By Offering Prizes to Meet a Challenge

So, will the next steps on the Moon be taken in order to win a $30 million X-prize? If Google has its way, it will. They’re offering that much money to whoever gets the first privately funded robotic rover on the Moon by the year 2012. It’s a great prize, although it probably won’t cover the actual costs of the rover. It almost really doesn’t matter if it does, though. It’s the spirit of the thing that really counts. That a foundation and a company would be willing to put their money with their mouth is speaks volumes about their commitment to moving humans ahead to explore the near-Earth environment. And, to do that, some radical moves need to be taken, both in funding and incentives as well as in the actual technology to do the job. In the history of technology, sometimes really good solutions have come about because of competition and pressure to do a job well. And, as we know from the history of space travel so far, the spinoffs benefit education, medicine, and many technologies we take for granted in our daily lives.

The X-Prize foundation doesn’t just fund competitions for space travel, although their first big one, the Ansari Prize to prove that personal, affordable space flight is achievable. It went to Spaceship One and Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen. It was a private team and they achieved a major breakthrough in space travel. If you go to the X-Prize Foundation’s web site you’ll find X-Prizes for a variety of other challenges: genomics and automotive breakthroughs, to name a couple. You can even suggest an X-Prize challenge, something breaktaking, audacious, and visionary. That’s what it takes: an idea and a chance to push it through. Sort of like going to the Moon with a lunar buggy.
There it is—let’s go!

Gazin’ at Yer Starrrrrs!!!!

Arrr!!! Avast ye lads and lasses, ’tis Talk Like a Pirate Day! All in good fun and silliness, because as the old chumbuckets over at Talk Like a Pirate Day say, we all know that real pirates are scurvy bilge rats and no fun at all. We’re not here to celebrate the evil ways of real pirates. We just want to be a little silly, sling around some piratey lingo and exhibit some swashbuckling pirattitude. And, so today we’re Stargazin’ like a Pirate here at Ye Olde Spacewriter’s Blogge.

In days of old, honest sailors and pirates alike used the stars for navigatin’ the briney deeps. Today, us modern travelers at sea AND on land depend on things like computers and cell phones and GPS units to do our navigatin’ for us. So we can just go out and enjoy the night sky for the sheer beauty of it all and celebrate a cosmic version of Talk Like a Pirate Day!

To get started, dress fer the weather! If it’s cold in yer part of the world, put on yer warmest piratey britches and overcoats. While yer still inside, get yerself some star charts here. They’ll come in handy when yer sailin’ the starry seas!

Aside from that, ye won’t need anything else but yer own two eyes and a safe place to stargaze from! If yer really in the piratey mood, however, take along some grog! This can be a spiritous beverage (if yer of legal age) or a hot chocolate or warm chai or whatever shivers yer piratey timbers!

Next, get yerself outside as soon as the Sun has set in old Davey Jones’s locker in the sky. (When it’s dark.) Lay down on a nice chaise longue chair, or a blanket or sleepin’ bag, anything to keep yer piratey stargazin’ hiney warm and dry. Then, ye just look up!

There, stretched above ye will be the glory o’ the cosmos. Stars, planets, our galaxy, plus a few others, clouds o’ gas and dust, and much, much more. If ye have a piratey spyglass (or binoculars or a telescope) drag it out and focus on the lovelies above ye!

That’s all there is to it. While yer at it, spice up yer language and talk like a piratey astronomer! Use such swashbuckling lingo as:

“Aye, that’s a lovely treasure chest o’ stars up there, matey!”

“Shiver me timbers, I’ve never seen such a bright planet as that one!”

“Arrr Matey, check out that Lagoon Nebula afore she sets!!!”

“Well, blow me down, matey! We’ll be sailing Carina over the horizon tonight!!

“Avast ye, the Moon is over the yardarm!”

“Look smartly, me lovelies! There went a meteor!”

‘Tis a new way to get yer starrrrry fix, and a great way to celebrate the Piratey Silliness. So, have fun and don’t forget—talk like a pirate!

Arrrrrrr!!! Check out the starrrs!!!