Just announced, Bigelow Aerospace will be backing a fifty-million dollar prize, as well as $1B in promised contracts (not necessarily to the one who gets there first, a smart move IMO), for a more ambitious private-spaceflight accomplishment. Five people, 400 miles, two full orbits, do it by 2010, and you have to demonstrate docking to their inflatable space station. No, I'm not kidding.

The catch? The contestant has to be an American company. Wholly private and with neither foreign ownership nor foreign location. Which is bloody short-sighted and irritating, but completely their privilege; I just hate to see private industry being unnecessarily protectionist.

Here's hoping that someone puts up a counterprize which is open to everyone but American companies, just to keep things global. Frankly this would be a good move for Canada, GB, the EU, and so forth, to front; it's in their long-term interest to not see the private space effort get centralized all in the US.

But let's not get distracted by the stupid nationalist clause. That's a billion dollars in private money, to the best competitor - not the first. Coooool.