WASHINGTON, DC – Some additional contestants are expected before the end of the year in the competition to build and fly the first all-private passenger carrying spaceship. According to Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and President of the St. Louis-based X-Prize Foundation, the additional entrants for the prize will join the existing group of 16. "I expect that we will see three or four additional teams entering the competition by the end of the year," Diamandis told space.com recently. The winner of the contest wins a $10 million purse plus trophy and just may be able to go on to establish a viable passenger or cargo transportation service with the piloted craft.

Diamandis said that the foundation had raised slightly more than half of the prize money needed, and that the full amount should be in hand prior to the first attempt to win the prize, which he predicted was likely by 2004. The winner will have to demonstrate a flight of a space vehicle capable of carrying three people to a 100-km altitude twice within two weeks. Although built for three, only one person need be aboard the vehicle during the flights. The spaceship must return its passenger(s) safely to the ground, and must be built using only private funds. The idea is for the winner to go beyond the prize flights and develop a space tourism or other viable space transportation business with the successful, reusable craft.

The X Prize project was launched in May 1996 in St. Louis with the objective of stimulating a new generation of launch vehicles designed to send passengers into space. Diamandis said he modeled the rocket contest after a series of aviation prizes offered to contestants between 1905 and 1935. Chief among these was the Orteig Prize, offered to the first person to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. That prize was won by American Charles Lindbergh in May, 1927 when Lindbergh alone piloted an aircraft named "The Spirit of St. Louis" from New York to Le Bourget Field near Paris, France. Lindbergh’s plane was financed by a group of St. Louis businessmen looking to use the publicity from his flight to stimulate commercial air travel. A similar group of St. Louis space supporters are backing the X-Prize attempt hoping to do the same for commercial space travel. The prize-giving process has historically acted in that stimulant role, Diamandis noted. He said that although the Orteig prize was only $25,000, more than $400,000 was spent in its pursuit.

All the X-Prize entrants must carry a logo on their spaceships, named "The New Spirit of St. Louis" after Lindbergh’s historic flight.