The Spaceward Foundation, who is about to run the 2006 Space Elevator games announcing ten-fold increase in NASA-provided prize purse, to $4,000,000 over the next 5 years. This lays the foundation to a solid 5-year plan that will foster the development of core Space Elevator technologies.
Mountain View, CA - The Spaceward Foundation in collaboration with NASA announced a significant expansion of the Power Beaming and Tether Challenges.
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.
The dream of a Space Elevator is a monumental one. A vision that will not only further space exploration and knowledge, but has the potential to shape the existential future of the human race for centuries to come.
The goal of the competition is to generate enough interest in the project, so that within five years, the Space Elevator basic building blocks can be demonstrated as feasible, and full-scale design and construction can begin.
The event is to be held annually in conjunction with the X-PRIZE Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico in October.
Such a structure could eventually permit delivery of great quantities of cargo and people to orbit, and with transportation costs of a fraction of the traditional methods of launching a payload into orbit.
Image credit: wikipedia
Via: spaceref
