SpaceShot’s founder, Sam Dinkin, describes his thinking about the formation of FreeSpaceShot in an essay in this week’s issue of The Space Review. The ad-supported model is based, he said, on the “forced listening” technique used in radio contests. The focus here is on children, even though they might be too young to immediately take part in the flights, in order to both maintain their enthusiasm for space and perhaps rekindle the parents’ interest. (Another reason to keep parents interested and involved is to comply with federal regulations like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule.)

FreeSpaceShot still has some rough edges to work out; I noticed this morning some dead links, including to the FAQ and a free lesson plan for those in grades 3-8. It also remains to be seen if children will find a competition like this worth playing on a regular basis, so that FreeSpaceShot can build up the traffic and advertising revenue needed to award the prizes.

• He said that he has a patent pending on SpaceShot’s “asycnhronous” single-elimination tournament concept, which allows people to enter at any time, waiting until a competitor is ready to participate. Otherwise, SpaceShot would have to wait until it got all 260,000+ contestants signed up before the tournament could begin.
• Having a single-elimination tourney is better for the “average player”, he said; multiple-elimination alternatives would weigh in favor of better players.
• Quote: “It’s not rocket science, but it is game theory.”
• One of the requirements of the company’s legal counsel was to put forecasts for Central Park on the web site so that information would be available for gamers without undue research.
• The cash alternative prize is not $300,000, he said, because if you offered that, “most people would take the cash.”
• Why use the National Weather Service data for the contest? “The National Weather Service has a lot more credibility at stake than I do.”
• After his presentation I asked him how far the best contestants had advanced. He said some had reached Level 7, and someone may reach Level 8 as early as today. (There are 17 levels, for the record.)

After taking questions, Dinkin then brought Chuck Lauer of Rocketplane up to the podium. He explained that half of the deposit for the first Rocketplane ticket was due when SpaceShot and Rocketplane signed their agreement, and the other half two weeks after the game started. Dinkin then presented Lauer with a check for the second half of the deposit:

If you’re curious, the check’s amount reads only “Balance of First Flight Deposit.”

MSNBC’s Alan Boyle has a detailed article about the venture, going into some of the nitty-gritty issues like legal concerns (Space Shot founder Sam Dinkin tells Boyle that if any state’s attorney general complains, he “would have to lock them [that state’s residents] out” of the competition. Dinkin, who has openly discussed his plans for such a venture in previous issues of The Space Review, offers more details about the work required to create Space Shot in this week’s issue. I’ll have more to say about Space Shot in a future post.

(Disclaimer: Sam Dinkin has been a frequent contributor to The Space Review over the last couple of years, although less frequent is recent months as he devoted his time to Space Shot. However, I have not been involved in the development of the company in any way beyond publishing his articles that touched on the topic.)