Keith recently posted a reasonably good article on today's Congressional hearing on NASA prizes, too:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14584

I would have included two things that he didn't but at least he gave the issue coverage which I find refreshingly surprising. First of all, I would have gone into how Congressional witness Bob Walker's lobbying firm (Wexler Walker Group) has Lockheed Martin as a paying client, and has apparently done work for Boeing as well. Thus, any hesitation on Walker's part regarding prizes should probably be viewed through that parasitic prism. And as for Congressman Nick Lampson out in the Houston area, his constituency gets around 1/3 of NASA's budget. Of course he's going to say that prizes shouldn't be regarded as a substitute for the traditional R&D model. The question is, won't redistricting in Texas leave Slick Nick out of a job in November? He sold out his patriotic values but apparently won't even get to keep his job despite it all, right?