Space elevator contest gets off the ground

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

Climbing robots and super-strong strings are being put to the test this weekend as part of a $100,000 competition that someday might yield new ways to get to outer space.

It's all part of the Space Elevator Games, the first of NASA's Centennial Challenges to get off the ground. Ten teams from across the United States and Canada will face off at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., in two competitions — one for beam-powered robot climbers, the other for carbon nanotube tethers.

The games are modeled after technological challenges like the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight and the $2 million DARPA Grand Challenge. This weekend's purse might be smaller, but there's the same sense of technological innovation, said Marc Schwager of the Spaceward Foundation, the Mountain View group that is managing the contests for NASA. "It's a little more like Kitty Hawk than Kennedy Space Center," he told MSNBC.com.

The inspiration for the contests is the space elevator concept, which in its fullest implementation would call for sending climbers up and down tens of thousands of miles of carbon nanotube ribbon to bring payloads into orbit at dirt-cheap rates. But NASA has emphasized other applications for the technologies as well, ranging from beam-powered space rovers and micro-aircraft to nanotube-composite power cables and building materials.

Seven teams are expected to compete in the Beam Power Challenge, Schwager said, which involves time trials for robots designed to skitter up a 164-foot (50-meter) ribbon suspended from a crane. The climbers have to draw their power from a 10,000-watt Hollywood-style searchlight that will be trained on the contraption. The robot that climbs the fastest, with a speed of at least 3.3 feet (1 meter) per second, would win $50,000. The race should be over quickly: At that minimum speed, a robot would take about a minute to climb the ribbon, which is about as high as a 16-story building.

Three other teams, plus one of the teams involved in the climber contest, will face off in the Tether Challenge. In this competition, $50,000 would go to the team whose tether outlasts the others in a pulling machine that Schwager called "a tether torture chamber." To make sure the winning tether really represents a technological leap, it will have to show a 50 percent improvement in breaking force over commercially available products.

"They're insanely strong," Schwager said of the tether material. "Something the size of a human hair can pick up a human."

MORE FROM INNOVATION

Innovation Section Front

Robot suit for rent in Japan to help people walk Lying about your age? A computer can tell Power cell wins $1M Pentagon prize Scientists develop solar cells with a twist Cleaner way to drink from the seas? Cows may hold secret for efficient ethanol 'Gizmo House' residents helped by technology Cranberry farms go high-tech to meet demand Tree power could save forests from fires Stopping a cyber attack before it begins Innovation Section Front   Add Innovation headlines to your news reader: