Contests

For years, Jerry Pournelle has been proposing a contest to establish a manned base on the Moon. Someone seems to have been reading his blog.

Now admit it. The idea of Nascar fans watching pod racers at 5,000 feet makes you laugh, right? But such contests, mixing science, innovation and derring-do--even the nuttier ones--are good for society. They lead to economic advance.

Contests are not only fun. They can also be key to our survival. If President Bush is serious about rekindling NASA--a worthy idea--I have a suggestion. NASA's annual budget is $16 billion. Within that budget NASA sets aside $20 million for prizes to reward real accomplishments, not just paper proposals. That's wa-a-a-ay too little. In fact, it's a puny one-eighth of 1% of NASA's budget. Why not bump up the annual prize figure to $2 billion? The U.S. would get a lot more bang than it gets now for that $16 billion. NASA, alas, seems paralyzed. The agency's new goal of putting a man on the Moon by 2018--13 years from now, and we've already been there--proves its weak vision. NASA's execution is poor, too. The agency has already spent billions of dollars on the National Aerospace Plane, the X-33, X-34, X-37, X-38 and the Orbital Space Plane. None of these has flown. Meanwhile, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne was built for less than $40 million. President Bush wants to fire up his presidency. Here's a way: Commit America to big, gaudy, public contests in space travel and energy. These will fire up an entire country.