Newt was right when he said US should put up a prize and private companies would compete to achieve success in space. The remark “No success no prize. Nothing lost!”.
This is what he meant.
http://www.xprize.org/
http://www.virgingalactic.com/overview/
http://www.space.com/1226-rutan-white-knight-carries-37-space-plane-aloft.html
1961 JFK’s speech would be enough for Robamney to have fired him if he was CIC. Those with no eyes to the future are not what we want leading this country.
Prizes are nothing new. Read David Sobel’s “Longitude”.
Wrong. Time is lost. Irretrievably.
In 2004, Robert Bigelow offered a prize of $50 million to the first company to develop an Earth to low Earth orbit passenger vehicle (America's Space Prize). He needs routine access to LEO to service his inflatable commercial space stations.
The prize offer expired in 2010 without a single attempt at winning it.
Prizes are not panaceas, particularly if what is being attempted is just barely possible by government.