volts writes "According to New Scientist no one was able to grab the two $50,000 top prizes in the recent NASA 'Beam Power Challenge'. The biggest limiting factor seemed to be that no team was able to meet the speed requirement, although a group from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada set the height record at 12 meters. Not quite geosynchronous..."Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='space,tech';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; No One Wins NASA Space Elevator Contest Log in/Create an Account | Top | 186 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 186 comments 0: 179 comments 1: 160 comments 2: 114 comments 3: 37 comments 4: 23 comments 5: 15 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Top Speed (Score:1) by misophist (465263) on Monday October 24, @04:50PM (#13866570) They should set a slightly lower speed limit. This would encourage more people to work on the problem. [ Reply to ThisRe:Top Speed by devilsadvoc8 (Score:2) Monday October 24, @04:53PM Re:Top Speed (Score:5, Informative) by Mikkeles (698461) <mikkelesNO@SPAMnetscape.net> on Monday October 24, @05:41PM (#13866937) Your wish has been granted (FTA):He adds that teams were restricted to using NASA's searchlight as the power source this year, but says they will be able to design their own in 2006. "They can use lasers, microwaves, whatever they like," he says. [ Reply to This | ParentObAustinPowers by sconeu (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:21PM Re:Top Speed (Score:5, Informative) by Ironsides (739422) on Monday October 24, @04:57PM (#13866625) (Last Journal: Monday May 09, @05:20PM) They should set a slightly lower speed limit. This would encourage more people to work on the problem. The minimum speed was 1 meter/s = 3.6km/h = 2.2369 miles/h. I can walk faster than that. Geosynch is 35,786 km above sealeve according to wiki. At 3.6 km/h it would take over a year to get up to geosynch. They really should increase the minimum speed. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Top Speed (Score:5, Informative) by georgewilliamherbert (211790) on Monday October 24, @05:06PM (#13866709) The minimum speed was 1 meter/s = 3.6km/h = 2.2369 miles/h. I can walk faster than that.Geosynch is 35,786 km above sealeve according to wiki. At 3.6 km/h it would take over a year to get up to geosynch. They really should increase the minimum speed.There were a number of factors arguing for slower speed initial prize goals.Power source this time was limited to a single high-power searchlight... faster requires a whole lot more power, and it simply wasn't going to be available in time.Most teams didn't have the chance to test at their own facility with their own searchlight, nor at the competition site. If you can't really test, you shouldn't assume highly efficient operations...The tether in use wasn't that tall, and accellerating and decellerating a whole lot within the available vertical distance was a nonstarter.This was a introduction to parts of the problem set, not a realistic attempt to engineer production grade tether climbers. Everyone involved knows that... [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Top Speed (Score:5, Insightful) by AKAImBatman (238306) * on Monday October 24, @05:06PM (#13866710) (http://akaimbatman.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 30, @08:23AM) Excellent point! In fact, most Space Elevator proponents seem to miss the fact that the energy for the elevator isn't free. You still have to expend at least the minimum amount of energy required to move an object into LEO. The physics of the situation say there are no shortcuts.What you DO gain is:a) Slower ascentb) Only minor (if not inconseqential) losses from air frictionc) Ability to expend the power over a long period of time vs. in a huge controlled explosiond) A workable descent mode that doesn't require that the hull handle extremesI'm all for the space elevator idea. However, a lot of people need to understand that this is NOT existing technology. While it's very much possible for the necessary breakthroughs to be completed in the next few decades, dropping everything and working on a Space Elevator would only mean that we'd lose space access for a very long time. That is why NASA is pursuing the CEV and not the Space Elevator as the next major launch vehicle. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Top Speed by Judge_Fire (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:20PM Re:Top Speed (Score:5, Informative) by Chirs (87576) on Monday October 24, @05:22PM (#13866807) You've missed a major point to the space elevator scenario--controlled descent.In a standard descent, all the excess kinetic energy is wasted as heat. In a space-elevator scenario, you can use the energy of the descending cars to assist in powering the ascending cars. Net overall energy expenditure required is just enough to start the system and overcome the inevitable inefficiencies. Your average energy-per-car can be much lower than the rocket scenario. