Friday Funday #FFD: Space Couples

Update: Adorable submissions of space love, everyone! This #FFD is now closed (we won't be altering the post anymore), so stay tuned for next Friday :)

Welcome back to Friday Funday! Last week, a few of our fellow space geeks chimed in via Twitter asking for a "Space Couples" theme - influenced by photos of the "shuttle butter" and "star cupcakes" taken at weddings.

So, this #FFD asks you to search the internet and/or your personal archives for photos or news articles of Space Couples and Space Weddings. From couples at Star Trek conventions to Moon-rock wedding rings, leave us a comment on this post or @@glxp us on Twitter with your submissions by 5pm PT!

To make this a little more challenge, let's all step up our game a little bit: normal photos of couples who happen to work in the space industry won't make the cut unless there's something space-related in the photo!

Of course, we'll get you kick-started with the couple who got married in Zero G:


@k_lau sends us to Spacelove.org, a site dedicated to documenting, you guessed it, a space couple (@gtwhitesides + @lorettahidalgo) in love. @chris_radcliff adds that this couple will be honeymooning in space and gives us a photo of them with Richard Branson:



@flyingjenny shows us a photo of her and @apacheman


Have to admit, when making this blog post, I was reminded of this next entry.
@nlsi/@iamjem points us to @spacesooner and @stubek's wedding site that has an amazing photo of their lunar wedding ring:


@chandra_pearl sends us a photo of her and her significant other's flying machine in progress:


@nlsi tells us that this photo inspired a "certain someone's" wedding dress:


Our own @pomerantz sends us a photo of him and @starwalking at EAA AirVenture (aka Oshkosh) last year just after they saw the Rocket Racer fly:


@quarkspin sends us a photo of Ekaterina Dmitriev and Yuri Malenchenko:


How could we forget the Jetsons? @quarkspin couldn't!


Paolo Amoroso gives us a couple great submissions:

Charlie Duke family portrait left on the Moon:


Gene Cernan with his wife, daughter and a friend:


@quarkspin goes for triple with this photo of Ben and Cariann:


@nextgiantleap team leader Mike Joyce sends us a photo of him and his wife:


@chandra_pearl sends us another one with Carl and Ana Dietrich of Terrafugia:


@chandra_pearl sends yet another our way of a couple kissing in Zero G:

@JenniKissinger send in this picture of her and her boyfriend outside of SpaceX's main facility, taken just after a NASA Academy Alumni tour for double space cred.


@keithcowing shows us astronaut Scott Parazynski posing with family photos on the summit of Mt. Everest:


@murphian shares a photo of him and his significant other at he Eve/SS2 unveiling party in NYC:


@krynsky takes us back to his childhood:


@tim846 shows us photos of him and Jen floating in Zero G and at Scaled hangar after X-0 flight in 2004:



@chris_radcliff sends in Moon and Mars meteorite wedding rings from the same couple who had the star cupcakes in last week's #FFD post:


@cachestarhouse sends us the wax mold of hands holding a star sapphire used to make her wedding ring:


@nearvanna gets a submission in with 1 minute to spare! Allen & Vanna's explorer astronaut planetary wedding cake @yurisnight reception:

Prize Roundup: MoonBots Discussions, SmallSat Conference, Orbital Depots, Tether/Elevator Book, Underwater Vehicle Winners

While we wait for what's in store for Friday FUNDAY, here's the lastest "Prize Roundup" compilation which I just posted on the Space Prize blog:

Check out (and join!) the following discussion in the Google Lunar X PRIZE Community Forums: MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO MINDSTORMS Challenge

MoonBots Robotics Competition Announced - Design News

This reminds me of a fun discussion from a while back on what it would take for a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot to win the original Google Lunar X PRIZE: NXT and Lunar X PRIZE - The NXT STEP Blog

LEGO Picorover Mockup - Team FREDNET at the Google Lunar X PRIZE Teams page

The SmallSat Conference in Logan, Utah is scheduled for this August 10-13. On Wednesday, Google Lunar X PRIZE preferred partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will present "Falcon 1 Flight Results and Multiple Payload Integration". In addition, Wednesday also includes the Frank J. Redd Student Scholarship Competition.

