The Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization, generally known as the Heinlein Prize, was founded in 1988 to reward individuals who make practical contributions to the commercialization of space. The Heinlein Prize, offers a cash award of $500,000 to one or more individuals for practical accomplishments in the field of commercial space activities awarded by the Heinlein Prize Trust. [1]
Trustees for the award emphasize that the prize, which will be given as often as annually, is for effort by an individual or group of people, not government or corporate sponsored activities, and is intended to be worldwide in scope. The prize is awarded in July.
The Heinlein Prize honors the memory of Robert A. Heinlein, one of the most popular science fiction writers of the 20th century. The trust was established soon after his death in 1988 by his widow, Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein, whose estate will fund the prize.
Source: Heinlein Prize Trust
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American internet and aerospace entrepreneur, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, chief executive officer, and president of Amazon. The first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018. In September 2018, Forbes described him as "far richer than anyone else on the planet" as he added $1.8 billion to his net worth when Amazon became the second company in history to reach a market cap of $1 trillion.
The National Space Society (NSS) is an American international nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and scientific organization specializing in space advocacy. It is a member of the Independent Charities of America and an annual participant in the Combined Federal Campaign. The society's vision is: "People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity."
The BFG is a fictional weapon found in many video game titles, mostly in first-person shooter series such as Doom and Quake.
Private spaceflight is a spaceflight or the development of new spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency.
Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company motto is Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously".
Elon Reeve Musk is an engineer, investor, and technology entrepreneur. He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship and is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX; CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People, and was ranked (co-)first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. He has a net worth of $23.6 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 40th-richest person in the world. He is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.
XPRIZE is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit humanity. Their Board of Trustees include James Cameron, Larry Page, Arianna Huffington, and Ratan Tata among others.
The International Space Development Conference (ISDC) is the annual conference of the National Space Society (NSS). Now in its 37th year, these conferences connect the general public and the NSS membership with leaders of contemporary space efforts. The ISDC provides a nexus for industry, government, scientists, advocates, and the public to meet and discuss the latest issues in space technology, science, policy, commerce, medicine, exploration, settlement and much more. Winners of the annual NASA space settlement Contest annually attend the conference, with several interesting activities and programs. With National Space Society's major goal being to accelerate the process of space exploration and development they also foster astronautics for students by encouraging them and getting them involved.
Space advertising is the use of advertising in outer space or related to space flight. While there have only been a few examples of successful marketing campaigns, there have been several proposals to advertise in space, some even planning to launch giant billboards visible from the Earth. Obtrusive space advertising is the term used for such ventures.
Arthur M. ("Art") Dula is a space lawyer, a patent attorney, the literary executor for major science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein and chairman, founder of the private spaceflight company, Excalibur Almaz.
The Heinlein Centennial Convention was held in Kansas City from July 6 through July 8, 2007, coincident with the 100th anniversary of Robert A. Heinlein's birth in Butler, Missouri on July 7, 1907. The Guests of Honor were Robert and Virginia Heinlein, in absentia and deceased. The keynote speakers were:
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a private spaceflight industry group, incorporated as an industry association for the purposes of establishing ever higher levels of safety for the commercial human spaceflight industry, sharing best practices and expertise, and promoting the growth of the industry worldwide. Issues that the Commercial Spaceflight Federation work on include, but are not limited to, airspace issues, FAA regulations and permits, industry safety standards, public outreach, and public advocacy for the commercial space sector.
Space Pioneer Awards or NSS Space Pioneer Awards are the annual awards given by National Space Society, an independent non-profit educational membership organisation, to individuals and teams who have opened the space frontier.
Lunar tourism may be possible in the future if trips to the Moon are made available to a private audience. Some space tourism startup companies are planning to offer tourism on or around the Moon, and estimate this to be possible sometime between 2023 and 2043.
Kellie Gerardi is a commercial spaceflight industry professional and popular science communicator. She is a Scientist-Astronaut candidate with Project PoSSUM, the first crewed suborbital research program to study the upper atmosphere and the role it plays in understanding our global climate. She was previously one of 100 candidates selected to colonize Mars via Dutch non-profit Mars One.
The billionaire space race is the intense rivalry in NewSpace by recent space entrepreneurs, who entered the space industry as billionaires from other industries, particularly computing. This private industry space race of the 21st century involves sounding rockets to the ionosphere, orbital launch rockets, and suborbital tourist spaceflights.
This is a corporate history of SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company founded by Elon Musk.
The SpaceX Starship concept is a fully-reusable launch vehicle and spacecraft in development by SpaceX, as a private spaceflight project. It is under development to be a long-duration cargo- and passenger-carrying spacecraft. The development of the Starship began as early as 2014.
Dawn Brooke Owens was an American pilot and space policy expert. She worked with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the White House. The Brooke Owens Fellowship was established in 2017 to honour the considerable contributions Owens made to the American space industry.
How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, An Epic Race, And the Birth of Private Spaceflight (ISBN 978-1594206726) is a bestselling award-winning 2016 non-fiction book by journalist Julian Guthrie about the origins of the X Prize Foundation and Peter Diamandis, the first X Prize, the Ansari X Prize and Anousheh Ansari, the entrants into that suborbital spaceflight competition, and the winning team, Mojave Aerospace Ventures of Vulcan Inc., Paul G. Allen, Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan, and their platform of Tier One of SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne.