Four years, three teams, 2 million dollars put up by NASA Centennial Challenges… Sound familiar?  ……  Just… it’s what some people are calling the next generation in space travel: The Space Elevator.

Since 2005 the competition has admittedly changed quite a bit, but the same principals are still in place.  How do we get a robot to climb a tether in a geosynchronous orbit in an efficient way while keeping the power source on the ground?  And once we have that robot, how do we make that tether able to be strong and light enough to handle such a “lofty” goal?


  1. MarcusZ says:
    November 3, 2009 at 10:17 am

    Very Funny! :D

    Reply
  2. Alex Csete says:
    November 3, 2009 at 10:46 am

    Very funny indeed :) )

    Reply
  3. FirstManOnMars says:
    November 3, 2009 at 11:38 am

    Haha, nice ending. Very excited about space elevators (hopefully someday they will be seriously developed!) and VERY excited about this week's episode with Jerry Carr! Wow! You've been getting some seriously awesome interviewees lately!

    Reply
  4. QuarkSpin says:
    November 3, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    I look forward to watching this! I've been fascinated with space elevators since the time I read “The Fountains of Paradise” (Arthur C. Clarke) as a teenager. It's also been interesting to read how space elevators play a role in the “Red/Green/Blue Mars” books by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's nice to know that someone is working on taking this concept from science fiction to engineering reality.

    Reply
  5. Tweets that mention The Space Elevator Competition – 09.11.03 | Spacevidcast | Space Video Clips -- Topsy.com says:
    November 4, 2009 at 1:37 pm

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