A Summer CubeSat Developers' Workshop will also be held there August 8-9. Here's the schedule (PDF). Google Lunar X PRIZE preferred partner Analytical Graphics, Inc. has a talk on Saturday titled "STK and CubeSat's". In addition, Randa Milliron of Interorbital Systems, a part of the SYNERGY MOON Google Lunar X PRIZE team, has a talk on Sunday on "TubeSat".

These are just samples of the diverse presentations in this dynamic and important field.

A team including Jon Goff of Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenger Masten Space Systems recently submitted a white paper on Depot-Centric Human Spaceflight to the "Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee". From the Executive Summary of the paper:

On-orbit storage and transfer of propellants are key capabilities that enable innovative transportation methods for multiple destinations beyond earth orbit, stimulate the commercial spaceflight industry, and allow for sustainable and affordable manned exploration beyond LEO using existing commercial launch vehicles. We find reason to believe that a depot-centric transportation approach will allow NASA’s manned space program to operate in a manner that is exceptionally responsive to the objectives given the Augustine Committee.

Prizes are briefly mentioned in the paper:

A depot-centric transportation network enables and encourages the development of an open architecture—one that multiple commercial and international entities can easily interact with and that is not tied to any one specific destination. ... We can further multiply this effect through the use of prizes and COTS-like programs, as well as more traditional SBIR and Broad Area Announcement solicitations.

At one point, NASA Centennial Challenges was considering a Fuel Depot Demonstration Challenge (PDF) - see slide page 18.

The Space Elevator Games are briefly mentioned in this article: Seeking 'Discouraged' Energy Questers - Dot Earth (The New York Times)

Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Elevator Blog
Review: Space Tethers and Space Elevators - The Space Review - These discuss a new book by Michel Van Pelt on subjects relevant to the Space Elevator Games.

@http://twitter.com/Bob_Richards - Breakfast with TedPrize Winner Jill Tarter b4 her #ISU talk. Would love to see her Wish come true http://bit.ly/3mQa2p

Here's some information about the recent Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - which means "no remote controls". The competition was held in San Diego a few days ago.

12th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - Go Robotics.net

CUAUV - Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle blog - the 2009 winners

Cornell Wins the 12th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition - Go Robotics.net

UCF/IST Submersible Team Gets 4th Place - UCF Today (University of Central Florida)

Multi-Moon-Media

I've spent the last few days scouring the internet for lunar imagery for various purposes (like our new Twitter background, etc.). The fragmented nature of finding *good* lunar images can definitely be frustrating. Until I can start adding tags or pushing a little "favorite" button next to everything I come across anywhere online (and no, Delicious doesn't cut it for me for tagging visuals) or until NASA works out a deal with Flickr to store the majority of their photos there (cough-please-do-this-NASA-it-will-make-space-more-easily-discoverable-online-cough), I'm left with a lack of great lunar photography to pull from.

One nice resource for various forms of lunar imagery is the Lunar Images & Maps page by the Lunar & Planetary Institute. Most of the items listed on it are fairly paired down directories of Moon images - nothing slick, but they're good at not overwhelming the user with tons of images to search through.

I also appreciate the effort of the Internet Archive supporting nasaimages.org - but the UI still needs some tooling, as I never feel successful in finding what I'm searching for (again, Flickr's UI is absolutely great for easy discovery of images IMHO).

So, I turn it to you, what resources do you know of online that provide either an easily searchable interface or collect only the "best" lunar imagery out there?

Gaming for Greatness

(NASA/MSFC)

Investors.com published a piece last week titled "Winning The Contest Of Ideas", discussing how great innovations in science and technology have developed via the creation of competitions.

