"NASA Sets Centennial Challenges to Boost Robotic Space Exploration"

Tariq Malik at Space.com reports something promising.

NASA announced two new cash prizes Friday, each with a weighty $250,000 purse, in a pair of contests aimed at developing robotic systems for space exploration.

The space agency is challenging innovators to build an autonomous aerial vehicle to navigate a tricky flight path or robots capable of building complex structures with only limited guidance from their human handlers, NASA officials said.

The contests - dubbed the Planetary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Telerobotic Construction challenges, respectively - are part of the agency's Centennial Challenges program to spur interest in commercializing space technologies. Both challenges will make their competitive debut in 2007, NASA officials said.

I know such contests probably won't capture popular attention, but I wish they would. I find them much more interesting than what the Olympic games have become.