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Top Speed by alienw (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:10PMRe:Top Speed by Chirs (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:29PMRe:Top Speed by trewornan (Score:2) Monday October 24, @10:06PMRe:Top Speed by Rei (Score:3) Monday October 24, @06:31PMRe:Top Speed by Monty_Lovering (Score:1) Monday October 24, @06:35PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.MagLev by gatzke (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:29PMRe:MagLev by Control Group (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:37PMRe:MagLev by gatzke (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:08PM 46000????? (Score:4, Informative) by sconeu (64226) on Monday October 24, @06:18PM (#13867172) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday July 29, @01:12PM) \i{I have seen suggestions that ~46,000 mph or 13 miles/sec would get you into orbit.}Orbital velocity for LEO is about 18000 mph, or roughly 5 miles/sec.Earth Escape Velocity is about 25000mph, or roughly 7 miles/sec.46000mph is so far beyond what is needed for orbit, it's ridiculous. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:46000????? by Monty_Lovering (Score:1) Monday October 24, @06:41PMRe:46000????? by gatzke (Score:2) Monday October 24, @07:17PMRe:46000????? by sconeu (Score:1) Monday October 24, @07:25PMRe:46000????? um... no by cataclyst (Score:1) Tuesday October 25, @12:15AMRe:Top Speed by Control Group (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:30PMRe:Top Speed by Chirs (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:35PMRe:Top Speed by terrymr (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:42PMRe:Top Speed by JaredOfEuropa (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:46PMRe:Top Speed by Rei (Score:3) Monday October 24, @06:38PMRe:Top Speed by Rei (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:47PMRe:Top Speed by Monty_Lovering (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:52PMRe:Top Speed by AKAImBatman (Score:2) Monday October 24, @08:38PMRe:Top Speed by bjomo (Score:1) Monday October 24, @09:39PMRe:Top Speed by Farmer Tim (Score:2) Tuesday October 25, @12:37AM Re:Top Speed (Score:4, Interesting) by Control Group (105494) on Monday October 24, @05:25PM (#13866839) (http://www.livejournal.com/users/control_group) The minimum speed was 1 meter/s = 3.6km/h = 2.2369 miles/h. I can walk faster than thatNot straight up, you can't.Geosynch is 35,786 km above sealeve according to wiki. At 3.6 km/h it would take over a year to get up to geosynchTrue, but as gravity decreases, you accelerate faster per unit energy. I can't be arsed to actually do any math, but 1m/s at 1G is going to translate into significantly higher velocity the further out you go. Besides which, if you want to use the elevator primarily for moving materiel rather than personnel, a one-year turnaround might not be too bad; throughput is potentially more important than lag.Even for personnel, that's on the order of time it took to sail from Europe to America via wind power, and people did that. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Top Speed by Ironsides (Score:3) Monday October 24, @08:40PMRe:Top Speed by Mathinker (Score:1) Monday October 24, @08:47PMRe:Top Speed by drooling-dog (Score:2) Monday October 24, @10:30PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Top Speed by roman_mir (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:39PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Top Speed by GoodOmens (Score:1) Monday October 24, @05:05PMRe:Top Speed by jzeejunk (Score:1) Monday October 24, @05:15PMRe:Top Speed by iocat (Score:1) Monday October 24, @06:06PMRe:Top Speed by ackthpt (Score:1) Monday October 24, @05:32PMRe:Top Speed by uncoveror (Score:2) Monday October 24, @09:03PM The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... (Score:5, Insightful) by Silverlancer (786390) on Monday October 24, @04:50PM (#13866573) The biggest limiting factor seemed to be that NASA didn't offer enough money to get any remotely reasonable solution to the problem. Fifty thousand dollars is chump change to the kind of money needed to develop any of this technology. [ Reply to ThisRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by timeOday (Score:2) Monday October 24, @04:54PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by VJ42 (Score:1) Monday October 24, @05:08PMHave you EVER used ebay? by way2trivial (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:43PM Re:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... (Score:5, Informative) by georgewilliamherbert (211790) on Monday October 24, @04:54PM (#13866603) The biggest limiting factor seemed to be that NASA didn't offer enough money to get any remotely reasonable solution to the problem. Fifty thousand dollars is chump change to the kind of money needed to develop any of this technology.These challenges typically cost more to compete in than you can win. DARPA autonomous vehicles teams typically spent 2-3 times the prize. The X-prize was won by a team spending $26 million on a $10 million prize.What you "win" is prestige and advancing the state of the art.Also, at least one elevator climber team was only 3 people part-time. That's not a huge budget... [ Reply to This | Parent Re:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... (Score:4, Interesting) by Charcharodon (611187) on Monday October 24, @05:23PM (#13866817) Actually what you "win" is licenseable technology that costs you $10 million less to develope and open the door to the posibility of getting the real "prize" which happens to be much larger (Also know as venture capital). [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by tocs (Score:1) Monday October 24, @06:55PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by RevRigel (Score:2) Monday October 24, @08:26PM Re:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... (Score:5, Interesting) by afidel (530433) on Monday October 24, @04:57PM (#13866626) $50K for a design and prototype isn't a lot, but since student labor is basically free most of the money can go towards building the prototype. The biggest problem seems to be that the energy source available seems to be the light energy from a couple hundred watt lamp. Assuming that the bulb is 50% efficient that doesn't leave a lot of energy to move even the motors at the required speed, let alone the entire vehicle. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by timeOday (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:07PMThe length is a problem for power transmission by Beryllium Sphere(tm) (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:33PM Re:The length is a problem for power transmission (Score:4, Insightful) by timeOday (582209) on Monday October 24, @05:46PM (#13866972) Short of a superconductor, practical wired power transmission is measured in hundreds or at best thousands of miles. Tens of thousands would be too much to hope for.Are you sure? Quoting the article I linked:"On the fundamental side, a perfect metallic nanotube should be a ballistic conductor: in other words, every electron injected into the nanotube at one end should come out the other end. Although a ballistic conductor does have some resistance, this resistance is independent of its length, which means that Ohm's law does not apply. Indeed, only a superconductor (which has no electrical resistance whatsoever) is a better conductor." [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The length is a problem for power transmission by TopSpin (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:06PMRe:The length is a problem for power transmission by John Hasler (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:59PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... (Score:5, Interesting) by po8 (187055) on Monday October 24, @06:01PM (#13867059) "$50K for a design and prototype isn't a lot, but since student labor is basically free most of the money can go towards building the prototype." As a research professor with students who could have tried to build this thing, take my word for it that it's not enough money. I refuse to have my students doing someone else's research for free; I want to be able to pay them at least $10/hour + tuition remission. For an undergraduate at my fairly inexpensive institution, that's about $7K per quarter, and I'd need three of these. Add a $20K equipment budget and $5K for my time and we are at $46K.So the budget is $50K. What's the problem? Just the obvious one that my chance of winning is quite difficult to estimate, but certainly way less than 100%. I'd put my expected return at around $5K. There may be institutions and individuals who can afford to expect to lose $41K for the prestige of doing good research and the prospect of future funding. I'm not one, so I'm out.It doesn't appear that I am unique in these calculations.By contrast, I just finished a NASA Phase I SBIR. $68,000 over 6 months, guaranteed. If I wanted to do space elevator research, I'd be way better off submitting an SBIR proposal than entering the contest: small up-front risk, higher expected return, better prospects of future funding.Contests are run because there are often folks who overvalue them, so they are sometimes a cheap way to get things done at the expense of others. