Newt Gingrich with his idea for prizes for innovation.

Jerry Pournelle has proposed this also in the past. A typical idea:

"The Congress directs the Treasurer of the United States to pay the sum of $3 billion (Three Billion US Dollars) to the first US owned firm that shall build three spacecraft each of which shall launch from the Continental Unites States, go to orbit around Earth, remain there for 3 orbits, return to the launch site, and within a period of three days after landing do so again; and shall do this six times during a period of three months.



"This payment shall not be subject to Federal taxation. No sums shall be paid until the results above have been achieved."



The real contract would need more nailing down. A minimum payload size would be nice, at the least.

This got a lot of grief last time for being a government subsidy, and "anti-capitalistic," both of which are a bit odd on a board where some people push for thirty new NASA space missions a month.

The best part of a "prize" plan is that is doesn't cost the government a nickel until someone delivers the goods. Can you think of any other government program that has a deal like that? That doesn't suck up gobs of taxpayer money whether or not something useful comes out the other end? Remember the X-33? Imagine if NASA hadn't had to pay one cent for the Shuttle program until Rockwell had three birds ready to go to the pad.

Maybe other deals could be worked along with the prize, such as the winner giving NASA/the government a special cheap rate on launches for a certain period of time to help defray part of the prize cost over a number of years.