Daily Archives: May 24, 2006

Space Elevator

In this article from Texas A&M Engineering, the Centennial Challenge competition is briefly discussed.  The article talks about an unnamed team, which I believe is the Canadian Snowstar team.  With all the teams coming from Texas, one would think they would have discussed one of them.

BrickHeap Wars Space Elevator Challenge Results

This is cool.  Last Saturday there was a Space Elevator robot challenge, held in the Seattle area.  Several teams competed to build Lifters out of identical Lego Kits.  The objective was to climb a “Space Elevator” (a 7 foot long, 2 inch wide nylon ribbon) to deliver a “payload” (golfballs) to the “satellite” (a large brass ring).

Lots of pictures and videos at this website.

The space elevator: going down?

In this Nature.com article, the author cites a study by Nicola Pugno of the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, which indicates that carbon nanotubes are not strong enough to make a Space Elevator because of their “inevitable defects”.  And, he says, even if the defect problem could be overcome, “damage from micrometeorites and even erosion by oxygen atoms would render them weak. So can a space elevator be made? “With the technology available today? Never,” he says.”

This article has, obviously, generated quite a stir.  Some of the debate can be seen over at the Yahoo Space Elevator forum.