Winner declared in space elevator race
A space race lifted off Friday in Southern California, only this one involved elevators.
Powering their laser-controlled robot to climb a 900-meter-long cable, the team from Seattle-based LaserMotive was crowned the winner in NASA's Space Elevator Power-Beaming Challenge game on Friday.
Held at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base in Lancaster, Calif., the challenge pits teams against each other to see whose robotic space elevator can inch up the cable the quickest in under 7.5 minutes. A helicopter holds the steel cable in place as each robotic elevator races to the top. The LaserMotive crew crossed the finish line four times, the fastest time being 3 minutes and 48 seconds.
The goal behind the games is to build a robotic climber that could someday be turned into a space elevator that would carry supplies into orbit without need of a ship. The elevator would rise up a tether that rotates with the Earth and be capable of carrying about 10 tons of payload.
As the winner, LaserMotive will take home a check of $900,000 from the sponsor, Spaceward Foundation. If the team had been able to climb the entire tether in three minutes or less at a speed of at least 5 meters per second, it could have won the top prize of $2 million.
The other two teams, the Kansas City Space Pirates and the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST), both ran into technical troubles, preventing them from reaching the top of the cable in any of their attempts.
NASA's Space Elevator race has seen its ups and downs for the past few years, with contestants coming close but not quite attaining the grand prize.
An additional $1.1 million in prize money is still available, according to the Spaceward Foundation, so another challenge will be held in the future to see if any team can win the race at 5 meters per second.
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
har har! =P
They believe that with carbon nano-tubes, there is the technology to make a sufficiently strong tether, and they will probably also make up the majority of climbing vehicle itself. They've now shown that a vehicle can climb a tether using power derived from intense, or, laser light to make electricity for the climbing motor. That will work well because they can beam light up from the earth base, and beam light down to the climber-pod, from the space base.
There is still much more research to do, but these competitions are meant to kick-start development, and to help determine if there will be barriers that cannot be overcome. They can't be sure until they try. But developing the technologies that arise in science fiction takes longer than writing a book. ;-)
Once they have a complete working system, we will see an explosion in space related research as the price to deliver plummets.
Keep up the good work guys.
Let me make sure I am understanding you. You want cnet to pay the composers of a theme for television show used by a non-profit organization using said theme in a youtube video? How do you know royalties haven't been paid by the Spaceward Foundation? Did you contact them? My wife was watching a Dallas DVD today with the windows open and the neighbors were in the yard. Should we pay a royalty to the composer of the Dallas theme and score writers?
Really, find something worth b*tch*ng about!
That said, how do you know they *didn't* pay royalties or get permission?
Well, if you want to complain about RIAA in America & Europe, take it all the way into the Middle East where Iran has 3 US captives charged for Espionage and ask, "What has a mountain got to do with the Iranian Government that to be on it you become guilty of Espionage." You do not have to mention anything about RIAA, if they exist in Iran they should be shutdown as musical copyright experts. Then backup Beyonce if she can defend that right in court over a "cater 2U", cause it was Beyonce that was the source for the idea of "Cater 2 U." Beyonce is expected to testify in the copyright trial. So RIAA has no ground to stand on this mountain thingy is not legally some important aspect of Iranian Government, never has been until those three boys walked that way.
Even a fiberoptic string would collapse under it's own weight going from 30000 feet to ground level.
or had i of known. 5 meters wow fat guys can climb up ladders this fast why dont i just put a fat guy in a space suit isnt that cool enough???? wow wheres my million dollars i earned it right there nasa
heck i might get 8 meters out of him 8 meters thats like 2X the robot speed. anyways i can beat them
anytime just as soon as they figure it out and can give me a good fight let me know.
- by sgva November 10, 2009 6:52 AM PST
- Great technology, good idea for a contest. Incredibly pathetic documentary video. Slow down a little, let the titles actually be readable. It's like a "What not to do when making a video". Video fail.
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