America's Space Prize Rule's Update

The $50 million dollar purse for Robert Bigelow's American Space Prize will certainly not be easy to obtain, based on the requirements released by Bigelow Aerospace today.

For example, the craft must send a crew of five 400 kilometers above the earth, complete two orbits, land and do the same within 60 days. Additionally, the ship must be at least 80 percent reusable, and the whole mission must be completed before Jan. 10, 2010 - an almost inconceivable mission.

Based upon the success of SpaceShipOne, which took at least $30 million to accomplish, such a mission - as required by America's Space Prize - will easily take more than $100 million to accomplish.

In reality, the American Space Prize seems more publicity stunt than reality. Of course, the same was said for the X-Prize. Still, suborbital space tourism is significantly less complicated than orbital space development. Additionally, suborbital space tourism will help achieve a smooth transition to orbital space tourism and commercial development

If such a mission were accomplished just 5 years from now, the world would almost instantly change as a limitless, entirely unexplored business opportunity opened to private business. The excitement of the Internet Boom would pale in comparison.