UPDATE: For the rest of the event no further prizes were claimed. LaserMotive have been handed their $900,000 cheque by NASA. Congratulations!
After years of disappointment (for me, anyway) the Space Elevator Games has got a winner! Yes, NASA will have to open its purse and pay up.
To recap: the Space Elevator Games is a competition supported by the Spaceward Foundation with cash prizes donated by NASA. It’s all about making a space elevator to go into space. Easy so far. Since 2005 there has been an (almost) annual competition for teams demonstrating some of the integral parts of a space elevator. These include: a tether strong, thin and light enough to reach many hundreds of kilomteres into space and not snap; a climber to clamber up the tether; a way of powering the climber from the ground.
No team had managed to win any of the prize money in the first three competitions. Then last year difficulties finding a venue meant that the games were postponed until various times throughout this year. Between 4 and 6 November (i.e. right now) at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center the climber/power beaming event is happening.
And guess what, someone managed to win a prize! Yes, on the first day of the competition LaserMotive, a team from Seattle, managed to beam a laser at the underside of a platform which powered it so that it could scoot up a 900m long piece of cable in the allotted time required to be eligible for a prize – 4 minutes, 2 seconds. This qualifies the team for the portion of the prize put aside for being able to travel faster than 2 metres per second, which could be up to $900,000 according to reports.
The other two teams in round one, the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team, and the Kansas City Space Pirates, didn’t make it.
The news of the successful attempt has spread far, with stories. Amongst others, at the Guardian, the Telegraph, Discover and the AP.
There are two more rounds as the competition continues today and tomorrow, we’ll keep you posted. But if you feel so inclined, you can keep up yourself on Twitter, or at the Spaceward Foundation’s live coverage.