The most famous of the agents, Anna Chapman, visited the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this month for the launch of a Russian spaceship, fuelling her celebrity status at home and abroad.
Such prizes fell out of favour after the second world war, but a renaissance began in 1996 when Peter Diamandis, an entrepreneurial engineer, announced a $10m purse, the XPRIZE, for the launch of a reusable manned spaceship.
This is not a discussion about the costs of launching a spaceship.
Much of its technology and know-how will now be directed into an alternative rocket system big enough to launch a spaceship, or at least some of its elements, on missions that go far beyond the ISS.
Takeoff and landing of V/STOL aircraft, and launching systems on a spaceship for solid rocket motors are some examples related to this complex phenomenon.
In another, the silhouette of a spaceship forms a cross.
It was like being on the nose of a spaceship.
It is the first stage of a spaceship.
(The circular Frank Lloyd Wrightheatrened theatremindedded McNamara of a spaceship).
It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel".
