The Heinlein Prize® honors the memory of Robert A. Heinlein™, a renowned American author. The purpose of the Heinlein Prize is to encourage and reward progress in commercial space activities that advances Robert and his wife Virginia’s dream of humanity’s future in space. Efforts include: the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities, the Microgravity Research Competition, the Heinlein Commercial Space Activity Prize, the “Flight Into the Future” international contests, the Have Spacesuit — Will Travel educational program, and the online Heinlein Archives.
The Heinlein Prize Trust Announces:
April 25, 2012
The Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize® Trust, has awarded a $15,000 prize as part of the Rice Business Plan Competition. The business whose plan was chose to receive the Heinlein Prize Trust Space Commercialization Award is SolidEnergy, MIT.
SolidEnergy wins with a project with practical, environmentally-friendly, applications on this planet and potential applications reaching far beyond. Their product is a new battery design with more than twice the energy density of a regular lithium-ion battery. The battery can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, and, unlike most current batteries types, is far safer from leaks and explosions.
While the SolidEnergy team is looking toward mining on Earth as their first application of their battery technology, it is easy to see potential applications extending to electric cars, laptop computers, and beyond, including commercial space applications. We at the Heinlein Prize Trust find a certain satisfaction in contemplating a power source whose description evokes comparison to Heinlein’s Shipstones.
The SolidEnergy MIT team is advised by Professor Donald Sadoway. Team members are Qichao Hu (Technology Development), a graduate student in applied physics at Harvard who is doing his research at MIT, Louis Beryl (Business Development), a graduating masters student at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School, Mike Hagerty (Market and Policy Consultant), a graduating Masters student at MIT Technology and Policy Program, and Vishwas Dindore (Market Consultant), an MIT Sloan Fellow. More on SolidEnergy
The Rice Business Plan Competition is the world’s richest and largest business plan competition, with 42 teams from across the globe pitching their new technology business plans to more than 250 judges who themselves are successful venture capital investors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. More on all of the 2012 winners.
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Heinlein Prize Trust News:
 Stephen Hawking Receives NSS’s Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award
In a press release dated March 28, 2012, the National Space Society (NSS) announced Dr. Stephen Hawking was the fourteenth recipient of NSS’s Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award. The NSS’s Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award (not affiliated with The Heinlein … Read More
 Have Spacesuit — Will Travel 2011 Program
Besides being a lot of fun, the Have Spacesuit — Will Travel experience exposes the students to new technologies that are used in both spacesuits and spacecrafts, and provides them with an opportunity to look into the future and envision the space travel that may be possible within their lifetimes. Read More
 Prophets of Science Fiction
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 the Science Channel program Prophets of Science Fiction will run its episode focusing on Heinlein. The Heinlein Prize Trust provided assistance to the production by supplying original photographs from the online Heinlein Archives. Look for the … Read More
 A Million People on Mars?
A million people on Mars? Someday, certainly. But starting in just the next ten to twenty years, and at a budget price? That is the goal of Heinlein Prize winner, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX. In an interview with NewScientist, … Read More
Have Spacesuit – Will Travel: Colorado
The Have Spacesuit — Will Travel educational program expanded further across the United States as the spacesuit, a genuine Sokol spacesuit which has spent more than 196 days in space and traveled some 85 million miles, visited the 4th grade … Read More
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