X Prize Cup Offers Peek Into Future of Space Travel

Oct. 20, 2006 — -- If NASA's Lunar Lander Challenge succeeds, the next vehicle to navigate the Sea of Tranquillity or the Pyrenees Mountains of our planet's lone moon could be the guy who made the video game "Doom."

John Carmack, best known for making high-tech and high-selling computer games like "Doom" and "Quake," is competing for a piece of the $2.5 million in prizes being handed out at this year's X Prize Cup, which runs through Oct. 21 at Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico.

The two-day event, with more than 20 teams competing, is open to the public and expects to draw around 200,000 visitors. The Lunar Lander Challenge, the Vertical Lander Challenge and the Space Elevator Games are among the included events.

The Lander event challenges entrants to find ways to carry cargo or humans around the moon's surface and in low orbit. The Elevator focus on developing an "elevator" that could potentially take humans into orbit via a long tether connected at one end to Earth and at the other to a spacecraft or station.

In addition to the main events, attendees will be treated to the unveiling of a "development version" of the Rocket Racing League's X-Racer, billed as "the first NASCAR vehicle of the sky, set to fly at the 2007 Cup."

The X Prize Cup and the $2.5 million in prizes -- most of which comes from NASA -- are intended to spur private development of space tourism and exploration technology.

The Ansari X Prize was made famous in 2004 when the $10 million prize was awarded to the makers of SpaceShipOne, the first privately designed, built and manned spacecraft to exceed an altitude of 328,000 feet.

Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson's new space tourism offshoot, Virgin Galactic, will use a revised version of the craft when it begins taking those who can afford it on vacations that are -- you guessed it -- out of this world.