Sometimes progress can be very slow. When you look at it from a historical standpoint it can look a lot faster, depending upon what period of time you are measuring. Prizes are one way to get certain technological communities to meet goals. If you want to speed up the development of something just offer a large prize. An example of this might be a sector that is trying to develop a train that can travel at over 400 mph. They have noticed that progress in this area is taking a long time so that get a prize together, one that will be considerable. If someone can develop this train first and meet the criteria outlined in the rules they win the prize. This is a good way to spur invention.

Charles Lindbergh wins $25,000 prize for being first to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Photo Source: NASA

A foundation has been formed called the X Prize Foundation. "The X Prize Foundation creates and manages prizes that drive innovators to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today." This previous statement came directly from their website. To go to their website just copy and paste this address into your browser address bar, http://www.xprize.org/ Have you ever heard the term that competition was good for the soul? Apparently this type of competition is good for the entire human race. Lets take a look at some of the X Prizes that are being offered, who knows, maybe you will want to compete?

Need $10,000,000? The largest prize ever offered in the field of medicine is the Archon X Prize for Genomics. In order to win this prize you would have to be able to create a way of mapping 100 human genomes in 10 days and do it correctly. This is very important to the scientific community. It would make new medicines possible that could solve a host of problems. Each one of us have a genetic profile and finding out more about a person's complete genetic profile can lead to preventive measures that could prevent a whole host of diseases from happening, including heart disease. If someone wants to sequence ONE human genome today, it takes millions of dollars and months of time. It might turn out that some computer programmer somewhere working with a biologist might just be able to write a software program some day that will be able to solve this problem. Hey, they might even be working on it today.

In case you think that these prizes can not be won, a privately built space vehicle named SpaceShipOne, won an X Prize of $10,000,000 as it roared into orbit for the second time in five days. A pilot named Brian Binnie brought the space ship into orbit for the second time in October 2004. The company that built SpaceShipOne is Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV) and is owned by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. Winning the money was not the point here, since it cost about $20,000,000 to build the vehicle, but it didn't hurt to get half of the development money back. A very famous aircraft developer led the team that built the space ship, he was Burt Rutan. He is also the head of Scaled Composites Inc. To qualify for the X Prize, the vehicle had to reach at least 62 miles in height. The first flight presented a scare to on lookers as SpaceShipOne made several unplanned rolls as it rocketed into space, but as we know, everything turned out fine. It is believed that all the other contestants will continue with the development of their vehicle for the pride of their respective countries even though the prize has been claimed. I think that they are right, people didn't stop designing planes just because the Wright Brothers flew first.

Looking for a better automobile, so is the X Prize Foundation? The goal of the auto competition, according to the X Prize Foundation is to, "design, build, and sell super-efficient cars that people want to buy." One of the main goals of the automotive X Prize is to make a car with greatly reduced oil consumption. 40% of all world wide oil consumption is in automobiles, trucks and buses. To win this prize, you not only have to build a super efficient car, but you have to put it into production and people have to buy it. The rules for the prize are not completely formulated yet, but are in the process. This is one competition that could effect the future of the world and the human race in many different ways. It is also harder to compete since not only must you have a great design but you will need a way of manufacturing the car and a distribution outlet. I believe that this was taken into consideration, but I am guessing here, even if a car can't be marketed some breakthrough designs might be incorporated in future vehicles.

In the old days there were competitions and prizes offered in aviation. Some credit these competitions with the steady advancement of aircraft design. There is no way of proving this, but it certainly didn't hurt to hold these competitions. I do believe however that the X Prizes are spurring design advancements in the fields in which they are offered. I know that one company, which I believe must have watched the X Prize space vehicle competition, realized that an ordinary jet, once modified, could be used as a space ship for sub orbital flights and is modifying an old Lear Jet for the task. They are changing the wing and replacing the jets with rocket motors. This is in lieu of designing a completely new vehicle. The winner, SpaceShipOne did seem to be more plane than rocket ship.

There are many other X Prizes in different fields, all designed to advance technology in those areas. Perhaps with the aid of X Prizes and the X Prize Foundation we will be able to advance our technology in areas such as space travel? The winning craft already demonstrated that a space ship can be built for only a tiny fraction of the cost of the shuttle. As I said before, this competition certainly can't hurt and most likely will help.