Space Elevator Challenge

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Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday October 23, 2006 @12:21AM from the a-dismal-flop dept.

MattSparkes writes "For the second year in a row, no team has won the $200,000 prize in the Space Elevator Challenge at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. Three teams were disqualified before the contest even started. Another competition at the event has been held up by confusion. Incredibly, it seems the organisers of the competition are not sure whether the ribbon used was 50 or 60 metres long, and whether any team completed the climb fast enough to win."

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Ribbon by MattSparkes · 2006-10-23 00:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think that the material to make the ribbon can't actually be produced yet, and a 50-60 metre long section is about all that can be used. However, for the purposes of a test like this, it will suffice. The competition is more to do with getting the elevator technology advancing than actually putting together a working device.

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Matthew Sparkes
Re:Call me picky but.. by Shadowmist · 2006-10-23 01:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

No such structure could withstand the tensile stress generated from being pulled at opposite ends 25,000 miles apart. Just to put some perspective here, a the length of a space elevator, depending on which source you quote is at the minimum over 3 times the diameter of the Earth itself!
Re:X-Prize by bhima · 2006-10-23 01:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

I've been in the research & development business for pretty much my entire adult life. This, more or less, is what we do except on a different scale. I don't see anything wrong with building models of things in order to understand them more fully. Rather than attempting to solve the whole of the problem in one go they are trying to solve the parts of the problem that are solvable with today's material technology. Given a few more years doubtless the material engineering will begin to catch up and you will see things that realistically could be used in true space elevators.

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Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Re:How could you do this now? by drinkypoo · 2006-10-23 05:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

(and when/if we get there, there are heat properties that I always wonder about in a space elevator, for instance a photo flash is enough heat to ignite loose nanotubes)

Those are loose nanotubes. I have another experiment for you: Get a 3" square of some copper screen, made with a fairly small wire. Try to melt the center of it with a lighter; experience defeat. Now pull one wire out of the mesh, and try to melt it with a lighter. You will succeed. In that moment, the student will be enlightened.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:X-Prize by twifosp · 2006-10-23 05:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Thats the entire point of the space elevator. There is a counterweight in geo stationary Earth orbit at the top of the cable. The cable isn't going to be very flexible, despite being called a cable. It will be very taught. As the payload goes UP the cable, lateral forces will be applied to the payload. The Earth's rotation and the counterweight in geo stationary orbit take care of this automatically.
Once the payload is released from the cable, it will need additional thrusters to move it away from the elavator, adjust it's orbital height, orbital plane, and LAN.