X Prize Cup - Space Elevator Games

Space Elevator Games

In 2006, the Space Elevator Games took place at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. A space elevator is a theoretical system using a super-strong ribbon going from the surface of the Earth to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. The ribbon is held in place by a counterweight in orbit. As the Earth rotates, the ribbon is held taut. Vehicles would climb the ribbon powered by a beam of energy projected from the surface of the Earth. Building a space elevator requires materials and techniques that do not currently exist. The Space Elevator Games are meant to stimulate the development of such materials and techniques.

The games are divided into two categories: the Power Beam Challenge and the Tether Challenge. In the Power Beam Challenge, each team designs and builds a climber (a machine capable of traveling up and down a tether ribbon). The climber must carry a payload. Power will be beamed from a transmitter to a receiver on the climber. Each climber must travel to a height of 50 meters traveling a minimum speed of 1 meter per second. The Tether Challenge is to help develop very strong tether material for use in various structural applications.

The 2007 Space Elevator Games were not held at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. Instead, they took place in Salt Lake City.

Read more about this topic:  X Prize Cup

Famous quotes containing the words space, elevator and/or games:

    A set of ideas, a point of view, a frame of reference is in space only an intersection, the state of affairs at some given moment in the consciousness of one man or many men, but in time it has evolving form, virtually organic extension. In time ideas can be thought of as sprouting, growing, maturing, bringing forth seed and dying like plants.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen
    The lobby zombies they knowing what
    The whistling elevator man he knowing
    The winking bellboy knowing
    Everybody knowing! I’d be almost inclined not to do anything!
    Gregory Corso (b. 1930)

    At the age of twelve I was finding the world too small: it appeared to me like a dull, trim back garden, in which only trivial games could be played.
    Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)