Just a thought. We could put a little graph or clever widget on the site that displays the current leaders in both altitude and cost-per-mile-of-altitude - just to get an impression of how things are going. It wouldn't be authenticated or anything, but it might be fun.

Hmmmm - possible. Problem is, though, that teams working on complex hardware (like Nebula) would be off the bottom of the board until everything comes together, whereas teams doing balloon pilot runs (like Prometheus or CUS) would be up near the top....let me mull this one. But, it would be very nice to have *something* like this....

How about the common aerospacial design metric MOCPVMT?

(Mugs Of Coffee Per Vertical Mile Travelled)

Verification may be an issue, and there is also the problem of some countries not adhering to the European Standard Metric Mugful. Also, such a system may adversely penalize the Italians....

By the way, got a query from Wired magazine who want to do a piece on the N-Prize. Is that a good thing?

Paul

I read an article on Elon and Space X in wired ages ago, whole new audience there, be good publicity!!!


Iain

Wired would be very good if you can get them to write about it. Google "tired nasa wired amateurs" for a Nov. 1994 article a freelance writer did for a project I was working on then. Wired also aims for the right kind of people (I'm a subscriber)

I've been finding it very difficult to get any print media mentions in this Internet Age.

I'm not sure of the value of a leaderboard. 90% of the struggle for any of us is raising the funds, finding the right collaborators to get something underway. And I see that some of the sites have not posted anything recently, or at all. A leaderboard, to be fair, would have to have up to date information on all entrants, presented so as not to create bias. Easy in an auto race or golf tournament but not here.

Charles Pooley