Pod Racing for Earthlings

5 October 2005



X-Prize Founder Starts Rocket Racing League

Peter Diamandis, founder of the aerospace Ansari X Prize, has decided that the next great sporting industry will be rocket-plane racing. At a ceremony in New York (where the races will most definitely not take place), he unveiled the Rocket Racing League as its founder and co-chairman. If all goes right, the first four-plane race will be held in October of 2006. Which implies that if all goes wrong, it may happen sooner, though, Mr. Diamandis may disagree.

One is hard pressed to see the excitement in races involving livestock and even less in those involving machinery. The greater the technology, the less human conditioning is involved, and the event ceases to be athletic and becomes a matter of engineering. And engineering shouldn’t be a competitive endeavor unless the competition is against a standard of perfection. There is no competitive bridge building, nor is there any competitive widget making -- although it would be amusing to see what the East German judge has to say about such things.

Nonetheless, there is a sizeable segment of humanity interested in such competition and has been since the Blues, Reds, Greens and Whites raced around the Circus Maximus. And while it seems to be nothing more than turning left for an hour or two, NASCAR racing has achieved serious TV money status in the US. So, Mr. Diamandis probably has a pool of potentially interested viewers.

According to the folks at the press conference, a liquid oxygen/kerosene mixture will fuel the engines which will have a four-minute burn time. As a result, the pilots will have to turn off their engines repeatedly, gliding in between bursts of speed approaching 300 miles per hour (meaning the average 737 could pass them like they were standing still). The races will take place on a three-dimensional race course two miles long, a mile wide and about a mile high.

However, the planes will need to be built; thus far, only a prototype exists, the EZ-Rocket. And the Federal Aviation Administration will have to approve the final results. And sponsors will be needed to cough up the $1 million or so the planes will costs, plus the operating charges. And it still won’t be as cool as the Pod Races in “Star Wars: Episode 1.”


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.

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