March 08, 2004
Bureaucracy News
NASA will begin holding contests instead of just accepting bids:
...The private X-Prize Foundation brought the tradition into the 21st century by offering a $10 million prize, which it expects to award this year, for the first repeatable, sub-orbital human space flight by an entrepreneur with no governmental ties.
On March 13, teams of autonomous vehicle innovators will compete for a $1 million purse in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Grand Challenge. The winning vehicle must complete the 300-mile course from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in the fastest time less than 10 hours--without external communication or human control.
...Instead of soliciting proposals for a grant or contract award, NASA will state its technical goals without prescriptions for achieving them. In each challenge, multiple teams will integrate, test and fly various approaches to a certain goal. "As multiple teams succeed or fail in going after a challenge, the competitive process will distinguish between those technologies that can be imagined and those that can be practically developed," Sponberg said.
The Senate has passed restrictions on federal offshore outsourcing.
The House passed a bill last week that stops the diversion of patent fees. Article discusses changes in fee structure for patent submission.
Posted by natasha at March 8, 2004 01:29 PM | TrackBack