Lift Us Up Where We Belong

Morning. Coffee synthesizer on the fritz. Again. I ask myself for the twentieth time why I hadn’t spent the extra cash for a Mac iBrew. Maybe I can grab a cup at work. I dress slowly, pulling on my jumpsuit, buckling the belt. Shuffle to the bathroom, where my shaved head stares back at me from the mirror. I look much better with hair, but hey, it’s the future, and that’s the law. I grab my transit pass and head out the door for the short walk to the E Station. The gathered crowd waits silently, avoiding eye contact. Looks like E-Tran’s running on time for a change! Preceded by a rush of air, the car approaches, stops, and as the doors open we enter, resembling a school of bald, colorfully jump-suited fish. The doors close, and we’re on our way. Fifteen thousand miles straight up. Yawn. Just another boring office commute…

On November 6, 2009, a small Seattle company found itself nine hundred thousand dollars richer, and the scientific community found itself perhaps a small step closer to making writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s visionary space elevator a reality. In a series of competitions sponsored by NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program (specifically the Power Beaming Challenge in this case), private inventors are charged with finding a way to further the science of wireless power transmission, a technology NASA feels will be invaluable in its future endeavors, eliminating fuel weight, complexity, and the need for pesky zillion-mile long extension cords.

Welcome to the 2009 Space Elevator Games! The rules in a nutshell are simple: a robotic climbing device is tasked with inching its way up a steel cable held vertically aloft by a helicopter to a specified altitude within a specified time frame. The only rub: the climber can’t carry a power supply aboard! While the rules seem simple, following them has proven to be less so. Many have tried only to see their devices exhibit a serious fear of heights, sometimes with catastrophic (as in: don’t let go, it’s a long way down) results for the robots themselves.

Last week however, Team LaserMotive took home the top honors at the competition’s proving grounds within Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, urging their 5.2-kilogram robot climber a full kilometer up the thin cable. The LaserMotive Team utilized high-intensity lasers, computer tracking systems, and super-efficient solar panels to take the prize home. The powerful lasers fire upwards, striking the downward-facing solar array located on the climber, thereby powering the motors used to climb. Without the accurate tracking and focus of those lasers, however, it all goes downhill quickly, so the tech and software developed to maintain a steady connection becomes very important!

Team LaserMotive is already planning to return to the Games next year in hopes of cracking the speed barrier that this year kept them from garnering the full two million dollar prize available. They seem to be more than well on their way, giving us hope that one day we might look forward to routine rides into geosynchronous orbit.

…The doors open onto the Orbital Commerce Platform and the crowded car empties, is boarded by a few riders headed Earthside, begins the trip back. I notice I’ve stepped in someone’s gum. Again. The place looks like any other commuter station, dreary, aside from the stunning sight of Earth and the thick ribbons of elevator cable in the viewing ports set at regular intervals along the platform wall. I grab a cup of coffee (thank God) and a Kindle update at the corner kiosk and head for the office, already daydreaming of  the rush-hour ride down the ribbon.

NASA Centennial Challenges
Spaceward Foundation
Space Elevator Games.Org
LaserMotive