Ah - I see. Well, many a good man has failed at fundraising, no shame there. And best of luck with the scale engines - keep us posted!

Cheers,
Paul

Very neat new world map of entrants. And the year extension breathes life back into it.

Microlaunchers has (I have) moved to Las Vegas Nevada.

Conditions look better here, and recent promising contacts should soon lead to a "critical mass" of participants.

At first some small components will be built, tested at a home lab/office. First, the camera servo aiming for the data link, a demo of the optical guidance, because of parts in common. The same servo will be used to control a horizon sensor for the guidance. Horizon is to be simulated by three blue LEDs on walls about 90 degrees apart.

Currently being discussed is a laser link demo of the escape velocity version to be flown on a balloon. There are several groups here who fly balloons to near 30 km. This will allow a test at a slant range of about 150 km or so. The signal strength of this can then be extrapolated to the planned NEO distance of 15 million km.

The N Prize satellite is still to use a small RF transmitter sending a set of pulses to give several measurements, as shown in the 2009 presentation at
SAS in Phoenix.

Hi Charles,

Good to hear from you, and glad things are moving. Be sure to keep us posted!

Yours,
Paul

rick m wrote:Hi Paul,

I hope a team somewhere can pull this off before the September 19th deadline. As I've stated before, if it doesn't happen by the deadline, and because of our late decision to try, we are working to see this happen at some point in time and would welcome the expertice of other teams that have/had been involved to join together with us (as a united "Team N-Prize") to see your challenge eventually happen. Heck, we are now looking at the N-Plus Prize as well. I just hope you're announcement isn't a cancelation of the challenge and even if it is, we are committed to still do it.

Rick

Since the deadline is now extended indefinitely, I would like to again invite teams that didn't think they had a chance, didn't have experience to do everything, or simply want to be a part of doing this to join together in this endeavor. The Sugar Shot project has been international in scope with many people and talents from all walks of life working together to accomplish the goal of getting a rocket powered by sugar into space.

I think the same model could work to get a rocket into orbit within Paul's limitations and if it doesn't quite meet those requirements it would still be note worthy and as an open source project as Sugar Shot is, everything done would be available for all to make use. And since new teams are now allowed, we could unite under a TEAM N-PRIZE to get this done. I already have several people that would like to do this, how about you?

Rick