The Space Race Gets a Little Weirder Corporate behemoths dominate aerospace, but a group in St. Louis is invoking the spirit of Charles Lindbergh to encourage innovators and entrepreneurs to join the space race. Some 21 competitors are currently in the running. Perhaps the oddest entered last week. Other ideas include a vehicle called Advent Ship, which launches from under water and lands like a seaplane, and capsules fired from high-altitude planes and balloons. Conspicuously absent from the roster are industry giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Most entrants say they want to capitalize on the future space-tourism market.
For inspiration, X Prize organizers looked to the Orteig Prize, which Charles Lindbergh won in 1927 for flying nonstop from New York to Paris. That celebrated flight planted the seed that grew into today's air transport industry. It was not a question hopeful entrepreneurs from Harvard Business School wanted to hear from Andreas Stavropoulos, venture capitalist at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. But first-year MBA students from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on their annual westward trek to Silicon Valley last week, couldn't avoid getting a mouthful of bear market. One advantage the MIT crowd might hold over the Harvardites is the geek factor.