Do you remember reading about the X prize Cup? It is the private sector effort to promote the science and technology to send ordinary folks into space. A few years ago a $10 million dollar prize was collected by a team of people who designed a ship, I believe they named it Earth One, that took a man to the edge of space and safely returned him. They then turned around and did it again three weeks later.
The Wirefly X Prize Cup is part of that effort to promote space to the general public. A consortium is building a spaceport about 40 miles north of here in Upham, NM. Hopefully commercial rockets will routinely be blasted off from there in the near future.
A few weeks ago The Second Annual X Prize Cup was held in Las Cruces. Last year 20,000 people attended the 2 day event. As a "trekkie" I decided to volunteer to do my part to promote space exploration.
After attending a mandatory FAA training session I joined a large contingent of volunteers from all over the country. I was out at the sight at 5:30 am in order to grab a breakfast burrito and a diet coke before going to work.
It was dark and cool at that time of the morning. My job was to be a "goon" - checking ID badges in order to allow folks into a restricted area. It was a bit lonely. If any of you happened to be watching the webcast I was down below guarding the steps. I did allow a NASA shuttle pilot to go to an interview. That was the closest I came to a celebrity. Apparently Al Gore had been in town a day or two before the event. He was there along with Sam Donaldson, Buzz Aldrin and other VIPs at a symposium.
After my 6 hour shift I took a quick look around and then headed home to get ready for an afternoon wedding. Next year I hope to see more of the event. I did manage to see a few rocket launches including the Lunar Lander challenge that is mentioned in the following article. I also saw a static burn (a rocket engine test), someone using a rocket propelled back-pack like "Rocketman", and a few attempts by different teams to have a vehicle climb a 200 foot ribbon.
The following article appeared in our local publication called "The Bulletin".
Texas Team Take 3 Tries at Lunar Lander Contest
By TODD G. DICKSON
The Las Cruces Bulletin
The two days Of X PRIZE Cup was filled with surprises - mainly, pleasant and sunny weather for launching sounding rockets and powering "space elevators."
Even more surprising was the single team competing for the $2 million NASA Lunar Lander Challenge making a real show of it by making three flights in two days with the same vehicle. .
The fate of Armadillo's Pixel seemed doomed on the first day of the X PRIZE Cup on Friday when it descended too rapidly to a replicated lunar landscape out beyond the Las Cruces International Airport’s runways. The hard landing essentially broke Pixel's four legs and started a fire in its electrical components.
But early in the morning of the X PRIZE Cup's second day, the Armadillo team had put new legs on Pixel and switched out electrical components from Texel,, the backup vehicle identical in its center single engine balanced by four globular tanks holding liquid oxygen and ethanol fuel.
After a seemingly flawless flight and a softer landing, Pixel unfortunately only landed half-on the landing pad and tipped over again.
The third' flight seemed to be the charm when it flew smoothly and landed correctly on the lunar landscape pad, though one of its legs was damaged in the landing. To complete the challenge required a return trip to the-launch pad, but Pixel tipped at takeoff and careened into the desert.
By that time, however, Armadillo's never-say-die had captured the audience who were rooting for the only team to take on the NASA Lunar Lander Challenge for the X PRIZE Cup event.
John Carmack, the Doom game inventor who has been bankrolling the testing of the vertical launch systems at Armadillo's workshop in Texas, put the effort into prospective by noting the two vehicles were developed in six months by a small team of people working part-time on a $200,000 budget. Considering the type of money, time and personnel used on usual NASA projects, "that should shame some of their contractors," Carmack said.
"We provided a little more drama than we would have liked trying to fly with a broken leg," Carmack admitted at the end of the second day.
Although it wasn't flying its racers this year, the Rocket Racing League gained a lot of attention by flying its pace jet for the crowds, having one of the more interactive booths with flight simulators and a merchandising shop, unveiling its new Thunderhawk vehicle and announcing the formation of a New Mexico team.
Compared to last year's Countdown to X PRIZE Cup Expo, this first event had more exhibitors and food-beverage vendors spread across more of the airport field. Buses running spectators back-and-forth from the parking at the Southern New Mexico State Fairgrounds seemed less crowded. ,
Peter Diamandis, X PRIZE Foundation founder and chairman, said an estimated 20,000 people attended the event during the two days, which was the organizer's target number. He also was very pleased by the pleasant weather compared to last year's high winds that scrapped a number of launches - and the excitement generated by Armadillo's attempts to win the first level of the NASA Lunar Lander Challenge. "I was pulling for John like the rest of the crowd," he said.
The end of the last day also brought one last surprise - and a touch of nostalgia for some of the media who have long been following space development in New Mexico. Erik Lindbergh, grandson of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, and Nancy Conrad,m, widow of the late Pete Conrad, announced a new annual award they would be giving to the most inventive spacecraft development. Pete Conrad was the third astronaut to walk on the moon and became a strong supporter of building a spaceport in New Mexico while helping McDonnell Douglas develop its Delta Clipper single-stage rocket at White Sands Missile Range in the 1990s. The new Pete Conrad award will be a traveling trophy given to each year's winner, like the America's Cup, Lindbergh said.
