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NASA Unveils Centennial Challenges
wonderfesten writes "NASA has finally got its Centennial Challenges program off the ground. Like the X Prize, the Challenges award cash prizes to private inventors who come up with solutions to problems. The first challenges are to design a light-weight, ultra-strength tether and a means of transmitting power wirelessly. But with a prize of just $50,000, will anyone give it a shot?" Details also available on MSNBC and Space.com.
Transmitting power wirelessly is easy. Every signal, be it from a radio station, wifi, a cell phone or whatever, is a transmission of power.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Do not underestimate the power of a winnebago full of batteries.
liqbase
The first challenges are to design a light-weight, ultra-strength tether and a means of transmitting power wirelessly.
:)
This has "space elevator" all written over.
My site
Err... I got married a few months back. That 50 grand is mine soon as I tell NASA.
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
Good lord! They want to combine a light-weight, ultra-strength tether with a means of transmitting power wirelessly. Read that again. A light-weight, ultra-strength tether with a means of transmitting power wirelessly. My God! Do you know what this means? Do you?!?
Yeah, neither do I.
Congress currently limits NASA to awarding prizes of $250,000 or less. The space agency is lobbying lawmakers for the authority to increase the limit to as much as $40 million. That would allow the Centennial Challenges program to set up competitions for more-advanced projects, like a human orbital flight.
The longer the government stays involved in NASA, the less the chances of NASA having successful missions and regaining achievement through innovation and daring. As long as Congress holds the reigns (and the pursestrings), NASA will be hampered by inefficient bureaucracy and meddling from unqualified naysayers. The XPrize is proof that it's time for government to exit this area of scientific examination and for philanthropists and concerned businesses to take control.
Just my $0.02, not counting inflation or exchange rates
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Nicola Tesla born in 1856 done a little on wireless power, so i very much doubt it was "conceptualized" as late as '41
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Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1979)
Metzada Shelef
Spaceward Foundation, Mountain View, Calif.
(Phone: 650/969-2010)
March 23, 2005
RELEASE: M05-083
NASA Announces First Centennial Challenges' Prizes
NASA and its partner, the Spaceward Foundation, today announced prizes totaling $400,000 for four prize competitions, the first under the agency's Centennial Challenges program.
NASA's Centennial Challenges promotes technical innovation through a novel program of prize competitions. It is designed to tap the nation's ingenuity to make revolutionary advances to support the Vision for Space Exploration and NASA goals. The first two competitions will focus on the development of lightweight yet strong tether materials (Tether Challenge) and wireless power transmission technologies (Beam Power Challenge).
"For more than 200 years, prizes have played a key role in spurring new achievements in science, technology, engineering and exploration," said NASA's Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Craig Steidle. "Centennial Challenges will use prizes to help make the Vision for Space Exploration a reality," he added.
"This is an exciting start for the Centennial Challenges program," said Brant Sponberg, program manager for Centennial Challenges. "The innovations from these competitions will help support advances in aerospace materials and structures, new approaches to robotic and human planetary surface operations, and even futuristic concepts like space elevators and solar power satellites," he said.
The Tether Challenge centers on the creation of a material that combines light weight and incredible strength. Under this challenge, teams will develop high strength materials that will be stretched in a head-to-head competition to see which tether is strongest.
The Beam Power challenge focuses on the development of wireless power technologies for a wide range of exploration purposes, such as human lunar exploration and long-duration Mars reconnaissance. In this challenge, teams will develop wireless power transmission systems, including transmitters and receivers, to power robotic climbers to lift the greatest weight possible to the top of a 50-meter cable in under three minutes.
The winners of each initial 2005 challenge will receive $50,000. A second set of Tether and Beam Power challenges in 2006 are more technically challenging. Each challenge will award purses of $100,000, $40,000, and $10,000 for first, second, and third place.
"We are thrilled with our partnership with NASA and we're excited to take the Tether and Beam Power challenges to the next level," said Meekk Shelef, president of the Spaceward Foundation.
The Centennial Challenges program is managed by NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. The Spaceward Foundation is a public-funds non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the cause of space access in educational curriculums and the public.
For more information about the Challenges on the Internet, visit:
- http://centennialchallenges.nasa.gov
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:http://www.spaceward.org
- end -
With NASA trying to do too mnay things with too little money, I'd like to get in on the action as well.
