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fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      From the Heinlein Prize Trust [heinleinprize.com] website:

Seattle -- Tuesday, June 21, 2016 -- The Heinlein Prize Trust announced today that it is awarding its prestigious Heinlein Prize to Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, for his vision and leadership in commercial space activities that have led to historic firsts and reusability in the commercial spaceflight industry.

      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. In addition to the award, recipients receive a Lady Vivamus sword from Robert Heinlein's novel, Glory Road.

      Space News [spacenews.com] contines:

Bezos is the third winner of the prize, first awarded in 2006 to Peter Diamandis for establishing the X Prize that stimulated the development of commercial suborbital reusable launch vehicles. The second winner, in 2011, was SpaceX founder Elon Musk for his development of the now-retired Falcon 1.

      Musk, like Bezos, is also pursuing reusable launch vehicles, having successfully landed four Falcon 9 first stages on land or on ships for potential reuse. Bezos and Musk have in the past engaged in debates, primarily on Twitter, about the significance of their technical achievements.

      The prize comes with a cash award that, while not specified in the announcement, was $250,000 when Musk won the prize in 2011. Any cash prize is likely to be a token award for Bezos, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes magazine to be $62 billion.

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