Sputnik at United Nations

This replica of Sputnik hangs in the lobby at the United Nations building in New York City.

Fisrt Founders! SGF Panel

Day Two SGAC 10 Year Celebrarion

Invited keynote. Adigun Ade Abiodun, Advisor to The Nigerian
delegation to COPUOS.

Space Generation Advisory Council 10 year celebrarion

Revisiting UNISPACE III - How dar have we come?

Opening keynote: Ciro Arevalo, Chair , UNCOPUOS

Answering Some Questions about Media Rights

Yesterday, we released the rules and registration forms for the 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. We’re grateful for the attention that this release has already seen, and if the early feedback we’ve received from potential teams is any indication, we’re entering a banner year for the competition. The level of excitement both here and among our colleagues at NASA and at Northrop Grumman couldn’t be higher.

I did notice a few concerns published about one section of the rules in particular, which merits further explanation. Two bloggers I greatly respect, Clark Lindsey at HobbySpace and Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musing have both questioned a section of the 2009 Team Agreement that deals with media rights, the ability of various groups to commercially exploit photography or video telling the story of the competition. Clark writes:

Section 4 of the document, especially subsection 4.2, seems overly aggressive to me with respect to the X PRIZE Foundation's clams to media rights. Apparently, a team has to give up the right to any income generated from their own videos, photos, etc. even for preparatory activities away from the place and day they attempt the competition flights. In fact, sounds like even posting a video on YouTube requires permission from XPF.

I don't understand why XPF should get all of these rights just for managing the contest for NASA.

This is certainly a valid line of questioning, so I wanted to take a detailed walkthrough of the language in the Team Agreement to gain a clearer understanding. I’ll call your attention to a few key clauses in section 4.2—which, for reference, is identical to the language used in the first three years of this competition.

"Participant Footage" as used in this Agreement means video or photographic material taken by, or on the behalf of, PARTICIPANT during a Challenge Interval solely to the extent it displays the image or likeness of PARTICIPANT, PARTICIPANT'S launch vehicle and/or PARTICIPANT'S TEAM LEADER and TEAM MEMBERs including such video or photographic material taken at a Lunar Lander Challenge event. "Participant Footage" shall not include video or photographic material that displays the image or likeness of XPF, any FUNDER, any TEAM other than PARTICIPANT or the persons, vehicles, or designs associated therewith, or any video or photographic material taken at a Lunar Lander Challenge event other than Participant Footage. Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, PARTICIPANT, its TEAM LEADER and each of its TEAM MEMBERs shall have the right, without obtaining XPF's approval or entering into a separate written agreement with XPF, to (i) use Participant Footage for any Promotional Use and (ii) commencing on the date of the first anniversary of the completion of a Challenge Interval, use Participant Footage taken during such Challenge Interval for commercial purposes; provided, however, that any commercial usage prior to such date shall remain subject to the restriction and limitations otherwise set forth in this Section 4.2.

and

PARTICIPANT, its TEAM LEADER and each of its TEAM MEMBERs may commercially exploit the story of their participation in the CHALLENGE, but may use Participant Footage for such commercial exploitation only in accordance with the restriction and limitations otherwise set forth in this Section 4.2. Except for use of Participant Footage, usage of audio, video, or photographic material recorded by, or on the behalf of, PARTICIPANT during a Challenge Interval that is related in any way to the CHALLENGE that is not a Promotional Use shall be conditioned upon and subject to written agreement with XPF.

Upon review of those sections, one finds that teams do indeed have the right to capture, produce, and commercially exploit footage of their team as they participate in this Challenge. Teams also have the right to designate someone else to capture or produce this footage. To ensure coordination, if Teams expect to commercially exploit—that is to say, to sell for profit—this footage in the near future, they would need written permissions from XPF, which will not be unreasonably denied. If teams expect to give the footage away (via YouTube, as Clark suggests, or any other means), they do not need any prior permission—doing so is considered "Promotional Use" rather than "Commercial Use."

There are some limitations on teams’ rights to collect and use this content; however, these limitations are fairly standard and reasonable. Teams do not have the right to capture or exploit footage of X PRIZE Foundation personnel or of other Teams without prior permission. Similarly, teams do not have the right to commercially exploit footage that the X PRIZE Foundation or other Teams have taken or generated without prior permission. These permissions will not be unreasonably withheld by the X PRIZE Foundation.

