NASA Ups Prize Funding for Space Elevator Challenges to $4 Million Over 5 Years

In a forward-looking move NASA has decided there is enough merit in the Space Elevator concept to offer more substantial prizes to help motivate teams to innovate further. This is truly exciting news and comes just about two weeks before the Space Elevator Games.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release issued by the Spaceward Foundation;

“The new agreement expands the time-frame of both the Beam Power and the Tether Challenges from one year to five years through the year 2010, and provides incrementally larger total purses for years two through five above the $200K purse in year one for each contest. For the second through the fifth years, the total prize purses to be offered for each competition each year are$300K, $400K, $500K, and $600K, respectively.”