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There was supposed to be another round of the power beaming challenge in 2010. Basically a grudge match between the top 3 teams to push the max speed over 5 m/s and claim the remaining $1.1 million in prize money.
However management at NASA took the opportunity of having a winner to reinterpret Congress’s authorization for the Centennial challenges. The specific clause was that only US citizens were eligible for the prize. Although USST, The Canadian team, had a US citizen as the administrative captain, the team was clearly Canadian and the money would have went to Canada. This led to a big delay while options were explored to avoid disqualifying the team that had placed first every year of the competition except the last. Additionally NASA Dryden, the venue that hosted the competition, could not donate/discount as much of their services as they did last time around. This increased the venue cost by as much as 3 fold while the number of entrants had dropped to two. Us and LaserMotive. This would have made the cost to compete soar north of $100,000. So a new venue had to be found. Delay after delay has become the norm for the Space Elevator games.
Because of raising costs and continual delays. TRUMPF, Our Laser vendor, very apologetically withdrew their support. They had signed up for a 1 year sponsorship and it was rolling into year 3. I am thankful that we had their support while it lasted.
This forced us to drop out of the rematch. Leaving only one team- LaserMotive. Not much of a competition. So Spaceward, the organizer decided to rethink the games.
Spaceward, LaserMotive and myself have chatted off and on about what format of competition would best serve the interests of the public by advancing the state of the art while allowing a reasonable number of teams to compete.
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Although it is all old news by now. Lasermotive won the 2 Meters per second prize of $900,000. This leaves the $1.1 Million prize for 5 m/s unclaimed.
USST did not climb any significant distance because their tracking system could not get and keep a GPS signal. I have speculated that this was due to static charges built up on the helicopter discharging repeatedly down the cable. I don't have any concrete evidence of this and any tests of this theory are expensive and unlikely to occur. I hate to see a competitor taken out by factors beyond their control. Almost as much as I hate to be taken out by factors that are within my control.
We finished second and out of the money. Although we had numerous problems that we were able to deal with effectively through our preparations and problem solving abilities. We discovered our main problem was a simple missed adjustment that I made myself. We lacked the experience and equipment needed to identify the problem in time to save our 4.5 year $200,000+ effort from failing.
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The KC Space Pirates is a team entered in the 2009 Space Elevator games climber competition. The competition is put on by the Spaceward Foundation
NASA has put up a total of two million dollars in prize money!!
The competition is, in summary, a vertical drag race straight up a 1 kilometer cable. We must climb the cable with no fuel or batteries. The climbers are unmanned, and may only be powered by beamed energy. We did well last year but fell short of the money. The competition is developing technology to make it possible for everyone to go to space.
For more information visit Spaceward.org or visit their FAQ pages to learn more about the competition and the space elevator in general.
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