From improving Netflix's recommendation engine to Charles Lindbergh winning $25k for being the first person to fly over the Atlantic non-stop, organized prizes are providing a much-needed motivational factor for individuals to push themselves.

Competitions are more than just carrots for an individual to chase after, though. They're facilitating a "game-like" platform for massive collaboration.

"There is no way we could have hired (thousands) of the world's best scientists to do this," said Swasey. "We received exponentially more thinking and work that we could have hoped to have paid for." - Investors.com

Google Lunar X PRIZE is just one of many who have caught on to this strategy to harness participatory energy. Foursquare, a location-based social network, is arguably on the cusp of augmented reality via using a game-like structure tied to your real world interactions. Institute For The Future recently used a one-up-type platform to explore forecasting the positive and negative possibilities that would emerge if everyone owned a CubeSat similar to how everyone owns an iPod. Game-like structures sometimes can provide a "safe zone" for scientists to participate more by having less inhibitions about "right" or "wrong" solutions.

Recently, NASA announced their Lunabotics Mining Competition in order to "engage and retain students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) in a competitive environment which may result in innovative ideas and solutions that could be applied to actual lunar excavation for NASA." This ability to actively contribute to pushing the space program forward instead of just passively pay attention to it is what inspired me to create Spacehack.org.

To quote Albert Einstein (with a nod to Jane McGonigal's site):

"Games are the most elevated form of investigation"

A Look Back at Oshkosh 2009

This weekend I spent a day at EAA AirVenture 2009 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This is an air show with an emphasis on innovative personal aircraft held by the Experimental Aircraft Association. I took a number of pictures, which you can see here:




Many of the photos were related to innovation prizes of one sort or another. A few were taken in the EAA AirVenture Museum, which includes a SpaceShipOne Exhibit.

As you can see from the pictures, I stopped by the Velocity Aircraft display to admire the planes and pick up a brochure on Rocket Racing - a sport which not only might involve some sort of prizes for the winners, but which also has strong prize connections with Peter Diamandis and Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge competitor Armadillo Aerospace.

The CAFE Foundation officially announced the CAFE Green Flight Challenge (CGFC) at the event: Green Flight Challenge Goes Live! - NASA and CAFE make official announcement at AirVenture 2009 - The announcement is on

a flight efficiency competition for aircraft that can average at least 100 mph on a 200-mile flight while achieving greater than 200 passenger miles-per-gallon. The prize for the aircraft with the best performance will be $1.5 million. This is the largest prize ever offered for a general aviation competition. A $150,000 prize for best score by a bio-fueled aircraft is also offered.

I wasn't there the day of the announcement, but I did get some pictures of electric aircraft. Also see this from Space for All: Sci-Tech: Electric plane progress

The vehicle I, uh, focused on the most is WhiteKnightTwo, which is certainly a striking and impressive sight that I was glad to see (having barely made it in time). It's fair to say that the Ansari X PRIZE played a major role in getting to this point. In one of the talks I went to, Burt Rutan emphasized the role of competition, including prizes, in encouraging innovations. You can find a daunting amount of news about WhiteKnightTwo/Oshkosh in RLV News (Space Transport News at HobbySpace):

The Space Review and the Space Show this week - This week's Space Review includes an article and photo gallery featuring WhiteKnightTwo. (As an aside, this post also mentions a Space Show interview involving the Team America Rocket Challenge).

Briefs: WK2 design challenges; Minotaur 4; Debris bounties

Briefs: More WK2 at Oshkosh; Virgin Galactic's biz prospects

WK2 back in Mojave - The photo comes care of an employee of another Lunar Lander Challenge competitors, Masten Space Systems.