- $10 for first person to discover tenth planet
- $15.75 for invention of anti-gravity device. Must include batteries
- $17.50 for first person to deliver truckload of gold bullion to my house
- $37.50 for proof of alien life
I've got the money right here (pats wallet). Let's all not rush. Stand in line, please.
What's 'spaceaward'? "The Spaceward Foundation is a public-funds non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the cause of space access in educational curriculums and the public." [found in NASA's press release: M05-083]
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
Today, good ir lasers can get 60% wallplug efficiency (>99% quantum efficency and little outcoupling losses, plus little additional resistances adding to the bandgap).
...
The main reason why solar cells are unefficient is that you have to gamble with the bandgap: set it too high, and you will lose to many low energy photons. set it too low, and all those high energy photons will lose all energy >E_gap as phonons/heat. So even an absolutely ideal Solar cell could only get a little over 25% or so efficiency with a backbody spectrum.
But now take a laser and create a optimally tuned solar cell with a bandgap just a bit lower than the laser wavelenght. You should be able to get 20-30% total transmission efficiency at least, imho, after a little optimisation.
That doesnt sound too good, but its not so bad compared to other ways to store and carry energy (batteries, ect).
But of course, having solar power stations in orbit that beam down their power with lasers would make a lot of people very nervous, for very good reasons
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Does NASA realise you can make that kind of money by simply working?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Thank you for posting the real link for this story.
To everyone who is positing various ways of transmitting power wirelessly, they already have a method in mind:
Showcasing the first representative prototypes of Space Elevator climbers, this event will re-define public perception of the Space Elevator project by taking the first step away from mathematical models and drawing boards and into the world of real working hardware. By participating, you get the opportunity to partner in writing this unique chapter of history.
The competition provides the race track, in the form of a crane-suspended vertical ribbon, and a strong light source to power the climbers. Competing teams provide climbers, which have to use the power beamed to them and scale the ribbon while carrying some amount of payload. Climbers will be rated according to their speed and the amount of payload they carried.
The climbers (unmanned, of course) will weigh 25-50 kg [50-100 lbs], and will ascend the ribbon at about 1 m/s. [3 feet per second or 2.5 MPH]
The beam source is a 10 kWatt Xenon search-light (80 cm beam diameter, about 25% efficient), which should yield a climber power budget of about 500 watts.
The ribbon is roughly 30cm (1 foot) wide by 1 mm thick, is about 60m (200 feet) long, and is tensioned to about 1 ton.
Building a climber is not an easy task. The designers have to juggle light weight structure, efficient photo-voltaic arrays, efficient motors and power electronics, low-loss traction mechanism, thermal management, and control systems.
Not a walk in the park, but we'll make it worth your while. We will be offering $50,000, $20,000 and $10,000 to the 3 best teams.
link:click here
The competition rules are at the bottom (pdf). Frankly, this sounds more like a college/high school technology building competition than an X-prize.
The cable is pulled tight by the satelite wanting to fly off into space. It's a bit beyond geostationary orbit, so it isn't actually orbiting in the conventional way.
Not quite....
Based on orbital dynamics:
1. A single structure will orbit at the speed of it's center of mass.
2. Only thoes objects that orbit at geosync. orbit (about 23K KM on earth) will remain over the same spot.
3. Long object will orient in a radial manner through the center of mass of the parent object.
THEREFORE:
The cable is not held in place by the counter weight. The cable is kept taught by the counter weight. However most of the tension in the cable comes from the mass of the cable rather than the counter weight.
The cable's center of mass absolutly HAS to be at geo-sync orbit or the cable will move away from the base station.
Now as per the grandparent's original proposal...
I see what you are saying and it could in theory work...
THe problem is the cable will weigh gigatons. It will take an extremely large amount of energy to get it moving and stop it if there are any problems. There will be large amounts of enery lost as it moves through the atmosphere which will cause massive heat buildup and electrical discarge. This will cause excess tension on the already strained cable lowering effective carrying capacity.
Plus the big one....the two sides of the cable will want to move toegther. So you will have to build a counter weight which can prevent the gigatons of mass from coming together...and have this system in a fairly small space...a few hundred feet max.
The idea of a counter weight to assist in lifting/lowering is an important one. It will dramatically lower costs and help maintain the cables center of mass. However turning the whole cable into a huge rotating band is far less efficient and would not be as usefull as a much similer system.