'Space' climber — almost

FARMINGTON — A futuristic "climber" built by a university team from Saskatchewan, Canada, came within seven seconds of winning a $500,000 prize in a space-elevator competition.

"We're pretty thrilled here," said Ben Sheles, CEO of the nonprofit Spaceward Foundation of Mountain View, Calif., sponsor of the Spaceward Games 2007 competition. He wished the Canadian team could have won, but it was a great attempt, he said.

"This is a breakthrough. Nobody in the history of NASA or whatever ever transferred that much power using laser," he said. NASA has been encouraging the competition.

"They did it under field conditions, time pressure, (with a) moving target." The target, weighing about 45 pounds, climbed more than 300 feet up a "ribbon" suspended from a crane. He estimated that the laser mounted on top of a container trailer transferred "400 watts over a distance of 100 meters" (about 325 feet) onto the target.

"This is a lot more than we expected."

Because the prize went unclaimed for a second year, the money will be applied to next year's competition. In 2008, a winning team could walk away with $900,000 cash.

The games, staged at the Davis County Events Center, were designed to test technology that might be used someday to "beam" material into orbit. The theory is that a satellite in stationary orbit, hovering over a spot on Earth, could be tethered to the ground by a cable. Microwaves, solar rays or lasers would be focused on a platform traveling to the satellite.

The platform's receivers would convert the beam into mechanical power. Using that energy, the platform and its cargo would zip upward on the cable. This technology is supposed to cost so little that the "space elevator" would be an inexpensive way to get material into orbit.

In the tests, a crane stretched 320 feet above the ground, securing the top of a ribbon, which was about four inches wide. The ribbon's other end was anchored to the ground. The climbers ascended the ribbon.

The nonprofit Spaceward Corp. is funding the yearly games, which were located in Utah for the first time. To win, a climber of under 60 pounds had to reach the top of the ribbon at a speed of about 6.5 feet a second, or around 50 seconds. It then had to return to the ground in a controlled descent.

The nearly winning climber was fielded by the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team. The group goes by USST, with the "D" left out because, one team member said, "it sounds a little better." Some members are graduates while others are attending the university.