NASA's First Annual Space Elevator Competition ends with no winners

Now that the DARPA Grand Challenge has been successfully completed, competitive science enthusiasts are turning to NASA's Space Elevator Competition to get their fill of amateur engineering battles, a.k.a the world's geekiest sports. Although the Ames Research Center-based competition's prize is just $50,000, only a fraction of the $2 million DARPA bounty, the abysmal showing by all of this year's teams may mean a significant boost in prize money once potential victors actually start emerging (perhaps several years down the line). The competition is broken up into two parts, one for beam powered elevators and one for elevator tethers;  however, none of the teams came close to scaling the 164-foot tether at the 1 meter/second average necessary to claim the prize, nor did any team build a tether 50% stronger than NASA's current best effort, leading to a shutout for the entire weekend. Since the best climber only managed a 60-foot ascent, we are assuming that the 1000-foot capable Sword Over Damacles is either biding it's time to make a triumphant debut in 2006, or developed an untimely fear of heights.

[Juaquin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this Nasa challenge required the robots to be powered by a light at the bottom of the tether. From what I gather, the Sword Over Damacles is lifted solely by onboard batteries, which obviously will never be practical for going all the way into space, as their weight is a very limiting factor (same reason your laptop only gets an hour of battery life). Now if your laptop was powered by heat and light energy, imagine the potential.

[Scott Theede @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

You totally forgot to mention that the team with the best achieved height was from Enginnering Students from the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada.

Sorry but I felt I had to mention that as that's where I'm currently studying for my engineering degree.

[boss sauce @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

the next challenge is to see who can make a really, really tall crane.

[clicclic @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

This elevator contest is a most excellent way to avert engineers' attention from the major problem called NASA, which is completely out-to-lunch and a major national embarrassment (except for their unmanned segment).

A space elevator is probably more difficult to create than anti-gravity.

[fathead @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

really? we're THAT advanced in anti-gravity? what rock have I been hiding under?

[Richey @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

The concept as a whole seems way out there.If it were even remotely possible,wouldn't it make more sense to place a pulley in stationary orbit and use it to lift a load with a counter weight on the other end? Sort of like how an elevator operates here on earth. LOL

[Akguy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Actually, Arther C Clark described the tower pretty good in "The Fountains of Paradise" and with some decent development of Fullerine Buckball filaments and a decent equatorial site the thing CAN be built. And the advantages are earthshaking, solar power stations built with materials lifted into orbit for dollars rather than thousands per pound, a cost efficient ladder to the high frontier and the end to our oil digging era of power seeking. Can't come too soon for me.

[Marc Schwager @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

The concept is way out there - literally. Fortunately, the engineering and material challenges are surmountable. As an associate of mine once said "It's just work".

If you want to learn why we think you could nail one of these puppies up in 10 or 20 years, come on over to www.elevator2010.org.
and check out the FAQ.

And Scott was right - the two college teams from Canada (USST and UBC) rocked!

[Brian Dunbar @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

". . . we are assuming that the 1000-foot capable Sword Over Damacles is either biding it�s time to make a triumphant debut in 2006, or developed an untimely fear of heights."

Or Liftport isn't competing in the competition for other reasons.

* Michael Laine is on the Spaceward board. We want to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

* Sword is ineligible for the contest for a good reason - we took a hard look at what the contest would require and where we need to be to (we hope) produce revenue with Sword's descendents and decided to go for the revenue route.

[Brian Dunbar @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

". . . we are assuming that the 1000-foot capable Sword Over Damacles is either biding it�s time to make a triumphant debut in 2006, or developed an untimely fear of heights."

Or Liftport isn't competing in the competition for other reasons.

* Michael Laine is on the Spaceward board. We want to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

* Sword is ineligible for the contest for a good reason - we took a hard look at what the contest would require and where we need to be to (we hope) produce revenue with Sword's descendents and decided to go for the revenue route.