THE XPrize: What has it done for us lately?

THE FIRST XPRIZE, as we know it, launched in 1996. It was a $10m (£8.1m) prize offered to the first private company to fly a reusable, manned craft into space. Yet the concept was born earlier. In 1919, hotelier Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 - the equivalent of around $370,000 in today’s money - to the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic.