Space Elevator Challenge

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."

Comments

Ribbon

[MattSparkes]

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.

X-Prize Foundation

[Raynor]

is already responsible for a major advancement: the first private space ship able to relaunch in two weeks (SpaceShipOne).

The prize is definately motivation, and the X-Prize foundation has a few contests going:
-The Ansari X-Prize (Get 3 people to 100km twice in two weeks) - WON
-The Archon X-Prize (Sequence 100 people in 10 days with $10,000 cost per person) - OPEN
-The Automotive X-Prize (Currently being developed. Create super-efficent cars or alternative energy) - FUTURE

Those are the three the X-Prize Foundation has created. An interesting fact from the X-Prize website: "Ten times the amount of the prize purse was spent by the competitors trying to win the prize."

Re:Other end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone enlighten me how that thing supposed to work?

See Wikipedia.

We fasten one end on ground and second end is fastened... where???

To an orbiting counterweight.

And what about Earth rotation?

Earth's rotation is what makes it work. Otherwise:

I still think that normal elevator - a-la tower - is much saner idea and can be achieved easier

Yeah, nobody ever thought of that idea. They're pursuing orbital tethers because they're all insane masochists.

A tower would be much more massive and would have to support its full weight. Tethering to an orbiting counterweight allows centrifugal effects to lighten the total load, since the Earth is rotating. You couldn't build one high enough to reach geosynchronous orbit, and thus whatever you brought to the top wouldn't be in a nice circular orbit when it got there; it would still need something like rocket thrust. With a tether, as soon as you get up to geosynchronous, you're automatically in a circular orbit. See the "compressive structure" entry on Wikipedia.

It's the music!

[The-Bus]

The problem is the music. We can all stand elevator music for a few seconds, maybe a minute or two. But could you imagine dealing with it for hours? We'd all go stark raving mad!