceflight, with a host of private firms developing spacecraft to carry anyone with a willing heart and a robust bank account on the ultimate trip. One year after the history-making suborbital space shot of SpaceShipOne, commercial spaceflight efforts continue to make headway through government regulation and technological hurdles, each with its eye on the space tourism market. On June 21, 2004, the privately-built SpaceShipOne dropped from its White Knight mothership above the Mojave Desert and rocketed into history as the first civilian-funded spacecraft to reach suborbital space with a human pilot at the...

Famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin announced today that the next time you reach UP for a can of Diet 7UP, newly reformulated with SPLENDA(R) Brand Sweetener, you could be reaching for the stars. In partnership with the X PRIZE Foundation, creators of the $10 million ANSARI X PRIZE, the Diet 7UP Free Ticket to Space sweepstakes takes off this week. will award one lucky consumer the chance to fly to the edge of suborbital space on an FAA-approved commercial space flight. The sweepstakes is supported by a groundbreaking national TV ad campaign filmed in an authentic zero-gravity environment, aboard G-Force One(TM)...

POWAY, CA (May 12, 2005) – SpaceDev (OTCBB: SPDV) has nearly completed a small, NASA funded preliminary study that defines a safe, affordable launch system for transportation of six passengers between Earth and low earth orbits. The launch system propulsion modules would be scaled-up versions of SpaceDev’s non-explosive hybrid rocket motors. SpaceDev’s proprietary hybrid rocket motor technology successfully powered SpaceShipOne on its history making flights to space. The SpaceDev Dream Chaser™ space transportation system would be based on a combination of existing and proven technologies and designs. “These results are very exciting and we believe even more strongly that SpaceDev...

Editor’s note: first of a two-part report. The year 2004 has all the earmarks of a milestone year for the entrepreneurial space industry. There were the successful suborbital spaceflights of SpaceShipOne, the final two of which allowed it to capture the $10-million Ansari X Prize. Those flights, in turn, attracted considerable public attention, raising awareness of these new ventures and the concept of personal spaceflight (or whatever alternate moniker one wants to attach to space tourism) in general. In Washington, some of the regulatory hurdles for the industry were removed with the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act...

The X PRIZE Foundation today announced the election of three new members to its Board of Trustees: J Craig Venter, Founder and President of the J. Craig Venter Institute and the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation; Eric Anderson, President and CEO of Space Adventures, Ltd; and Takafumi Horie, CEO and President of livedoor, Co., Ltd. The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational 501(c)3 that uses competitions to create breakthroughs in space and related technologies for the benefit of humanity. On October 4th, 2004, the X PRIZE captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace led by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen built...

Speaking before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics today, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan said the commercial space industry will thrive but the current regulatory system is need of repair and nearly destroyed his program. Rutan was one a of a group experts in the emerging commercial space market to testify before lawmakers. Congress is attempting to define what role the government should or shouldn’t play in supporting entrepreneurial space progress. The potential of space tourism was made all the more real by last year’s successful suborbital flights by SpaceShipOne, the world’s first privately-built and human-piloted spaceship. Work is underway...

From the folks who organized the competition that led to the world's first private human spaceflight now comes the X Prize Cup, planned to be an annual showcase of commercial space ventures, with a debut exhibition slated for October. The moniker refers to the $10 million Ansari X Prize claimed last year by a joint venture headed by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft.