Press Release

Coastal Technologies sponsors the X Prize ® and the X Prize Cup ™ through the New Spirit of St. Louis Organization

In 1925, a group of St. Louis visionary individuals joined with Charles Lindbergh to fund Lindbergh's design and development of an aircraft to compete for the Orteig Prize. Two years later, Charles Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig prize in the "Spirit of St. Louis" aircraft. Few people know that this airplane was actually named after the group of visionaries who had called themselves the Spirit of St. Louis Organization.

The X PRIZE Foundation's leadership comes from a new group of 100 visionary business leaders that have dubbed themselves the "New Spirit of St. Louis organization." Noted St. Louis members include Andy Taylor, CEO of Enterprise Rent-A-Car; John McDonnell, Chairman of McDonnell Douglas Foundation; and William Danforth, Chancellor of Washington University. Other contributors from outside the St. Louis area include authors Tom Clancy and Arthur C. Clarke; Adeo Ressi, Founding Partner of Sophos Partners; Richard Garriott, Founder of Origin Systems; Anousheh and Hamid Ansari, Founders of Telecom Technologies, Inc.; J. Barry Thompson, Director of North American Architecture for UBS Warburg; and Elon Musk, Chairman and co-founder of PayPal.

Today, the X PRIZE Foundation has created the NEW SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS ORGANIZATION to help make history once again. This group is limited to a total of 100 people (There are now more than 75 members and counting.).

About the XPRIZE Foundation
The X PRIZE® Foundation is a $10 million prize to jump-start the space tourism industry through competition among the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world. Following in the footsteps of over 100 aviation prizes offered between 1905 and 1935 that created today’s multibillion dollar air transport industry, the ANSARI X PRIZE will be awarded to the team that designs the first private spaceship that successfully launches three humans to a sub-orbital altitude of 100 km on two consecutive flights within two weeks. All teams must be privately financed.