Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chairman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, has introduced a bill offering prizes for amateur asteroid sightings. It’s done in honor of astronaut Pete Conrad (who was also a space entrepreneur, having founded Universal Space Lines, though the article doesn’t mention it).

I was confused about the prize, however:

The first category is an award for the amateur astronomer who discovers the largest asteroid crossing in near-Earth orbit…

How will they know when someone has won? There’s no way to tell that a larger one isn’t out there somewhere still awaiting discovery. There would have to be some kind of time limit on it (say, an annual award for the largest object found in a calendar year) for this to make any sense.

What I really like about this is that it sets a precedent for government-sponsored prizes, which could have a much larger impact on improving access to space than any number of NASA’s technology programs, if properly deployed.