Former X-Prize Teams Now Pursue Commercial Potential

From the frozen wheatfields of Canada to the Mojave desert to the vibrant metropolis of Kuala Lumpur, the X-Prize Teams answer the $10 Million question -- what do you do now that the prize is over? The answers run the gamut: wither away and die, keep researching "because it is there," make a move to commercial space such as space tourism, or enter the X-Prize cup.

Remember that while this is a fairly comprehensive list of X-Prize competitors, some of the marquee names in commercial space didn't consider pursuing the X-Prize: those include SpaceDev of Poway, CA and XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, among others.

In the interests of fairness, I have listed the contenders in alphabetical order. The survivors have websites listed.

Acceleration Engineering -- No news from this one-man team (Micky Badgero) from Michigan and its proposed rocket, Lucky Seven.

Advent/Civilian Astronauts Corps -- this sea-launched venture, funded by would-be astronauts who paid $2,000 each to join, has vanished without a trace. (The money was reportedly refunded).

American Aerospace -- Has evolved into AERA Corporation and is promising a commercial space tourism launch in 2006. Some of the seats may be sold, some may be offered to contest winners. See the accompanying article for technical details.

ARCA -- www.arcaspace.ro -- This Romanian team has launched subscale test hardware and continues to construct their Orizont (in English, "Horizon") full-size research vehicle with a view to competing in the X-Prize cup.

Armadillo Aerospace -- John Carmack's happy warriors may have had no luck but bad, but they sure had fun. In retrospect. lack of a good source of peroxide monopropellant strangled their ingenious, compact, vertical takeoff and vertical landing machine for too long. They continue development work -- they flew an out-of-ground-effect tethered hover test last week -- but have no concrete commercial plans at this time. Armadillo's willingness to share problems and solutions gives the small project an influence out of proportion to its size.

Blue Ridge Nebula - This team was cut from the competition, for reasons that have never been clear, but their flying saucer being made of plywood may be a factor.

Bristol - www.bristolspaceplanes.com - David Ashford, head of the so-beautiful-I-want-it-built Bristol Spaceplane project is negotiating a move to petrol-rich Malaysia, to give Asia its first shot at entering the space tourism market. The project has been stalled in Britain by insufficient funds.

Canadian Arrow -- www.canadianarrow.com -- Although this ambitious Canadian team that intended to fly an updated V-2 into the history books maintains its website, there's been no news since an engine test in October, 2004.

Da Vinci Technology/Golden Palace -- www.davinciproject.com -- This Canadian project, which features a rocket, Wild Fire Mark VI, carried to 70,000 feet by a helium balloon, remains on track for a probable launch in 2005. It is sponsored by the Golden Palace internet casino. The balloon -- the world's largest reusable helium balloon -- was only completed in December 2004, and several tests remain before any manned launch.

Discraft -- another casualty, their project was a futuristic flying saucer.

Fundamental Technology (FunTech Systems) -- their futuristic Aurora space plane didn't happen, and their website is down. But their guidance system brought SpaceShipOne back to Mojave, and the company has other interests (for example, composite race-car parts).

HARC (High Altitude Research Corporation) - www.harcspace.com -- The website is up but the site for this Huntsville, Alabama project hasn't been updated since July, 2004. Possibly another dropout.

Interorbital Systems - www.interorbital.com - This company based in Mojave continues development of a sea-launched unmanned orbital vehicle, SeaStar, with a planned launch in 2005, and a conceptually similar but much larger manned orbital vehicle, Neptune, with its first launch planned for 2006. Interorbital has entered the orbital Bigelow Prize. IO is the only contender on this list to have an FAA launch license, if only for the unmanned, suborbital Tachyon. (DaVinci/GoldenPalace has a Canadian license).

Israel Aerospace Technologies (ILAT) - www.ilat.net - Website still up, but no post X-Prize activity. Jury's out on this one. It is a balloon-launched project similar in broad concept to DaVinci/Golden Palace.

Lone Star Space Systems - www.lonestarspace.com - Another futuristic space plane, the Cosmos Mariner; another website that's up but shows no sign of life. Newest "news" is from 2000.

Micro-Space - www.micro-space.com - Handed a lemon, these guys make lemonade: "Given the present XPRIZE situation, our work is now focused on orbital altitudes." Their Crusader X manned suborbital craft seems to have been a paper exercise. It was an interesting looking craft, with a narrow fuselage positioned between stacked clusters of sounding rockets.

Pablo de Leon - www.pablodeleon.com - The Argentine entry showed a preference for simple and straightforward systems. No word since the X-Prize was awarded.

Pan-Aero - www.tour2space.com - Their project, the Condor-X, was never more than a paper design. They are now seeking sponsorship for a similar craft to set an altitude record. An earlier approach meant to take a modified North American Sabreliner into suborbital space.

Rocketplane Corp - www.rocketplane.com - still in the running, possibly for the X-Prize Cup, and certainly for the space tourism market, Rocketplane sees a first flight of its SSTO craft, which is propelled by jet engines in the atmosphere, in 2007.

Space Transport Corporation - www.space-transport.com - plans to sell space to payloads on its suborbital Rubicon 2's test flights before man-rating it. Judging from the amount of demand Burt Rutan had to fly scientific instruments in SpaceShipOne (which he declined to do), there should be plenty of takers for the space in Rubicon -- once STC shows it can do it. Of course, Space Transport is two 26-year-old guys operating on a shoestring (they're auctioning off some of their gear to stay afloat), and the reason they're on Rubicon 2 is that Rubicon 1 blew up when launched.

Starchaser - www.starchaser.co.uk - this British firm has refocused on launching suborbital payloads and possible space tourism. Work on the Churchill Mk3 engine and Thunderstar launch vehicle continues.

Suborbital Corporation - This Russian project meant to piggyback a suborbital spaceplane on a Soviet-era Myasischev M55 spyplane (the Russian answer to the U-2, now used for high-altitude research). Conceptually it was akin to SpaceShipOne/WhiteKnight, but did not seem to proceed beyond a mockup that was displayed at Mojave during the X1/X2 flights of SpaceShipOne. (Scary fact: the website www.suborbital.com is now owned by EADS. Nothing's there... yet).

TGV Rockets - www.tgv-rockets.com - The website for TGV with its explanation of their MICHELLE-B (Modular Incremental High Energy Launch Experiment) Vertical take off, powered vertical landing craft remains up but there is no recent activity. A "help wanted" page notes that positions require US Citizenship, which may mean that they are now doing defense contracts.

Vanguard Space - www.vanguardspace.com - a long way from commercial space yet, this project based on designs by Massachusetts amateur rocketeers has successfully launched the first two of six progressively larger unmanned craft before it can fly its first manned-capsule test mission. Next step is a suborbital/orbital vehicle.

FMI: www.x-prize.org