Briefs: More Wk2 at Oshkosh; SS2 ticket sold in NM

Space Ship Two micro sat launcher update

More WK2 and Virgin Galactic at Oshkosh

Oshkosh update

Oshkosh - videos about WK2 and Virgin Galactic

Rutan and Whitehorn presentation at Oshkosh

Oshkosh update

More about Virgin Galactic-Aabar deal

Abu Dhabi group buys major stake in Virgin Galactic

More on WK2 at Oshkosh

WK2 heading for [arrives in] Oshkosh

Oshkosh update

It's also good to see that at least one member of Google Lunar X PRIZE team @NextGiantLeap was at the air show!

A few of the pictures don't have much to do with prizes, but I kept them nevertheless. The Seaplane Base is an example.

I also took a few videos of WhiteKnightTwo on display, taking off, and doing a pass over the air show:

MoonBots Competition: "You Know, For Kids!"

Incentive prizes like those we run here at the X PRIZE Foundation are focused on results, not process. We pride ourselves in the fact that prizes reward only productive solutions, rather than mere attempts. The entire structure and culture of a prize is set up around the end game of a particular technology or system development.

There is, however, one key exception. In one area, we and others who have put forth incentive prizes are very concerned with the process rather than just the end goal. That area is education. A desire to use our prizes and our brand name to educate and inspire is written into the core charter of the organization (indeed, we are officially registered as a 501(c)3 educational not-for-profit, meaning that your donations are tax deductable!) That desire is shared by our partners, especially in the case of Google and the Google Lunar X PRIZE (see their one line answer for why they sponsor the Lunar X PRIZE--it's all about the education!

Educating people of all ages and all background to get excited about science, technology, mathematics, and engineering will have enormous benefits for all of us. In the space community, we'll benefit from the passion and the ideas that fresh talent bring in; outside of the community of space enthusiasts, people will still benefit from the productivity of the inventing class. Spreading the STEM bug--or, more specifically, the space bug--is a very, very good thing.

With this in mind, today, we announce a new game of skill we call MoonBots. A partnership between the X PRIZE Foundation, Google, LEGO MINDSTORMS, National Instruments, and 's GeekDad blog, MoonBots will require 6-member teams of both children and adults to essentially conduct Google Lunar X PRIZE missions using LEGO components.

I've had a chance to run through the game play myself, and I can tell you it's a lot of fun. I can also assure you that the children and the parents will learn a lot while doing it: impressive and varied skills like robotics, computer aided design, program management, team building, and promotion. The experience will bear some similiarities to FIRST LEGO League (and with good reason, as the idea really kicked into high gear when I had a chance to meet with our friends at LEGO during earlier this year, but with a Google Lunar X PRIZE twist.

The contest is open to anyone who isn't employed by one of the groups conducting the game. Teams will be composed of students and adults as well, meaning this is a prefect chance to serve as a mentor to young family members, to local Boy Scout or Girl Scout troops, or to your friendly neighborhood robotics club. We'll be announcing the full rules soon, so check this space often--and if you'd like, sign up to the email list at the MoonBots.org website to get an email when all of the information is available online!

In Case You Missed It Monday

Recapping some of the space-related stuff to get excited about, in case you missed it:



Michael Mealing, VP of Business Development for Masten Space Systems, writes an article on VentureBeat: A Netscape moment for the commercial space industry?



Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Astrobotic receives some nice press from GizMag about how their rover aims to re-visit the Apollo 11 site on the Moon.



The Economist is hosting a debate about Returning to the Moon, August 4-15. Gregg Maryniak, former X PRIZE Foundation executive director, will be discussing how we should send humans back to the Moon. You can sign up for email alerts for when the debate begins online through the Economist site.



Masten Space Systems, a company providing launch vehicles at reduced costs, tested their XA-0.1B-750 rocket vehicle. This video shows the "cool Mach disc behavior". You can also watch the composite of flight tests 17-21.



Team SELENE, the first Google Lunar X PRIZE team from China, does an initial robot study of their proposed spiral lander/rover.