EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, CALIF.—A robot powered by a
ground-based laser beam climbed a long cable dangling from a helicopter
Wednesday, qualifying for prize money in a $2 million competition to test the
potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators.
The highly technical contest brought teams from Missouri, Alaska and Seattle to Rogers
Dry Lake
in the Mojave Desert, most familiar to the
public as a space shuttle landing site.
Team leader David Bashford, right, prepares the LaserMotive robotic climber during the $2 million Space Elevator Games at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. In a the test of the concept, robotic machines powered by laser beams will try to climb a cable suspended from a helicopter, on a course 900 meters (2,953 feet) high. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
The contest requires that the machines climb 2,953 feet up a
cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high.
LaserMotive's vehicle zipped to the top in about four
minutes and immediately repeated the feat, qualifying for at least a $900,000
second-place prize.
The device, a square of photo voltaic panels about 2 feet by
2 feet and topped by a motor structure and thin triangle frame, had failed to
respond to the laser three times before it was lowered, inspected and then
hoisted back up by the helicopter for the successful tries.
LaserMotive's two principals, Jordin Kare and Thomas Nugent,
said they were relieved after two years of work. They said their real goal is
to develop a business based on the idea of beaming power, not on the idea of
accessing space via an elevator climbing a cable.
"We both are pretty skeptical of its near-term
prospects," Kare said of an elevator.
The contest, however, demonstrates that beaming power works,
Nugent said.
Funded by a NASA program to explore innovative technology, the
contest is intended to encourage development of a theory that originated in the
1960s and was popularized by Arthur C. Clarke's 1979 novel "The Fountains
of Paradise." Space elevators are envisioned as a way to reach space
without the risk and expense of rockets.
Instead, electrically powered vehicles would run up and down
a cable anchored to a ground structure and extending thousands of miles to a
mass in geosynchronous orbit—the kind of orbit in which communications
satellites are placed to stay over a fixed spot on Earth.
|
Photovoltaic panels, which convert laser light into electrical energy similar to solar panels, are seen on the bottom of the LaserMotive entry in the $2 million Space Elevator Games at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. In a the test of the concept, robotic machines powered by laser beams will try to climb a cable suspended from a helicopter, on a course 900 meters (2,953 feet) high. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
|
Electricity would be supplied through a concept known as
"power beaming," in which ground-based lasers beam energy to
photovoltaic cells on the bottom of a climbing vehicle—something like an
upside-down solar power system.
The space elevator competition has not produced a winner in
the previous three years, but it has become increasingly difficult.
The vehicles must climb at an average speed of about 11
miles an hour to qualify for the top prize. There is a lesser prize for vehicles
that climb more slowly.
Latest post at
LaserMotive’s blog:
Power Beaming
Results, Nov. 3rd 2009
First, the (relatively) big news: LaserMotive today beamed
roughly 400 W of laser power to a moving target at a distance of 1 kilometer,
as part of the vertical laser alignment procedure. The target was a
retro-reflective board a little larger than 1 meter on a side. I don’t know
offhand if that is a record; I will have to check once things calm down. (It’s
a record that will likely be broken tomorrow by one or more teams, of course.)
And now let’s back up. Things have been very exciting at the
competition so far (you can follow our Twitter feed at #LaserMotive and the SE Blog’s
tweeting at #SEGames). Sunday we did a
bunch of setup at the staging area, which went well. We felt good about how
much we did in the time available. Monday had us going out to the lakebed,
where we got re-situated and settled in for the whole week. We did our
alignment in the trailer, and at the end of the day when we did the 300 meter
horizontal laser alignment, we did not have to tweak anything — the beams were
as centered (relative to our tracking camera view) as we could tell. Throughout
all of this, our entire team has been doing great work getting all of our
systems (climber vehicle systems, tracking, command center ops, etc.) up and
operational, and it appears that nothing was damaged during the trip down from Seattle.
Tuesday was the start of helicopter operations. There were a
number of problems with test climber vehicle launch and landings for other
teams, because things were not as smooth as they’d been during the tests in Washington. The launches
and landings here were more “violent” and our causing quite a bit of concern.
Multiple teams are working frantically tonight trying to deal with what we all
saw today. And as I mentioned above, we did our vertical 1 kilometer alignment
at the (relativeyl) low power of roughly 400 watts output, at the very end of
the day. We are the first (and so far only) team to have completed vertical
laser alignment. Wednesday morning we expect there will be more helicopter
tests of climber launch & landing plus final vertical alignment for the
other two teams. Then the real competition begins!
Latest blog
entry and website
