Learn to READ, Shaun of the Dead fan
How is your "response" justified when all I said was:
"Prizes will liberate us from such mediocrity which would have bilked taxpayers for millions to create stuff like a spacepen if the Russians hadn't shown that a 10 penny pencil works just fine in space."
You responded by going off on a self-aggrandizing pro-NASA rant about how NASA did in fact not get away with bilking us for tons of money for an unnecessary space pen. That was precisely my point, Shaun of the Dead fan! Thanks to the existence of competition, American taxpayers knew better than to believe everything NASA claimed about the necessity of doing everything expensively. Brush your teeth.