Ansari X Prize
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Search complete. 4 mentions across 4 episodes found for "Ansari X Prize".
Oct 7, 2026
Andy SadhwaniGUEST
And the view of the Earth is absolutely stunning.
Andy SadhwaniGUEST
So my story is that when I was in graduate school doing my master's, somebody had mentioned that, you know, hey, Bert Rutan, his company, Scaled Composites, is going to be sending their prototype to space because there is the Ansari XPRIZE competition, where if you travel to space twice within two weeks, you know, hitting a certain altitude, then you'd win this competition.
Andy SadhwaniGUEST
So I think it was like 100 kilometers, the prototype.
Andy SadhwaniGUEST
So Scaled Composites, I watched them do their flight.
Matt O'DowdHOST
But it counts.
Matt O'DowdHOST
SpaceShipOne's adventure won its maker, Scaled Composites, the cool 10 million of the Ansari X Prize.
Matt O'DowdHOST
Virgin Galactic teamed up with Scaled Composites to form the Spaceship Company, with the plan to turn its SpaceShipTwo into a regular space tourism vessel.
Matt O'DowdHOST
That hasn't happened yet, for reasons I'll get back to.
Erik LindberghGUEST
So prizes have been used a long, long time.
Erik LindberghGUEST
And now, of course, you know, inspired by my grandfather's, you know, winning that prize and jumpstarting the aviation industry, The modern analog is the XPRIZE and the original Ansari XPRIZE, $10 million for the first private manned space program that jumpstarted our private spaceflight industry that's right now vying to send your CubeSats or your satellite links or your warm body up into space.
Erik LindberghGUEST
So pretty exciting.
Erik LindberghGUEST
Realization, I probably jumped into that, could have framed it in a different way, but having a hand in building the XPRIZE in 1996 and then keeping it alive through a long gestation period when it probably should have died because it was just a ridiculously audacious thing to do.
TowerHOST
The Virgin Galactic Heritage is there.
TowerHOST
The SpaceShipOne, the vehicle that won the Ansari X Prize in two thousand and four and triggered the modern commercial space race, was built and flown at Mojave.
TowerHOST
Stratolaunch is there.
TowerHOST
That ecosystem of engineers, machinists, composite fabricators, and experimental test pilots exists because the community invested in it over decades.