LaserMotive Finds Success In Space Elevator Competition

Bucc5062 writes "LaserMotive has achieved the first step towards the creation of a working space elevator by qualifying for the $900,000 prize in a contest sponsored by NASA. To achieve this first level, LaserMotive needed to propel a platform up a cable dangling from a helicopter at over 2 m/s. They hit a top speed of 4.13 m/s. The next level of qualification will be to achieve a climb speed greater then 5 m/s. LaserMotive beamed roughly 400 watts of laser power to a moving target at a distance of 1 kilometer, as part of the vertical laser alignment procedure. The target was a retro-reflective board a little larger than 1 meter on a side. The contest will continue for another two days with at least two other teams challenging for the prize. To win the Power Beaming competition, the LaserMotive system uses a high-power laser array to shine ultra-intense infrared light onto high-efficiency solar cells, converting the light into electric power which then drives a motor. 'Our system will track the vehicle as it climbs, compensating for motion due to wind and other changes. Building on our experience from last year’s competition, we are designing an improved system able to capture the full $2,000,000 prize.'"

Comments

What a waste of time

[ShooterNeo]

A (practical) space elevator is NEVER, EVER going to be built. With any advances in technology.

Why is that? It's simple.

A space elevator, even if the cable could be made, has a ridiculous design flaw. Literally, a single failure anywhere in the cable, and there goes billions and billions worth of hardware. It is always teetering on the verge of catastrophic failure. (imagine what will happen to the station at the top of the cable)

Further, you can only launch one climber at a time, which has to slowly crawl to the top, taking hours to days.

There's a much better launch method, that has been around for years. Instead of building just enough laser to power a climber, why not build 1000 times as many lasers and beam up enough energy to get into orbit in about 10 minutes?

The spacecraft would just be an inert block of propellant and some stabilizing fins and gyros. The intense light would vaporize the propellant block in sections, and the pulses would be timed to give planar shockwaves. Presto, a high ISP engine with no nozzles or complex flight hardware needed. Laser modules stay on the ground, run on electricity. Could make another launch every 10 minutes or so. Look at the old laser launch usenet posts archived on google, where some NASA PhDs discuss the idea.

CalTrans can't fix an old iron bridge, but..

[Paracelcus]

We want to build an unsupported vertical cable 20,000 miles long capable of not only supporting it's own trillion pound weight but also last forever without maintenance (it could not be repaired) be absolutely foolproof (the consequences of failure would be catastrophic beyond imagining) and have two way traffic (it would not be practical without more than one simultaneous carriage path) with payloads weighing thousands of tons each.

Absolutely, mind-bogglingly stupid!