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by TheRaven64 (Score:3) Monday October 24, @07:11PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by po8 (Score:2) Monday October 24, @08:43PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by waveclaw (Score:2) Monday October 24, @07:28PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by po8 (Score:2) Monday October 24, @08:54PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by pookemon (Score:1) Monday October 24, @07:42PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by po8 (Score:2) Monday October 24, @08:58PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by bjomo (Score:1) Monday October 24, @09:53PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by Lucractius (Score:2) Monday October 24, @10:01PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by po8 (Score:1) Monday October 24, @09:04PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by pookemon (Score:1) Monday October 24, @09:26PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by njh (Score:2) Monday October 24, @07:34PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by eln (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:00PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by igny (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:23PMRe:The biggest limiting factor seemed to be... by drooling-dog (Score:2) Monday October 24, @10:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Too bad (Score:2, Insightful) by PresidentEnder (849024) on Monday October 24, @04:53PM (#13866594) (Last Journal: Sunday October 16, @03:50AM) I'm reminded of DARPA Grand Challenge 1. This, though, seems quite a bit easier than autonomous vehicles- perhaps not the tether, but the climbers seem straighforeward. Are solar panels really that heavy? Are they that inefficient? The article says there was only a six-month time period between the contest announcement and the contest, but there isn't much in the way of new technology needed here. What gives? [ Reply to This Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative) by qbwiz (87077) * <johnNO@SPAMbaumanfamily.com> on Monday October 24, @04:59PM (#13866647) (http://www.baumanfamily.com/john/) The problem was apparently that the spotlight they were using had too diffuse of a beam. Next year, when the teams provide their own beaming systems, it might turn out better. [ Reply to This | ParentBeam me up! by Urusai (Score:1) Monday October 24, @09:03PMRe:Too bad by vertinox (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:43PMRe:Too bad by Retric (Score:2) Monday October 24, @10:13PM success by failure. (Score:1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24, @04:54PM (#13866602) No one ever said it would be feasible or easy.Just as the first rockets blew up in the inventors faces, and many many failed, the work on them progressed until now we can mass manufacture them with very high success rates.Have to start somewhere.. and from what i've seen.. this is a good start.I look forward to seeing the progress for next years competition. [ Reply to This I can hear it now... (Score:4, Funny) by Surazal (729) on Monday October 24, @04:55PM (#13866609) (http://surazal.nerp.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 30, @01:09AM) "Quick guys, we gotta find a way to spin the Earth up really fast so we can call our elevator geosyncronous. There's $50,000 at stake, people!" [ Reply to This Geosynchronous (Score:5, Informative) by ornil (33732) on Monday October 24, @04:57PM (#13866629) Not quite geosynchronous...Oh, it's quite geosynchronous (i.e. above the same point on the Earth surface). It's just not in orbit. [ Reply to ThisRe:Geosynchronous by HermanAB (Score:2) Monday October 24, @06:15PM Not quite geosynchronous... (Score:5, Funny) by aengblom (123492) on Monday October 24, @04:58PM (#13866639) (http://www.daisyads.com/) Not quite geosynchronous...We didn't have enough money to put a man in a track suit up a ladder! I mean, I would've been there,"Go man, go!" "I'm going, I'm going! 