Oct. 22, 2004 — The $10 million prize is claimed, but that is not stopping a Canadian team from launching the rocket it designed to compete in the Ansari X Prize.

"The X Prize was the catalyst that caught my attention," said Brian Feeney, head of the Toronto-based da Vinci Project. "The Prize was the focus. It was a glorious endeavor that we didn't end up winning. We've been inundated by people saying 'Press on. Keep going. Don't stop.' "

Mojave Aerospace Ventures' SpaceShipOne, a joint project of aircraft designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, cleanly swept the competition, having been the only team, so far, that has put a person into space aboard a privately developed vehicle. SpaceShipOne made two flights within five days to suborbital altitudes and met all other conditions laid out by the contest organizers.

The point of the competition, however, was not just to win the money. The X Prize Foundation was set up to open up space for commercial passenger and corporate space transport services. From that perspective, if Feeney's team — as well as any of the other two dozen X Prize contenders — flies, it will help open people's minds to a new way of thinking about space, said Peter Diamandis, who conceived of the competition and worked for nearly a decade to bring it to fruition.

"If we fly, we win. People continue to take a very serious interest in the project," said Feeney, who has plans to develop an eight-person suborbital spacecraft.

The da Vinci Project, however, faces a new hurdle in its quest for space. On Nov. 1, the insurance policy it purchased for a flight originally planned for Oct. 2 expires. If the policy cannot be extended, the Canadian government will cancel Feeney's license to launch.

Feeney, who plans to fly aboard the helium balloon-launched rocket himself, is considering sitting out Wild Fire's debut flight to make sure the system works. Individual components have been tested, but the rocket and its launcher have never done an integrated test, Feeney said.

"Nothing's been decided yet," Feeney said earlier this week. "Our program always has been manned, all the way from day one. There was a big push on to compete for the X Prize itself and now that it's over people said 'You can sit back and take your time.' "

"That's not the case," added Feeney. "We're pushing as hard as we ever were."