Lastly, I will note that the X PRIZE Foundation does not have rights to use or exploit any footage of any of a Team’s activities unrelated to the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge without express permission from the Team. We have managed to work with this type of arrangement quite comfortably in the past, e.g. by not filming or covering in way any of Scaled Composite's highly proprietary and often classified projects outside of their Ansari X PRIZE effort.

I hope that this provides a satisfactory answer to some of the concerns voiced by Clark, Rand, and others. We at the X PRIZE Foundation have no intention of preventing Teams from promoting themselves, from spreading the good word about the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, or even from directly profiting from the sale of media products covering the Team, if they are able to do so. Over the first three years, we have been able to work with our teams in good faith to ensure that they are able to operate with a minimum of interference while still providing the necessary assurances that X PRIZE Foundation personnel and the X PRIZE Foundation brand—along with the personnel and brands of our partners—get a reasonable level of protections.

Hopefully, this explanation will both correct some misconceptions and provide some valuable context about why this topic is addressed at all in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge rules. If you have questions, comments, or additional concerns, please feel free to drop them in the comments here.

UN-SPIDER Program!

Developing space capabilities to prevent disasters. Great to see how many regions are interested in such capabilities.
www.UN-Spider.org

First Day at COPUOS

Ladies and Gentleman, Start Your Engines!

They say you'll never forget your first prize (What, you're telling me they don't actually say that?!?). Well, my first prize was the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. It gave me my first hands-on experience writing rules, recruiting teams and Judges, and watching the trials and tribulations of the competitors. It has been an absolute pleasure and honor to get to work alongside the spectacular men and women who make up our teams and our partners at NASA, Northrop Grumman, the State of New Mexico, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Las Cruces International Airport, and Holloman Air Force Base. I am a die hard believer in the positive impact that this prize program has had on the commercial space industry, and on the incredible return that it has already delivered on NASA's investment. As a space enthusiast and as a tax-payer, I'm very grateful this program and the other Centennial Challenges are around.

Today, we begin the next chapter of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. As you may have read, this year's competition will look a little different than the past three. Unlike 2006-2008, the 2009 challenge will be open to teams competing at a variety of locations and a variety of times, stretching from mid-July through Halloween. Although I'll be sad to set aside the commraderie and excitement that came with the fixed-date, fixed-location format, my colleagues and I were completely convinced after thorough investigation that this new format is the best way to move forward and ensure a fair competition that meets NASA's goals.

You'll find the complete Team Agreement (including the rules for the competition) and the registration forms over on the NGLLC website, as well as this statement:

It is with great pleasure that we announce the opening of Registration for the 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge! If you are interested in competing for the $1,650,000 in remaining prize purses, you can download the complete 2009 Team Agreement (including the technical rules for the competition) and the 2009 Registration Forms here.

For the past three years, the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge was offered once per year at an event managed by the X PRIZE Foundation and hosted by our gracious friends in Southern New Mexico. The 2006 and 2007 events, held at the Las Cruces International Airport and Holloman Air Force Base respectively, were conducted as part of a larger Air & Space exposition called the X PRIZE Cup. The 2008 event returned to Las Cruces, NM, but was this time held as a stand-alone event in front of a smaller audience. Over these three years, we were grateful for the opportunity to introduce tens of thousands of people to the excitement of rocketry and to highlight New Mexico’s position at the forefront of the emerging commercial space industry.

The 2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge will be the start of a new chapter in the competition’s history. Unlike the fixed-date, fixed-location competition of previous years, in 2009, Registered Teams will be able to compete for the remaining prize purses at a date and location of their choosing within a competition ‘window’ that will run from July 20th to October 31st. Qualified teams will be able to register for prize-winning attempts on a first-come, first-served basis, with a small crew of Judges and observers traveling to meet the team at a venue of their choosing. This new process should allow for more flights by more teams, while still preserving the fairness of the competition.

At the end of the competition window, the X PRIZE Foundation may identify the winner or winners for the three remaining prize purses: Level Two First and Second Place and Level One Second Place. Should multiple teams meet the prize requirements for either Level of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge within the competition window, ties will be broken by assessing the accuracies of each team’s landings during qualifying flights. If teams are still tied after this assessment, purse money will be split evenly between them.