'Ang on!""Just hang on to the ladder!""Hello, Swindon, I am here. Swindon, can you hear me?""Swindon here, we are monitoring you on our instruments at the moment, we've got you on a tuba." "There should be a bigger laugh for that joke, I think.""Yeah, I can't quite understand it; I thought it was really funny. Swindon, a knackered, kind of Fresno town.""They don't seem to be going for it.""They're obviously bastards.""Anyway, Swindon, I'm nearly at the Moon... actually, that's a bit of an understatement, that one.Have you got another big ladder, another bit of ladder? I don't think we're quite at the Moon yet, but I can see right over the top of the houses! Fantastic!" [ Reply to Thisahem... by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday October 24, @06:06PM Here's an idea (Score:5, Funny) by eyal (774028) on Monday October 24, @04:58PM (#13866640) ...although a group from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada set the height record at 12 metersMaybe if we stacked them... [ Reply to ThisRe:Here's an idea by saskboy (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:19PMRe:Here's an idea by HRbnjR (Score:2) Monday October 24, @07:16PMIf we stack anything... by TheIndifferentiate (Score:1) Monday October 24, @05:33PM Forget solar panels. (Score:5, Interesting) by roman_mir (125474) on Monday October 24, @05:00PM (#13866659) (http://russkey.mozdev.org/ | Last Journal: Monday December 08, @12:44PM) Go back to steam engines, stirling engines? If your power source is light, why bother with electrical engines? Use some liquid gas as fuel in a tank, use the projected light as a heat source, let the gas heat up in a combustion chamber (a piston?) and drive the whole thing up as a locomotive :) [ Reply to ThisRe:Forget solar panels. by devilsadvoc8 (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:03PMRe:Forget solar panels. by roman_mir (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:05PMRe:Forget solar panels. by roman_mir (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:10PMRe:Forget solar panels. by TheGavster (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:41PMRe:Forget solar panels. by Daniel_Staal (Score:3) Monday October 24, @05:08PMRe:Forget solar panels. by Bastian (Score:2) Monday October 24, @07:25PMRe:Forget solar panels. by Daniel_Staal (Score:2) Monday October 24, @07:41PMRe:Forget solar panels. by BlueStraggler (Score:2) Monday October 24, @08:17PM Re:Forget solar panels. (Score:4, Interesting) by Chirs (87576) on Monday October 24, @05:38PM (#13866916) One of the big points about the space elevator scenario is that descending cars can generate electricity. Ideally, you would want to use this to help power the ascending cars to minimize wasted energy. If you're feeding ascending cars electricity anyway, you may as well convert all incoming energy into that form. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Forget solar panels. by roman_mir (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:55PM The quarter and the lamppost (Score:2) by jfengel (409917) on Monday October 24, @05:06PM (#13866708) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday November 03, @04:59PM) I didn't think of that as the really hard part in the space elevator problem. I'm sure somebody will figure out how to build a climber. I would have thought that the hard part is figuring out how to build a cable that the climber could climb, which seems to involve scaling up the best known materials by 10 orders of magnitude.It reminds me of the old joke about the drunk looking under the lamppost for the quarter he dropped in the alley, because that's where the light is better. [ Reply to ThisRe:The quarter and the lamppost by Rycross (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:23PMRe:The quarter and the lamppost by Pulzar (Score:2) Monday October 24, @05:32PM Junkyard Wars (Score:4, Funny) by KilobyteKnight (91023) <.moc.rr.htuosdim. .ta. .mjb.> on Monday October 24, @05:10PM (#13866733) (http://sententia.org/) Didn't they do this on Junkyard Wars with a jet ski engine, duct tape, and a couple pieces of PCV? [ Reply to This Re:Junkyard Wars (Score:4, Funny) by KilobyteKnight (91023) <.moc.rr.htuosdim. .ta. .mjb.> on Monday October 24, @05:49PM (#13866990) (http://sententia.org/) Oh... no wonder it didn't work. [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold. "Space elevators stuck on the first floor" (Score:2, Funny) by Monkeyman334 (205694) on Monday October 24, @05:13PM (#13866753) (http://www.oswd.org/) It seems the solution to this problem is to add a basement. [ Reply to This Well my team.. (Score:2, Funny) by modi123 (750470) on Monday October 24, @05:23PM (#13866819) (Last Journal: Monday October 17, @02:33PM) ... was disqualified for "inappropriate" elevator music... Under testing situations, all of our patients (read: monkeys, elderly, humans, and fish) were driven insane, then promptly driven sane, then insane, then sane, and so forth during the 62.5 mile elevator ride finished. After the tenth go around we decided the cost to hosing out the compartment filled with bile, blood, and bits of hair were not worth the cash prize. So it goes.Additionally, the PSP battery life wasn't sufficient to stave off elevator-maddness either.http://trs.nis.nasa.gov/archive/00000377/01/tm1085 37.pdf [nasa.gov] [ Reply to This deathray (Score:1) by jzeejunk (878194) on Monday October 24, @05:24PM (#13866829)