And the X SirPrize Oops Award goes to Peter Diamandis, the sparkplug behind the X Prize effort.

At the National Space Society Awards Banquet last night here at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Los Angeles, Diamandis ballyhooed Nazi Germany’s cranking out of V2 rockets to show that high production rates equal low unit costs. But the audience quickly reminded him that slave labor was central to such boosterism.

“Can we reset the video tape,” a caught-off-guard Diamandis said.

Making the moment all the more a blog flog was the fact that the National Space Society – formerly the National Space Institute – was started by Wernher von Braun, the German rocket leader brought to the United States to catalyze U.S. space program development.

Diamandis went on to say that the drive for continued freedom, the drive for resources, and the drive for wealth is driving humanity into space. Looking into the future, he said the price for a person to get into Earth orbit will drop from $20 million to $5 million – even less when the space elevator kicks in and can lift people into space for a $100 each, he said.

Keep an eye on high-energy density materials – designer molecules – becoming the energetic fuel to power lightweight, super-strong carbon nanotube structures into orbit in the near-term, Diamandis reported.

Diamandis also put forth a private “Mars Citizenship Program” – a one-way colonization of the red planet effort. “I do believe that’s the way to go,” he said, a moral obligation to back up the Earth’s biosphere.