In its first three years, the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge has helped to demonstrate why NASA’s prize program – Centennial Challenges – is one of their most innovative and efficient programs. To date, only $350,000 of the initial $2,000,000 in prize money has been awarded, yet a dozen teams of spectacular engineers and innovators have already devoted more than 70,000 working hours toward building new technologies to win the competition. The Challenge has also demonstrated the connection between first generation lunar exploration, including the Apollo Lunar Modules built in the 1960s by Northrop Grumman, and the next generation vehicles being designed today.

The prize competition would not be possible without the generous support of a number of individuals and institutions. Particularly deserving of thanks are:

• NASA’s Centennial Challenges program, which has provided the $2,000,000 in prize purses for this Challenge


• The Northrop Grumman Corporation, which provides operational funding and expertise


• New Mexico’s Spaceport America, which graciously hosted the first three years of this competition

We look forward to working with all of our teams, and wish them all the best of luck as they pursue the remaining $1.65MM in prize money available as part of the Lunar Lander Challenge.

- William Pomerantz, Senior Director, Space Prizes, and Cristin Lindsay, Vice President, Prize Operations

Robot of the Week: Nereus, underwater robot reaches bottom of Mariana Trench

A robot called Nereus, designed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, has become the third robot in history to reach the deepest abyss in the ocean, in the Mariana Trench some 11,000 feet below sea level.

Nereus is a hybrid vehicle, which can be remotely operated via fiber-optic tether, or converted to an autonomous vehicle capable of exploring the ocean on its own. It weighs 3 tons, is electrically powered, and uses a manipulator arm to dig in ocean soil and retrieve a variety of samples, including plants, animals, and rock.



The X PRIZE Foundation is proud to be exploring new incentive prizes that could drive innovation very similar to the Nereus voyage. While over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, only 2% of the ocean's depths have been explored. The economic potential from mineral, fuel, biological, and medical discoveries should not be underestimated.

Robots like Nereus are next step in the burgeoning exploration of our Earth's uncharted regions, and are leading the way to a new era of ecological preservation and understanding. We salute the Woods Hole team, and their robotic, oceanographic, and scientific partners around the world.

Lunatic: noun [from Late Latin lunaticus, from Latin luna]

As you can imagine, I receive a lot of fan mail. And when I say "fan mail," I really mean "mail from crazy people." And when I say "crazy people," I obviously mean the tinfoil-hat-wearing kind of crazy. But "How do they find you, Intergalactic Federation King Almighty?" you ask. Well, sometimes I hand them my business card, as in the case of the gentleman at a trade show who told me a moment later (very conspiratorially) that the Moon was hollow, with aliens living inside. //I nodded thoughtfully, pondering how the Moon must be like a giant Kinder egg, with a toy surprise inside// Other times, they find me through pluck, luck, and strength of character, as with the person who saw my name in a magazine article, promptly called up the main Google hotline, and was transferred efficiently to my office by a very helpful and bubbly new receptionist. (Note to self: it was neither nice nor Googley of me to stuff her in a coat closet. I should really apologize for that. And let her out.) Well anyway, my point is that I actually love it when the lunatics write to me. Hey, you never know who's going to have the next big idea. They laughed at Galileo, right? But then POW! It turns out that Earth isn't the center of the universe after all. In your face, geocentrists! E pur si muove!

Of course some people might call us crazy- those of us who peer into the vast expanse of space and dream of an off-world human presence. And I'm sure there are at least one or two people out there who think this competition is completely bananas. Frankly, I don't care. In fact, I'll take it as a compliment. This competition is revolutionary. So here's to you, you lunatics! Let's wrestle an arm out of our straightjackets, and raise our sippy cups together in a toast. Ad luna!

Another Gallery of Fan Photos

Here are some photos of the stickers that fans are receiving through the SASE sticker giveaway (now ended). Have you received your stickers yet? Send us a photo on Twitter, email, or leave a link in the comments.

Jeph (aka @usnsquirrel) sent us this one:


Angeliki (aka @kapoglou) sent this:


This one from @rsisk101:


Steven Pestana sent this in via Facebook. Great to see that logo in the skies:

Fun Goodies from ISDC 2009

Will just got back from ISDC, where he gave a couple of great panel discussions on the Google Lunar X PRIZE, the Lunar Lander Challenge, and social media as it relates to space. I was kinda bummed that I didn't get to go, but at least he brought me fun stuff.

First, a Lunar Lander Eggs Prize T-shirt, courtesy of team Omega Envoy


And a very much needed dose of caffeine, courtesy of the Crow River Coffee Company and SpaceVidcast. The Blast Off Blend!