NASA's new prizes for space-related inventions

William Pomerantz
VentureBeat

Buried deep within the 339 page Congressional (conference) report on the “Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010″ that just came out of conference was a small number in a long table that could have a big impact for space-related innovation.

The language in the bill shows that NASA’s Centennial Challenges program is in line for an appropriation of $4 million to use on new incentive prizes aligned with NASA’s core missions. Although just a small drop in the roughly $18 billion bucket that is NASA’s budget, this is an important signal that NASA and Congress believe in the growing community of space entrepreneurs and citizen inventors, and an important departure from recent history.

Read the article HERE.