Yahoo! News – Private Spaceflight Closer to Reality
The X Prize, offered to the first team to get into space twice in a 14-day span, will now evolve into a regular competition called the X Prize Cup. In May, organizers selected New Mexico to permanently host the X Prize Cup.
…Peter Diamandis said the purpose of the Cup competition is to keep such groups going.
The first X Prize Cup will be held in 2005-06 at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a vast military installation. It will then move to an area 30 miles north of Las Cruces, where a facility dubbed the Southwest Regional Spaceport will be built.
Teams will compete in five different categories to win the overall cup: Fastest turn around time between the first launch and second landing, maximum number of passengers per launch, total number of passengers during the competition, maximum altitude and fastest flight time.
Diamandis said it is envisioned that prizes will grow to the multimillion-dollar range.