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Space Elevator Teams Compete for NASA Prizes

Posted by Zonk on from the going-up dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The University of Saskatchewan's has the first place climb in the Second Annual Space Elevator Games being held this weekend at the Davis County Event Center in Salt Lake City. Teams are competing for $1,000,000 in NASA prize money. Although the idea of a space elevator has been around for decades, the space technologies needed to support it have yet to be created. The non-profit Spaceward Foundation has hosted an annual competition since 2005 to build a super-strong tether, or get a robot to climb a suspended ribbon. In the robot climber competition, teams have to get their device to hurtle up a 100-metre-long ribbon, suspended from a crane, at an average speed of two metres per second. The climber must be powered from the ground: strategies include reflecting sunlight from huge mirrors on the ground to solar panels on the climber; shining lasers from the ground up to similar panels on the robot; or firing microwaves up at the climber. Qualifying rounds have been taking place all week, and although high winds and rain have caused delays, four out of eight teams have made it into the finals. There are no outdoor climbs today because of bad weather but some of the tether competitions will happen indoors later this afternoon."

5 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. I am the prize winner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    for the NASA FROST POST AWARD

    live it, love it, my bitches

  2. Help! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    My girlfriends pussy has started smelling like rotten mackerel lately, and she wonders why I won't lick the dam thing anymore. How can I be subtle and get her to wash it or something? It's that bad I might break up with her. Yuck.

    1. Re:Help! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      I have a suggestion that might help. You need to understand that this pussy that you speak of is not actually your girlfriends, but is your pet cat. Your girlfriend is imaginary, I thought the psychiatrist already explained this to you. I suggest that you go find a new psychiatrist, because apparently the last one didn't do much good.

    2. Re:Help! by stormeru · · Score: -1, Troll

      you don't have a girlfriend.

  3. Re:elevator music for 4 months straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    this is all a waste of time until they have a material they can make the cable out of - and if you say carbon nano tubes i'll stab you in the eye with a pencil, they haven't produced any sizable object from nano tubes.

    You're right, but for all of the wrong reasons. Carbon nanotube does kind of make sense if the manufacturing processes can be sorted out. But doing so amounts to coming up with systems that can somehow play tetris with free carbon -- a difficult problem at best. That said, the problem of carbon nanotube construction becomes trivially solvable when one takes into account that time itself is best expressed in terms of cubic heterodynes -- an understanding of which makes trivial the construction of materials far superior to carbon nanotube. Additional insight can be found here and, surprisingly here.