X Prize Cup 2006: Moon 2.0

This upcoming weekend, the Wirefly X Prize Cup will be taking place at Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico. The X Prize Cup is an attempt to create ”the world’s first true rocket festival.” There will be a live webcast of the events through the event, on October 20-21, 2006, through the official Wirefly X Prize Cup website.

The most major event is the $2 million Lunar Landing Challenge and Vertical Lander Challenge, aimed at building technology adequate for the next generation of moon exploration. Three teams will be competing for this prize (although a New Scientist article from last week indicates that four teams were registered, awaiting launch permits from the FAA).

There will also be two competitions – with twenty competitors – aimed at technologies necessary to make space elevators a reality. Space elevators are a theoretical construction that would consist of a strong cable connected to a geosynchronous satellite, approximately 100,000 kilometers into the air. A specially designed robot would be able to “climb” the cable to reach orbit. See our previous article, "Balloons in Space,” which discusses work leading up to this event.

For more on space technologies, see About Space.

Related Articles:

• Official Website - Wirefly X Prize Cup
• New Scientist - Space elevators to heave themselves skyward
• New Scientist - Mock lunar landers to go head to head in X Prize Cup
• Official Website - X Prize Foundation