The 2008 Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award is a high school competition that requires students to create their own unique concepts in specific subject areas. Entrants should compete in teams of up to 5 students. Each team must demonstrate both technical knowledge and understanding of the business aspects of their concept. Over $20,000 in prize money and various other benefits will be given to the winning teams from two competition categories:

Personal Spaceflight: Assume you can go to space. Create an innovative concept and business plan for use in personal spaceflight.

Lunar exploration: Assume you can go to the moon. Create an entrepreneurial venture for lunar exploration.

What is Personal Spaceflight?
On October 4th 2004, Scaled Composites – a private aerospace company based in Mojave, California – launched SpaceShipOne into suborbital space to capture the Ansari X PRIZE Competition. This ushered in the beginning of what is now termed the personal spaceflight industry. The industry encompasses all companies and organizations (and their partners) whose primary commercial business is to send private individuals into space. Today, the personal spaceflight industry is comparable to the aviation industry in the 1920s. It is a very young industry, with many new exciting technological developments to come.

Student teams competing in this category should develop a concept to benefit personal spaceflight in some way. These concepts could range from a technical design for a new piece of space vehicle hardware, to a new experience for space tourists, to a new way for individuals back home on Earth to connect with their space-faring friend. Do not let these ideas limit your team’s creativity. This competition is meant for students to use their own imagination to research the industry and come up with their own ideas to benefit personal spaceflight. In the coming months additional resources will be posted to this site to assist your team’s research into the personal spaceflight industry.

Why lunar exploration?
In 2004, the Vision for Space Exploration was announced as NASA’s new direction. A major objective of the Vision for Space Exploration was to return to the Moon. NASA has since determined six major lunar exploration themes: to extend human civilization, to expand scientific knowledge, to prepare for further exploration, to develop global partnerships on the Earth, to expand Earth’s economic sphere, and to engage the public in a vibrant space exploration program.

In September 2007, the X PRIZE Foundation announced the Google Lunar X PRIZE. To successfully complete this prize privately funded teams must send a robotic rover to the lunar surface and perform specific tasks.

The Moon is an important part of both the government and private enterprise sectors of space exploration. Students wishing to compete in this category of the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award must develop an entrepreneurial venture for lunar exploration. These ventures can pull from any of the lunar exploration themes laid out by NASA, or be something completely different. Student teams must remember to outline their lunar exploration program in as much detail as possible. Both technical details (what you will land, when it will be landed, what it will do on the moon) and business details (how much it will cost, who is the target customer, how will it be paid for, etc.) are required in student submissions.

Submission Requirements:
1) Every initial submission must include: a technical document, a business plan, and a graphical concept representation. Exact specifications for these documents are listed in the official rules.
2) Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges from businesses, universities, and industry experts. Finalists will be determined based upon their concepts:

- Innovation
- Practicality
- Completeness
- Marketability
- Relevance

3) All initial submissions must be submitted through the web form on the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award website. This form will be available in May.

Download the official Pete Conrad Award Rules for more information on the judging procedures, prizes, and finalist program.