Here's an interesting new article on how DARPA's competitive prize has empowered former NASA engineers to find jobs that they'd otherwise lack:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/15/MNGMN51F8O1.DTL

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- the gee-whiz Pentagon outfit that brought us the Internet, stealth bombers, "smart bombs" and a short-lived terrorism futures market -- has for 40 years dreamed of the day when robotic vehicles would wage war. It has thrown vast sums at defense contractors who, so far, haven't accomplished much...Disappointed by the slow pace and facing a congressional mandate that one- third of all Army ground combat vehicles be unmanned by 2015, DARPA decided to kick-start the research by inviting any scientist, engineer or gearhead with an idea to give it a try [with a million dollar competitive prize as their incentive]...The competition has attracted teams ranging from robotics powerhouse Carnegie Mellon University, which has budgeted $5 million for the task, to former NASA engineers to a pair of guys cobbling together a vehicle in their garage in St. Louis. The real money, contestants said, comes with marketing the technology."