In this case, it’s a good thing. Back during the campaign, when John McCain proposed an automotive prize, then-Senator Obama derided it:
Explaining that “when John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn’t put a bounty out for some rocket scientist to win,” Obama believes that to speed alternative fuel development and increase fuel-efficiency, the full power of the government must be combined with the “ingenuity and innovation of the American people.”
But now, Jonathan Adler says that Obama has his eye on prizes:
Earlier this month, with little fanfare, the Obama Administration took a small but significant step toward encouraging greater technological innovation. On March 8, the Office of Management and Budget issued a guidance to federal agencies on the use of challenges and prizes to spur technological innovation. This memorandum seeks to “strongly encourage” federal agencies to “utilize prizes and challenges as tools for advancing open government, innovation, and the agency’s mission.” It further explains that many federal agencies have sufficient statutory authority to create technology inducement prizes with existing funds and spending authority.
This is particularly good news for NASA, because Centennial Challenges needs an infusion of funds. Fortunately, the current NASA administration is very supportive of this sort of thing, and can be expected to support new prize activities if they get the budget for it.
Obama was wrong to trash talk prizes; I’m glad he’s changed his tune.
I am always enthusiastic when anybody supports prizes, but in the final analysis, Congress will not fund them (more than with token amounts). No opportunity for pork/graft.
I have to admit I’m sort of biased, but even token amounts are a lot better than nothing… 🙂
~Jon
The secret of the X-Prize is to fund prizes for work that was being done before the prize was announced as an incentive for speeding up the schedule and focusing different efforts on a unified goal. This is why I was so confused about the GLXP back when it was announced… it was like they thought you could throw together a prize for anything and people would drop what they are doing and start competing for it. But it turns out people like Odyssey Moon were the motivation for the prize and were working on commercial robotic lunar missions long before the prize was announced.
I remember an item from a certain Atlantic blogger who went on and on about how John McCain didn’t know the first thing about economics for even suggesting prizes. It’s funny how good/bad an idea looks depending on who is suggesting it.