X-Prize Heats Up / Space Rock Will Miss Earth
As part of my penance for being ill and missing today's show (my digestive system warranting a -1 on the
Palermo Scale, I have taken it upon myself to provide you with some science news here on our website. First off the X-Prize news. The X-Prize is a $10 million dollar prize, offered by the
X-Prize Foundation (founded in 1996), that will be awarded to the first non-government group to send and return, twice within two weeks, the same three-person spacecraft into suborbital space 62 miles high. This is no mean feat folks, especially considering that this all must be achieved without government assistance and the turn around on getting the craft back up into space within two weeks is loco. Initially offered as a catalyst to help get people thinking and working on the problem of a reusable and economical launch vehicle, the X-Prize can be viewed as an honorary award rather than a serious prize which would offset some of the R&D or other associated costs a reusable launch and re-entry vehicle. After all space is uber expensive and even 10 mil is just a drop in the bucket for the type of achievement called for by the X-Prize. The payoff though, is that the team that wins the X-Prize (and yes I think it will be won) will be in an excellent position to tap into the growing market of space tourism and other commercially related endeavors. Last week the
Canadian Arrow project successfully tested a component of their engine during a test burn. Hopefully this will stoke the fires of competition for the X-Prize.
2002 NT 7, the 800 meter across space rock that earlier on in the month had been predicted by scientists as having a chance of intersecting our orbit and us, appears that it will be nothing more than a near miss. So you can scratch out February 1st 2019 as Judgment Day due to act of giant space rock hitting our planet (for more information on what could happen should such an event were to occur, read Ted's post below). Instead you can insert February 1st 2060 as the latest possible impact date with 2002 NT 7 as this date hasn't been ruled out yet though astronomers expect to soon. Remember folks, this doesn't preclude a space rock/asteroid/comet that we have yet to detect from impacting us before 2060. There is almost too much space around us for us to monitor completely and effectively.
current science news posted by Greg at 7/30/2002 10:06:00 AM
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