I think it should have been obvious from context that I was talking about space missions. It's obvious you knew that from the second two replies. If you honestly think informing oon someone's location is as technically challenging as a space mission, that would explain a lot. Your accuracy is also suspect since the award was not the source of the information on Saddam's location.

The X-prize has not been claimed and it is not even for an Earth orbit mission let alone one to another body. Burt Rutan is a prime example of an outsider with a big mouth IMO. He is a fantastic engineer with a great record of accomplishment, but until he acomplished even one percent as much as NASA has I consider his comments extremely arrogant. His famous comment "Space isn't hard NASA just makes it so" is obviously wrong based on the huge failure rate of those trying to privatize spaceflight. I'm not familiar with prizes being offered by the DARPA program.

Your comments on Musk are hilarious. Musk appears to represent what will really get us into space for good. A private effort with realistic budgets, financing, and sales plan. If you want to harness the power of competitive capitalism this is the way to do it not some prize program unlikely to attract investors. The X-prize people are after a space tourism market. The X-prize is more of a marketing tool than a real incentive for them.

RE: "Actually, that sounds like the current contract bidding scenario."

Nothing says clueless about business like that comment. Cost plus contracts are the ultimate in low business risk and the exact opposite of working for no pay.

RE: "How is minimizing profit my goal? Maximizing productivity, dollar-for-dollar, is."

You want to reduce how much the government spends on space. Without some huge increase in efficiency that means reducing profits for the aerospace industry. That would be fine with me if it worked, but you need to think through the consequences of your goals better. For instance, you also want work done for no pay. That is a gauranteed loss for everyone who does not win the prize. This applies to all bidding work, but the cost is usually small compared to the final contract.

Private planes were flying all over Europe and America when Lindberg made his flight. His triumph was in planning and endurance not a leap in technology. Again you seem to be confusing spaceflight with far simpler tasks typically or historically associated with prizes. There is a huge difference between offering prizes for something anyone can do (fugitive rewads), stretching the limits of technology (Lindberg & other explorers), and developing new technology.

Regards,
Mark