On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 01:09:36 -0700, David Weinshenker
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Also, I'm not sure that the "prize" structure of the whole affair was
>a good idea... rocket folks seem (IMHO) to be rather insular and secretive
>in general, and setting it all up as a "contest" tended to exacerbate that.
It certainly didn't help. The closest thing to secretiveness I've
seen since the CATS Prize expired is reticence like Ky's; he doesn't
talk about future projects in public. Nothing wrong with that.
Actions speak louder than words, and there are *so* many grandiose
claims made in this business. I read one yesterday about a group that
hasn't flown hardware in years, that explained how they were going the
X Prize.
>1-1/2 stages? How was that to have worked? You weren't going to use
>the Atlas configuration and drop off some engines as a tankless "partial
>stage", were you?
I have mercifully forgotten. Maybe Black Adder was the 100 km design,
and BA2 was the CATS Prize scale-up. Michael may remember.
>So it was a "mess" even before the compliance burden became apparent?
I think so. We had an externally defined goal, an externally defined
deadline, rules that were constantly being questioned... I swear, if
as much energy was put into building hardware as was put into arguing
about the rules, someone would have won the thing. The administrator
couldn't substantively answer hypothetical questions (part of the
purpose was to encourage out of the box thinking); he was stuck with,
"Show me a design, and I'll make a ruling." Well *that's* not very
satisfying. (I tried to rewrite the rules to prevent such answers. I
failed. My respect for the administrator, and his patience under
fire, went up considerably.)
The problem with a winner take all prize is that it puts the
cost/benefit equation on a knife edge. Either the benefit is positive
- and it still may be lower than the cost - or it is zero. So the
only rational thing to do is either make sure you can and will win the
thing, or drop out. That's a problem Adrian and Michael addressed
with the FAST program proposal; there are multiple prizes, and the
first competition, a CATS Prize equivalent, is flat. You do it first,
you get the prize money. You do it 10th, you get the prize money.
You do it 11th, you get nothing. Realistically, less than 10 prizes
would be awarded before that phase expired.
The CATS Prize created a competition where what was needed was
synergy. It was synergy that got KISS flying. That lesson - that
amateur rocketry is not big enough to sustain serious internecine
competition - is a valuable one.
-R
--
"SEAL training is just like Ranger training, except
it's three weeks longer. It takes that long to teach
them how to balance the balls on their noses."
-- Doug Jones
_______________________________________________
ERPS-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
