Imagine if the United States adopted as its space policy a set of rewards or prizes. For example, $10 billion to the first group to send a human to the moon and back. Or $150 billion for the first mission to Mars and back. Far fetched? Perhaps. Effective? Who knows. However, one private group is trying such a strategy at a relatively small scale. The X Prize Foundation is offering $10 million to the first group to send a reusable vehicle into space twice within two weeks (exact details here). The U.S. government is using prizes as well. DARPA has a contest that will award $2 million to a group that develops a driverless vehicle that can first complete a specified course. And there are other examples of contests and prizes as well, such as Robocup.

I am unaware of any systematic evaluation of prizes or contests as an approach to science and technology policy. But perhaps they might be an option worth considering for the public financing of particular areas of science and technology.