John "Quake" Carmack edges closer to manned space mission

NVIDIA'S CEO Jen Hsen Huang told us all after the Taiwanese chicks stopped dancing at Computex last week that John "Doom" Carmack was setting his controls for the heart of the Sun.

Jen Hsen, who described Carmack as a real genius, heads up the Armadillo Aerospace team to get together the first privately funded manned spaceflight.

One of the two teams - the other is Scaled Composites, according to the Kansas City Star, stands to win $10 million if they launch a rocket and bring people back safely within a two week period.

The two US teams have already got approval from the authorities for the X Prize, which demands that a manned rocket flies 62 miles high, and returns to terra firma in one piece. The space ships have to carry three people, and the experiment will have to be repeated again in two weeks time.

Apparently there are a lot of volunteers who are going to take the risk.

The prize is sponsored by a number of organisations including USA Bank, the New Spirit of St Louis Organization and others.

Sheesh! µ

L'INQS
Xprize
Kansas City Star