X Prize Foundation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009) |
The X Prize Foundation is a non-profit prize institute that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind.
The X Prize Foundation mission is to bring about "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity" through incentivized competition. It aims to foster high-profile competitions that motivate individuals, companies and organizations across all disciplines to develop innovative ideas and technologies that help solve the grand challenges that restrict humanity’s progress.
The most high-profile X Prize to date was the Ansari X Prize relating to spacecraft development awarded in 2004. This prize was intended to inspire research and development into technology for space exploration. The private space travel companies SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have made rapid advances in recent years, arguably proving the Ansari X Prize 'carrot' was successful at enticing research.
Contents |
[edit] Background
The first X Prize – the Ansari X Prize – was inspired by the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize offered in 1919 by French hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. In 1927, underdog Charles Lindbergh won the prize in a modified single-engine Ryan aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. In total, nine teams spent $400,000 in pursuit of the Orteig Prize.
In 1996, entrepreneur Peter Diamandis offered a $10 million prize to the first privately financed team that could build and fly a three-passenger vehicle 100 kilometers into space twice within two weeks. The contest, later titled the Ansari X Prize for Suborbital Spaceflight, motivated 26 teams from seven nations to invest more than $100 million in pursuit of the $10 million purse. On October 4, 2004, the Ansari X Prize was won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, who successfully completed the contest in their spacecraft SpaceShipOne.
[edit] X Prizes
 |
This section is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this section from a neutral point of view. (December 2009) |
X Prizes are large rewards that act as an incentive designed to achieve three primary goals:
- Attract mavericks from outside the sector that take new approaches to difficult problems.
- Create breakthrough results that are real and meaningful.
- Cross national and disciplinary boundaries to compel teams around the world to invest the intellectual and financial capital required to solve seemingly intractable challenges.
Other organisations such as the Nobel Prize committee award prizes and financial gains to individuals or organisations that produce novel advances in science, medicine and technology. One of the differences between the X Prizes and other similar organisations is the well defined 'finish line' rather than a committee discussing the relative worth of different endeavours. The Genomics X Prize target is to create a machine to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days or less, with less than one error per 100,000 DNA base pair, covering 98% of the genome and costing less than $10,000 per genome.
The literal awarding of a prize can be seen as just the beginning of widespread political, economic, social and technological change. As with the recent Lunar Lander competition the attempts themselves as well as the claiming the prize are well publicised media events that promote both the foundation and the entrepreneurs.
With the Ansari X Prize, The X Prize Foundation established a philanthropic model in which offering a prize for achieving a specific goal can stimulate entrepreneurial investment. The scope of the challenges has expanded into a range of fields where prizes can help improve lives, create equity of opportunity and stimulate new, important discoveries. The foundation is developing new prizes in Exploration (Space and Oceans), Life Sciences, Energy & Environment, Education and Global Development.
[edit] Prizes and events overseen
- The Ansari X Prize, the original X Prize competition to create a private spaceflight vehicle
- The Archon X Prize, a genomics competition to create a device to sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less
- The Automotive X Prize, an engineering competition to create a fuel efficient clean car
- The Wirefly X Prize Cup, an annually held air & space exposition featuring space-related competitions and rocketry.
- The Google Lunar X Prize, a competition to put a robot on the moon
[edit] Ansari X Prize for Suborbital Spaceflight
The Ansari X Prize for Suborbital Spaceflight was the first prize from the foundation. It successfully challenged teams to build private spaceships to open the space frontier. The first part of the Ansari X Prize requirements was fulfilled by Mike Melvill on September 29, 2004 in the Burt Rutan designed, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen financed spacecraft SpaceShipOne when Melvill broke the 100-kilometer (62.5 mi) mark, internationally recognized as the boundary of outer space. Brian Binnie completed the second part of the requirements on 4 October 2004. As a result, $10 million was awarded to the winner, but more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize. Today, Sir Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and others are actively creating a personal spaceflight industry.
Awarding this first prize gave the X Prize Foundation as much publicity as the winners themselves. After the 2004 success there was ample media coverage to afford both Scaled Composites and the X Prize Foundation additional support for them to expand and continue to pursue their aims. Following this early success several other X Prizes were announced that have yet to be awarded despite various attempts to meet the requirements.
The Ansari X-Prize won the Space Foundation's Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award in 2005. The award is given annually to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to public awareness of space programs.[1]
[edit] Active contests
[edit] Archon X Prize
The Archon X Prize for Genomics, the second X Prize to be offered by the foundation, was announced 4 October 2006. The goal of the Archon X Prize is to greatly reduce the cost and increase the speed of human genome sequencing to create a new era of personalized, predictive and preventive medicine, eventually transforming medical care from reactive to proactive. The $10 million Archon X Prize is a joint effort of the X Prize Foundation and the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation. The prize purse will be awarded to the first team that can build a device and use it to sequence 100 human genomes within 10 days or less, with an accuracy of no more than one error in every 100,000 bases sequenced, with sequences accurately covering at least 98% of the genome, and at a recurring cost of no more than $10,000 per genome.
If more than one team attempts the competition at the same time, and more than one team fulfills all the criteria, then teams will be ranked according to the time of completion. No more than three teams will be ranked and will share the purse in the following manner: $7.5 million to the winner and $2.5 million to the second place team if two teams are successful, or $7 million, $2 million and $1 million if three teams are successful.
Actual competition events will take place twice a year with all eligible teams given the opportunity to make an attempt, starting at precisely the same time as the other teams.
[edit] Progressive Automotive X Prize
The goal of the Automotive X Prize is to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles to help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change. Teams will compete for multi-million-dollar cash prizes by designing and building super-efficient vehicles that will achieve 100 MPG (2.35 L/100 km) that are commercially viable.[2]
[edit] Google Lunar X Prize
The Google Lunar X Prize was introduced on 13 September 2007. The goal of the prize is similar to that of the Ansari X Prize, to inspire a new generation of private investment in space exploration and technology. The challenge calls for teams to compete in successfully launching, landing, and operating a rover on the lunar surface. The prize awards $20 million to the first team to land a rover on the moon that successfully roves more than 500 meters and transmits back high definition images and video. There is a $5 million second prize, as well as $5 million in potential bonus prizes for extra features such as roving long distances (greater than 5,000 meters) capturing images of man-made objects on the moon, or surviving a lunar night.
[edit] Future X Prizes
The X Prize Foundation has partnered with WellPoint, Inc. to create a prize to reform the U.S. healthcare system. It is also working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a prize for a better tuberculosis diagnostic tool. Other potential prize ideas include: preserving biodiversity, mapping the oceans, developing clean aviation fuels, energy storage, sustainable housing and carbon sequestration.
The X Prize Cup is the result of a partnership between the X Prize Foundation and the State of New Mexico that began in 2004 with plans to build the world's first true rocket festival. Now entering its third year, the Cup is an annual three-day Air & Space Expo and the premier destination for space enthusiasts worldwide. In October 2007 the Cup was held in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force at the Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, NM and included a live air and rocket show. It includes various competitions and awards. The Lunar Lander Challenge was held separately in 2008.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.nationalspacesymposium.org/symposium-awards
- ^ Dennis O'Brien (2008). "2 Marylanders Seek 100 Mpg; Gas-Saving Cars Could Win $10 Million Prize". Baltimore Sun. https://www.usna.com/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?rss=acad_arch&pid=5006. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
