NASA Takes on the Tinkerer

Who would have thought that NASA, the most elite of the elite in space travel, would have to turn to the tinkerers of the world to develop new and improved inventions for space travel? Well, it has happened and in a big way.

NASA as well as other large companies have started up competitions worth big bucks. Prizes can start from 50,000 dollars and go up to 5 million dollars. The NASA competitions are called the Centennial Challenges and anyone and everyone that likes to tinker is invited to sign up for any of the 13 categories. NASA began these competitions because of the lack of funding and so many problems space travel has to overcome. So the wanna-be NASA employee has a great opportunity to show what he or she is made of. But one of the set backs is that the contestants generally spend more of their own money in the development of the product than they would receive in winning.

Steve Jones is one of the people interested in making it big with NASA. He has already been named the most likely to win the 2006 challenge for the 10 million dollar prize in August for his transporting machine which delivers packages and people into orbit at a fraction of the cost today.

Some of the NASA elite disagree with opening up such competitions because they believe that it would undermine the contractors that work for the space agency.

Who would have thought that NASA, the most elite of the elite in space travel, would have to turn to the tinkerers of the world to develop new and improved inventions for space travel? Well, it has happened and in a big way.

NASA as well as other large companies have started up competitions worth big bucks. Prizes can start from 50,000 dollars and go up to 5 million dollars. The NASA competitions are called the Centennial Challenges and anyone and everyone that likes to tinker is invited to sign up for any of the 13 categories. NASA began these competitions because of the lack of funding and so many problems space travel has to overcome. So the wanna-be NASA employee has a great opportunity to show what he or she is made of. But one of the set backs is that the contestants generally spend more of their own money in the development of the product than they would receive in winning.

Steve Jones is one of the people interested in making it big with NASA. He has already been named the most likely to win the 2006 challenge for the 10 million dollar prize in August for his transporting machine which delivers packages and people into orbit at a fraction of the cost today.

Some of the NASA elite disagree with opening up such competitions because they believe that it would undermine the contractors that work for the space agency.