The Wirefly X Prize
Cup identifies a large persistent community of people, defining their
dreams and desires of human spaceflight.
In Las Cruses, New Mexico, hundreds of educators, students
and special interest groups took to the desert to watch history in
the making during one October weekend. For myself, it was my first venture
to this event in which I observed a variation in the development of technology
for Rocket Racing
teams, lunar
exploration and how elevated competition
stimulates both cooperation and conflict within the members of the private and
space sectors.
While amazed at the amount of time and effort it took to put
the X Prize Cup together, there were some
disappointments in the desert that we were witnessed by all. One might
think this to be a bad thing. This is not the case when dealing within human
and robotic space exploration as anyone in the business surely knows.
With great success, one must falter and learn, then
test...test...test. I was amazed that when the countdowns commenced, everyone
stopped what they were doing and ran to the fence or just looked up to the sky
to see a Rocketman
fly [image]
with his rocket jetpack, or Armadillo
Aerospace's "Pixel" vehicle [image]
fly a 90 plus second jaunt to an altitude of 164 feet (50 meters) and over a
distance of 328 feet (100 meters). They were unable, however, to make the
return trip.
But hey, that's okay! Armadillo broke a number of DC-X [image]
records on reflight/turn-around time.
Pertaining to education, more than 5,000 students turned out
on the first day of the event and were definitely inspired to learn more about
human spaceflight, mechanical and aerospace engineering, planetary science and
much more. Anousheh
Ansari, the first
female space tourist, was on hand to talk to members of the general public
and sign autographs. She even hinted of returning to the International Space
Station to "where she belongs."
The National Space Society (NSS) was in full force handing
out the award winning Ad Astra magazine to all who attended the event
and were on hand to answer questions on issues related to space tourism, public
policy and how to get involved in order to make the Vision for Space
Exploration a reality.
For one who attended the X Prize Cup for the first time I
must say that I was impressed as well as excited for what is being accomplished
thus far.
The X Prize Cup provided the inspiration, education for the
next generation of explorers and gave reason to celebrate a moment in human
history in which through heightened competition, the development of social
strategies to work together in order to generate the defining characteristics
of human flight which will no doubt take us higher than we ever dreamed.
Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto is on the NSS board of directors
and is the founder and chapter president of National Space Society of
Phoenix. Zabala-Aliberto is currently a senior undergraduate student within the
School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University who has
recently been assigned to work on the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, which launches in October 2008.
NOTE: The
views of this article are the author's and do not reflect the policies of the
National Space Society.
Visit SPACE.com/Ad Astra Online for more
news, views and scientific inquiry from the National Space Society.
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