Who's taking the X-Prize?

[Kirsten]

Now that the X-Prize has an expiration date (end of 2004 if I recall correctly), what are the prospects for someone to win it? Who are likely candidates? Armadillo Aerospace sounds pretty confident that they will finish in time, Canadian Arrow projects that it will complete testing of the main flight engine this year and have a first launch mid-2003. Those two might be contenders. I've seen nothing out of TGV Rockets and some of the other competitors I'm familiar with about actual progress. And then there are some competitors I just know nothing about.

Anyone have any favorites to win this?

Kirsten

[K6-III]

I'll vote for Armadillo Aerospace....

Their news page at www.armadilloaerospace.com actually gives you weekly updates on their progress every monday....

[simkn]

What about the other competitors, do they have websites?

Is there a good website detailing all the X-Prize competitors?

[K6-III]

www.xprize.org

Looks like, in reality, it is all between Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites (Spaceship One) and Armadillo.

[PhysBrain]

My money is on Scaled Composite's entry, the White Knight/Spaceship One. A couple of weeks ago, they unveiled Spaceship One and said that they were ready to begin flight testing. The only thing that appeared to be missing/incomplete was final integration of the rocket engine, which they have been ground testing separately from the airframe.

Here's a link to the Scaled Composite site:

http://www.scaled.com/news/news.htm

Or, you can do a google news search on 'burt rutan' to find many articles recently written about Rutan and his, and others', X-Prize entries.

http://news.google.com/news?q=burt+rutan&num=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=G&scoring=d

[Kirsten]

I'm leaning toward Scaled Composites as well, but I just can't bring myself to count out Armadillo yet. According to Armadillo's news from just after the Rutan project rollout, Scaled Composites is further along than AA had hoped but not as far along as everyone else thinks. I'm hoping for a little excitement as we roll into the home stretch!

[K6-III]

Well, I'm seeing if I might help John secure a supply of HTP. Assuming his supply issue of HTP is resolved, he'll definitely be in the running...