The X-Prize was funded by an insurance contract. The insurance underwriters may have underestimated the probability that the prize would be won, based on the advice they got from Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas.
The bonus Simpsons reference comes via this Marginal Revolution post about the ethics of book abuse:
The funniest Simpsons line I've newly heard this year (that is, funniest line from an episode that I'd never seen until 2007) comes from "Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play" (Homer & Marge give marriage advice to an Isotopes player and his singer wife voiced by Mandy Moore), where Marge is reading from a marriage-improvement book and says something like:
"Ooh, here's a sentence the previous owner of this book underlined and highlighted!"
Posted by Matt Bruce at August 30, 2007 03:29 PM