Asteroid Hunting $$$ Prizes

I like the idea of encouraging people to use existing resources to do a
lot of work quickly, but I suspect there are some logistical problems.

1) There is an entire class of NEOs that comes at us "out of the sun"
which makes them very difficult to see until they are already past
Earth. I suspect we will need orbital observatories to find these.

2) Managing validation of discoveries and distribution of prize money is
likely to be more expensive than the total actually expended on prizes.
That bureacracy monster is likely to sneak in here....

3) A billion dollars MIGHT purchase a small array of two to five
"economy" satellite observatories AND pay for the professional analysis
needed to convert their data into an actual tracking database that could
be accessed from the Web. This MIGHT be a better long-term return on
the investment.

I'm inclined to think that (3) might be a better way to spend the money.
A tracking database on the Web might grow to support lots of other
science. Especially if amateur and professional astronomers could
submit new finds to the website. Hmmm...I bet a survey of university
astronomy department websites would find several already doing something
like this.

That might even lead us back to a workable way to manage prizes for
finding asteroids....

Colin