Space-Elevator Contests Lure With Big Money, NASA Glory

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

November 16, 2005

In the space-technology race, NASA is welcoming some dark horse candidates.

The space agency's prize competitions inspire enthusiastic entrants from around the U.S.—most recently in a contest to design an elevator from Earth to space.

"Usually when we do development of new space systems we get a bunch of proposals and have to pick one or two to fund," said Brant Sponberg, manager of NASA's Centennial Challenges program.

"The nice thing about a competition is that folks like me at NASA don't have to be smart enough to know which proposal to pick," he said. "We set a goal, and whoever is the best will win."

In the space-elevator games held October 21 through 23, competitors tested their mettle in two events at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

A pair of U.S. $50,000 prizes drew university teams, private companies, and other groups. Their eclectic ideas reminded onlookers that the winner is not always the obvious candidate.

"Teams or individuals you might not bet on can prove to you that they are right," Sponberg said. "In the history of prize competitions, some of the folks out of right field tend to win these things."

One such success story was Centaurus, a Logan, Utah-based start-up business.

"We're coming from nowhere, and it gives us a chance to show what we have to offer," said team leader Flint Hamblin.

"We're so small right now that the games give us a chance at a little funding—but they were also extremely fun."

That fun was backed by a lot of hard work in the six-month run-up to the games.

"I can't count the number of hours I put in. It was a very cost effective way for NASA to get people to look at this problem," said Steve Jones, one of the leaders of Team SnowStar, a student team from the University of British Columbia in Richmond, Canada.

SnowStar did so well they were voted most likely to succeed in 2006.

Staircase to the Stars?

What exactly is a space elevator? It's a futuristic concept in which spacecraft could be linked to Earth by miles of superstrong tether.

At a fraction of the cost of a space launch, robotic climbers could theoretically travel up and down the cord to deliver payloads into orbit.

The games featured two events related to the futuristic concept: one for wirelessly powered robot climbers and another for superstrong carbon-nanotube tethers. Carbon nanotubes are microscopic cylinders of rolled-up carbon atoms.

A space elevator may never become a reality. But the technologies necessary to create one could still be useful in the near future.

One example: the wireless power sources used to power robotic climbers.

"Today you have wireless communications, but at the end of the day you have to jack in your cell phone and repower it," NASA's Sponberg said.

"We're interested in wireless power transmission. You'd need it for a space elevator, because you can't have an extension cord that reaches space." He added that a battery system is also out of the question, because "the batteries needed would be too big to be practical."

The wireless-energy concept could also aid astronauts or robots on space missions. They need power, but may not be able to bear the weight and associated fuel costs of conventional power systems.

The space elevator game teams designed robotic climbers that used a wireless power source—a Hollywood-style searchlight, to climb a 16-story-high tether.

To claim the $50,000 prize the fastest robot would have had to travel at least 1 meter (about 3 feet) per second up the 164-foot (50-meter) tether.

None of the contestants met this mark, but the best entries still represented a breakthrough.

"One team on the first day got 20 feet (6 meters) up, and another reached 40 feet (12 meters)," Sponberg said. "That's the first time anyone has demonstrated an operational climber that uses beam power [energy beamed to a machine via light waves] as its power source."

Most teams used photoelectric cells that captured the beams' light and converted it to power. Others surprised contest officials and fellow entrants by using Stirling engines that were powered by the searchlight's heat. (Stirling engines are powered by gas moving between hot and cold chambers.)

Tether Tug-of-War

The tether competition offered $50,000 to the strongest entrant—provided it was 50 percent stronger than the state-of-the-art "house tether" provided by NASA.

A tether stretching from Earth to space would have to have a strength-to-weight ratio far beyond the capability of any current technology.

The strength tests were conducted in heats. At each stage two teams' six-and-a-half-foot-long (two-meter-long) tethers were stretched until one broke.

Winners moved upward in a bracketed competition that resembled a scientific spin on the NCAA basketball tournament.

The winning tether weighed less than 0.07 ounce (2 grams), the weight of a penny. Yet it withstood over 1,700 pounds (770-kilograms) of force.

Reviving a Tradition

Competitions like the space-elevator games are helping to revive an old practice.

The $25,000 Orteg Prize, for example, inspired Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Until then Lindbergh had been a relative unknown—the smart money had been on polar explorer Richard Byrd.

In 2004 the Ansari X Prize brought such contests back to the public eye. The foundation awarded 10 million U.S. dollars to the makers of SpaceShipOne—the first private, manned craft to reach space.

The space-elevator games will return in 2006 and promise to be bigger and better.

"We already have 30 teams declaring their intention to compete in 2006," said Vern McGeorge of the nonprofit Spaceward Foundation, which sponsors the games for NASA.

With no team qualifying for cash prizes this year, next year's jackpots could reach $200,000 per event. It's real money—and real motivation. But it's not the only thing driving competitors.

"For me, personally, it was a chance to join the next space race," said Simon Hastings of Team SnowStar.

"Having always seen space travel as the next step in human development, I jumped on the opportunity to get involved with the Centennial Challenges," Hastings added.

"It wasn't about the money, but about the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself and accomplishing something meaningful."

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