LaserMotive finally wins NASA's Elevator:2010 Beam Power Challenge, climbs at 3.9 meters/second (video)
By Tim Stevens 
posted Nov 9th 2009 6:43AM
posted Nov 9th 2009 6:43AM
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so now the Ground Floor take is full sense!
Ride the Lighting
The picture looks like their playing the worlds biggest game of Operation...where if you touch the sides you're electrocuted to death!
*Bing Bong* First Floor: Space Stations, Baloon Habitats and Women's Lingerie
We may finally find Kenny.
faster than a ninja!
From what I can gather this thing looks like a helicopter. That is great at low altitude where there is atmosphere, but how does this work when it actually gets into space? I understand we are talking about "low" space, but I would think the desired 2m/s speed would not be reached.
I might be wrong but I think the helicopter is just there to hold the cable.
@jordon.gibson
You are correct, My mental perspective was off and I was greatly confused.
I think I know, what you, are all trying to say... we need, a space helicopter.
Yes, a space helicopter with freaking LASERS!
wait for it.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N90h5f9Ulnk
i couldn't tell what the heck was actually going on in the video.
Uncut zip ties FTW
Theoretically, the cable will be attached to a satellite-like counterweight in low-earth orbit. This experiment was testing the practicality of moving an "elevator" (not pictured in the video) up a substantial length of cable under laser power at a minimum speed. Not sure if anyone has tested attaching a cable to a low-orbit counterweight, thus the proven and lower-cost helicopter was used for the test.
@Dave
No, the satellite will not be in low earth orbit. In order for the cable to remain stationary on a fixed point on earth, the satellite must be in geosynchronous orbit.
That's the basic rub. How do we engineer a 22,236 mile cable? The weight of the cable dwarfs the weight of any payload riding in the space elevator. It's estimated that the cable would have to have a strength 180 times greater than steel, or 4 times stronger than today's strongest carbon nanotube.
And at that speed, it would take about 106days for the thing to get to the top, if that's where we want it. Sad :(
Even If we drop it early, even half way, its still a 50day trip.
Why is the helicopter spinning around like that? Wouldn't it be easier for the robot if the copter would just be still for crying out loud? Cheaters.
The helicopter was still. The robot was spinning up the cable. It's hard to pull straight up a cable without turning at all, and weight on a cable tends to make it twist and untwist. The action is inevitable.
Once you're in a spinning robot, the view from the cameras will be spinning. Much like we're on a spinning earth, so we see the sun as moving around us.
Mental C'mon!
On a scale of 1-10, I would rate Mental's sarcasm detecting abilities a miserable -20 billion.
@Mental - woosh!
I'm still wondering how they got the chopper to dangle from a tether...
They were in Australia, so everything was upside down.
Don't you people know anything about Geography?
What I want to know is if this little robot can even carry a load and go up. Isn't that the biggest problem?
Yes, the robot has to be able to pull a payload up the tether. Follow the read link. In the winning test the robot was pulling more weight than they intended!
Imagine standing in an elevator for 3 days on your way to space with your arms folded looking at the door listening to "The Girl from Ipanema"? I wonder what the ride will be like.
let';s just say that when the doors open at the Top there'll only be One left standing and a big ole mess for the steward.....
They should also get the Prize for "MOST BORING VIDEO EVER"!
Thumbs up.
Does NASA even go to space any more?
Only when the gov raises their allowance. As of late dad has been a bit stingy with the money.
Cut the blue wire. Its always the blue wire.....or was it the red one?
* BOOM....!
Where can I get one of those "Laser Motive" T-shirts?
So when we ultimately (and extremely slowly) shot put the Earth as a counter weight out of it's orbit because of a slight miscalculation on the effects of gravity, can be blame these guys?
I was hoping to see at least a tiny bit of the "elevator bot" part. 6 mins of video simply staring at the tether and ground ... well.
Seems to me, after 6 minutes of video, that elevator is supposed to have gone nearly 1.5 km in distance. The cable hardly looks that long, never mind the fact that the elevator never makes to all the way to the copter... but who can argue with a $900k prize?
Booorrrrrrrring......
Did I miss something or did that thing just hang out about 3/4 of the way to the chopper for like 4 minutes of that video? What exactly was the point of showing all that anyway?
Climbing? Cool.
Descending at something less than a free fall? Cool.
Spinning on a cable in mid-air for no reason anyone has bothered to explain? Whoopdie doo.
But hey, they included sound! So we got to hear all the wind and the chopper and all that other exciting stuff for... how long was that stupid video? Like 8 hours? My boss is gonna kill me!
Robert Heinlein used a counter balance elevator, one car goes up as another comes down solar powered at the space end which was high enough to be in orbit and handle the weight of the cables and vehicles. Then the passengers transferred to space vehicles moved to a space elevator and went back down to earth or off to space. I forget which book it was Friday maybe, not sure... If it is tried and works great, if it doesn't well an attempt was made
And here I thought it was Arthur C. Clark in "Fountains of Paradise."
It's amazing to realize that this WILL Happen.
The hardest part is the cable. Seeing as how we didn't have carbon nano-tubes only a few years ago, I have full faith that they'll build this my the time I'm an old man.
You're right, that really is nausea-inducing!
OH come on, couldn't we at least see it make it all the way to the helicopter after 5 minutes of that? It reminds me of that game on the SNES, pilotwings.. Very "mode 7"