Win A Cool $1.5 Million In NASA's Green Flight Challenge

What if you really reallllllly want to win the top prize in NASA and the Comparative Aircraft Efficiency Foundation's Green Flight Challenge but you're intimidated by the rocket scientist mystique? Say you're a great ideas person but you don't know how to make it all happen? For those who are intent on scoring a cool $1.5 million, where there's a will, there's a way! In an effort to create a new generation of more fuel-efficient commercial aircrafts that will have less of a detrimental impact on the environment, NASA and the Comparative Aircraft Efficiency Foundation (CAFE) are looking to the public to brainstorm ideas that conceive of a plane capable of flying “at least 100 mph on a 200-mile flight while achieving greater than 200 passenger miles per gallon.” They welcome the following eco-technologies and innovations:

• bio-fueled propulsion
• breakthroughs in batteries, motors, solar cells, fuel-cells and ultra-capacitors
• that enable electric-powered flight
• advanced high lift technologies for very short takeoff and landing distances
• ultra-quiet propellers
• enhanced structural efficiency by advances in material science and nano-technology
• safety features such as vehicle parachutes and air-bags.

Original ideas are just part of the big picture, however. Your conceived aircraft will then be built, run through a series of vigorous flight exercises and analyzed for its performance capabilities by CAFE. They are apparently dead-serious about this contest and finding equally like-minded participants since they require a non-refundable early bird registration fee of $4000 before December 31, 2009. That fee jumps to $6000 up through June 30, 2010 and caps at $8000 through December 31, 2010. Hmmmm, now we know how they're coming up with the prize money.  Here's a small consolation, though. They'll actually refund your registration fee if they decline to accept you into the Green Flight Challenge. That can either be a good thing or a huge bummer, depending on how much of a right or left brainer you are. The winner of the competition will be announced July 2011 at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, California. Here are the rules if you're interested -- http://cafefoundation.org/v2/pdf_GFC/GFC.TA.07.28.09.pdf