NASA146;s Looking for You

The Centennial Challenges prizes range from 200,000 to more than 5 million. You can enter and build solar sails, lunar excavators, even tiny elevators

STEVE JONES doesn8217;t have a workshop, exactly, for his miniature space elevator; he is designing it in his dorm room and in four labs scattered across the University of British Columbia. He doesn8217;t have a staff, either; a collection of friends and fellow space enthusiasts volunteer to help. And his budget, in the low five figures, comes mostly from the school activities fund, although Red Bull is donating some energy drinks. But he might soon have a chance to join the ranks of the aerospace establishment by getting money from NASA and, in his own way, helping explore the solar system. To get ready, he is spending 60 hours a week on his elevator, which is meant to haul people and gear into orbit without a rocket. He has even put off graduation until the project is done.

Until recently, the chances that a college senior like Jones would contribute to the NASA space programme were remote. Contracts belonged mostly to the Boeings of the world. Tinkerers and students were kept at the far edge of the periphery. But with budgets tightening and the obstacles to human space exploration looking more daunting, NASA is enlisting the expertise of outsiders. For example, the agency is offering 13 contests, which it calls Centennial Challenges, that anyone can enter.

The prizes range from 200,000 to more than 5 million, for building gear as diverse as solar sails, lunar excavators and the tiny elevators. But more important than the cash prizes, contestants and administrators say, is the opportunity to sidestep the traditional ways NASA has done business and bring some fresh faces to its ranks.

Competitors in the Beam Power Challenge 8212; which includes the elevator component 8212; had to make a 2-ft-tall machine powered by light or microwaves that could crawl up a 200-ft rubber-coated fibre ribbon. Space enthusiasts hope that such a machine8212;a lift, of sorts8212;could one day reach 62,000 miles into the sky, delivering people and packages into orbit at a fraction of the cost of today8217;s launchings.

Many of NASA8217;s contests also centre on robotics. The Telerobotic Construction Challenge, scheduled for August 2007, requires a team of machines to assemble items with minimal human supervision. The idea is to let robots, instead of astronauts, build shelters and machinery on the moon and Mars. In the Regolith Excavation Challenge, set for May 2007, an autonomous machine will have to dig through 24 sq m of simulated moon rock. Some contests will be held annually; others will be one-time events.

The competitions offer economic benefits to NASA as well. The contestants, not the space agency, pay for the development. The winner of a big technology prize usually spends three times the purse value, said Carl E. Walz, a former astronaut who works in NASA8217;s exploration systems mission directorate. 8220;Typically in R038;D, you pay as you go,8221; Walz said, referring to NASA8217;s outlays for research and development. 8220;You pay for failures and you pay for successes. Here, you don8217;t pay until someone wins.8221;

If he wins Jones said he hoped to use his prize money to enter some of these more complex challenges, like the lunar lander competition being held by NASA and the X Prize Foundation. Gregg E. Maryniak, executive vice- president of the foundation, said, 8220;One of the biggest reasons to do this is to bring in people outside the existing ecosystem.8221;

NYT