MOUNTAIN
VIEW, Calif. - After three days of grueling competition and friendly
shoulder-to-shoulder innovation, over $100,000 in prize money remained in the
vault at the close of the Space Elevator Games - the premier event of NASA's
new X-Prize-styled series of Centennial
Challenges.
First envisioned
in the 1960s, the space
elevator concept began garnering serious attention with the discovery of
ultra-strong carbon
nanotubes. If built, space elevators would
provide an incredibly low-cost route for sending payloads, and eventually
humans, to Earth orbit and the universe beyond. NASA has funded studies of the
space elevator concept, which have given promising conclusions.
Two
Events - Many Approaches
Designed
to address the technical as well as "social engineering" issues of
the space elevator, these two
engineering challenges are intended to generate interest and excitement in
academia, the space enthusiast community, and the general public.
The Beam
Power Challenge tasks designers with building an unmanned machine, weighing 50
to 100 pounds (22 to 45 kilograms), capable of pulling itself up a 4-inch
(10-centimeter) wide, 200-foot (61-meter) long ribbon suspended from a
crane, and powered only by the energy beamed up from a 10,000-Watt xenon
searchlight.
Seven
teams vied for the $50,000 first prize, five from across the U.S. and two from
Canada.
The
University of Saskatchewan team, led by Edwin Zhang, reached the highest
altitude under beamed power, about one third of the full distance. At that
point, their 10.7-square-foot (one-square meter) array of space-grade solar
cells yielded insufficient energy to continue. Other entrants used various
solar array schemes and even Stirling engines driven
by the searchlight's thermal energy.
In the
second event, the Tether Challenge, four teams offered their best formulation
for an ultra-light, ultra-strong ribbon material. During one-on-one
tug-of-wars, each of the entrants were tested to their
breaking points.
In the
final round, the strongest contender, fielded by Centaurus
Aerospace of Logan, Utah, yielded at 1,260 pounds of (571.5 kilograms) force,
giving way to the "house ribbon" which broke at just over 1,300
pounds (589.6 kilograms) of force, and leaving the $50,000 first prize
unclaimed.
Getting
High on Engineering
"Clearly
these are hard problems," said Marc Schwager of
the non-profit Spaceward Foundation, which manages the Space Elevator events
for NASA. "And getting the next generation of engineers inspired to solve
these problems will bring us untold benefits."
"It
is the pioneering spirit," said Spaceward's Falline Danforth. "Everybody pulling together to do something new. We
haven't seen enough of that recently. It gives me a lot of hope for the
future."
As in
the first year of the DARPA
Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles, the Space Elevator Challenges set
high goals, and seek to inspire innovation as well as public attention.
"This
year's unclaimed prize money will be added to next year's, and that alone
should boost the number of entrants," said Brant Sponberg,
manager for NASA's Centennial Challenges program. "This is an exciting
start. We don't need to try to pick and choose which approaches might be
successful. We simply invite all new ideas to come and give it a shot, and then
reward the best," he said.
With the
2006 climber and tether challenge first prizes set at $150,000 each, and with
smaller awards for second and third places, over 20 teams have already signed
up. Indeed, some of next year's hopefuls were seen in attendance, learning from
this year's events and taking notes.
However, the 2006 rules include
added challenges and requirement. "We're raising the bar technically, and
we will really need to stick to the time limits and all the rules for the
entrants," said Schwager. "But all the
teams I spoke said they'll be back!"
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