http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org A $4M Technology Challenge by the Spaceward Foundation and NASA's Centennial Challenges Office Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:31:09 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It has taken 2 years to put together this round of the games - the most we've ever tried before was 100 m, with far weaker lasers, and we weren't even spectacularly successful at that....  (well we sure pulled it off at the end, but it definitely wasn't easy) Luckily for ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/2009-wrap-up/ [caption id="" align="alignright" width="210" caption="There's nothing like a good three-way shootout"][/caption] No kidding.  Three teams left standing, and all three firmly believe they can make 5 m/s, though in the last round only one of them made 2 m/s. Overly optimistic? not really. LaserMotive has every right to be confident, and ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/this-time-its-personal/ Here is a UStream capture, courtesy of Marc Boucher of Spaceref.com The pair calling the shots are Ted Semon of SpaceElevatorBlog.com and Dr. Bryan Laubscher. Kudos for the narrating - we are all new at this, and they didn't even have a basic fact-sheet to work off of. In addition, keep ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/lasermotives-first-prize-winning-climb/ While not the topic of the games, as you know setting up the 1-km racetrack has been somewhat of a difficult task... Here's a brief video showing the way it is done, and perhaps capturing the scale of the climb... The line, btw, is a 3/16" steel cable, 4300' long, and ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/helicopter-operations/ Here is a collage of several power beaming videos. The sources are: Our judging cam (with a running clock at the bottom) LaserMotive barrel-cam (with criss-cross lines and a reddish hue KCSP's barrel-cam (black-and-white looking) Sources we are still aggregating: NASA's long range cam (for a view that doesn't diminish with altitude USST's tracking cam Hand-held videos So do ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/a-flash-of-the-future/ It is never too early to speculate... We started the week with three teams, all of whom capable (on paper) of achieving 5 m/s. What follows are my thoughts about what we can expect from these teams if they choose to re-compete in the next round of the power beaming challenge, which ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/contemplating-5-ms/ [caption id="" align="alignright" width="288" caption="To the winners, the spoils!"][/caption] This pictures says it all - LaserMotive won the level 1 ($900 k) bracket for driving a vehicle using power beaming to a height of 1 km at more than 2 m/s. Their average speed was about 4 m/s, and they were clearly ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/third-day-and-final-results/ Dryden's John Kelly said it best when he commented that "we could not have scripted this better had we tried". LaserMotive is holding a commanding lead, but hasn't broken into 5 m/s territory USST with a much more powerful (but heavier) system is about to launch. They have been plagued by technical ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/third-day/ In all honesty, our second day was almost a repeat of the first...  except better... LaserMotive retained their lead, and inched closer to the 5 m/s benchmark - they removed some payload, and thus ran a bit faster - the official times were 3:49 and 3:48 - 13 seconds faster, in ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/second-day-results/ It’s official ! First successful climb, by LaserMotive, climb time: 4:02.  Second successful climb, by LaserMotive, climb time: 4:01. Unofficial climb distance: 899 m. Unofficial climb speed is therefore 3.7 m/s, which is squarely in the $900k bracket – Congratulations to Lasermotive! Unofficial empty weight is 4.8 kg. The unofficial payload is ... http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/first-day-results/