There is less then one week to go before the 2009 NASA sponsored Power Beaming Centennial Challenge, AKA the Space Elevator Games, with up to $2,000,000 in prize money gets underway.
There is less then one week to go before the 2009 NASA sponsored Power Beaming Centennial Challenge, AKA the Space Elevator Games, with up to $2,000,000 in prize money gets underway.
Ben Shelef of the SpaceWard Foundation reports that he has secured a date for this years Power Beaming Challenge AKA the Space Elevator Games with up to $2,000,000 in NASA Centennial Challenge prize money at stake now that the previous technical issues have been resolved. Three teams have qualified for the games with a fourth attempting to qualify. It appears that this time around someone will win at least level 2 in prize money. The competition is scheduled for the week of November 2 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base near Mojave, California.
Recently Ben Shelef led a team of volunteers to the selected testing grounds near Olympia, Washington for the second round of testing for the helicopter - cable system for the games. In the first test they used a 1000' cable and in the second test they used a 4300' cable system. This second test was a general rehearsal for the games and was successful.
The test was conducted using a GPS hover-aid for the helicopter and the new Virtual Bob (R) motion-arrestor system along with a battery powered climber.
At this point with all the big issues resolved the Space Elevator Games appear to be a go. A date needs to be set and Ben is working with the venue, most likely NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, to get dates. I assume a test of the new improved system will need to be conducted at Dryden before the official competition is to start.