Space Forum / Space History / February 2004

Rand Simberg started a thread in sci.space.policy
"Working Hand In Glove"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111821,00.html

He points out that gloves of pressurized space suits are very
cumbersome, making orbital assembly difficult.

He proposes something along the lines of the X-Prize, a prize to the
first to make better gloves for pressurized suits. (Some are calling
this a G-Prize)

I think this is a great idea.

Better robotic hands would also facilitate orbital assembly and have
many other uses in space exploration and earthly industry. An H-Prize
for a better robotic hand would reap great benefits.

A possible format for the G-Prize or X-Prize: Have a series of tasks in
a vacuum that the contestants would try to accomplish in a certain time
limit. The first task eliminates a good fraction of the contestants as
in _American Idol_. Each step of the contest could be televised. It
could be an entertaining show.

Any one have an idea what entities might sponsor these prizes and/or
produce a show?