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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.
The simple explanation is that the focus was off. Much as your camera has a focus adjustment so does our laser. It has to stay focused on the climber as the climber moves away. We had the focus adjusted near perfectly after our July testing. We did more testing in Sept that called for changing the focus. I installed a stop so that we could put it back after we were done and simple forgot to do so.
I have analyzed all of the systemic reasons for this error. Constantly added safety requirements, changing setup and preparation requirements. Lack of funding for proper cameras that could see the beam well or the ability to have enough personnel to delegate the focusing. Continuous distractions and deadlines during the competition. But all of that is little comfort because all of these systemic issues are, and always have been, just a normal part of this competition.
I would like to thank my teammates, sponsors and my wife for believing in the team and myself to get us as far as we got in 2009. Over the years of the competition over 21 teams have entered the competition. Some are far more prestigious than ourselves. Others are much better funded. But three times we produced entries that showed the best qualifying performance of any team, Twice positioning ourselves as the team to beat. Our team has produced and fielded at least as much innovation as any other team.
An I suppose this is a good time to mention that along with the hard work we did have a lot of fun. We got a lot of press coverage. And we advanced the cause of the Space Elevator and Power Beaming along the way.
As for what happens next? Watch this space or ask me to add you to our mailing list. I really should post the back issues of the newsletter.
Brian Turner |
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The live coverage of the competition is now up and running.
It can be found at the new Space Elevator Games site.
And as always there is the Space Elevator Blog
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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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