UBC students create elevator to heavens

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Vancouver: UBC students create elevator to heavens

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In an episode reminiscent of a past South Park episode, titled "A Ladder to Heaven," Stan, Kyle and Cartman want their dead friend Kenny back so badly, they'll try anything. They decide to build a ladder to Heaven where they expect to find Kenny and bring him back to South Park. Now UBC students may succeed where Carl, Kyle and Stan failed. A success if it comes to fruition will make South Park creators proud.

Vancouver Sun 

A prototype space elevator developed by students at the University of British Columbia will compete in Utah later this month for a $500,000 prize sponsored by NASA.

An elevator to space may sound like science fiction. But scientists hope it may someday be possible. In the same way you can spin a ball on a piece of string around your head, a super-strong tether attached to a counter-weight in space should stay in place because of the spinning of the Earth.

An elevator car could then be attached to the tether - carrying satellites into orbit at a fraction of the current cost. Such an elevator would be far more efficient than rockets or shuttles because more than 90 per cent of their weight is fuel.

UBC Snowstar team captain Damir Hot has great expectations for their prototype of a solar powered space elevator.View Larger Image View Larger Image

UBC Snowstar team captain Damir Hot has great expectations for their prototype of a solar powered space elevator.

A working space elevator would require a super-strong tether about 100,000 kilometres long - and a self-propelled device capable of climbing the 30,000 kilometres into orbit.

But NASA is starting small - offering its prize to any team that can design a prototype capable of climbing a 120-metre tether in less than a minute, the equivalent of two metres a second. The catch: The prototype can't carry any fuel, instead receive its power beamed from the ground.

Some of the 20 teams in the competition are using lasers or microwave beams. The UBC team, called Snowstar, is relying on the sun. The team has designed an array of reflective mirrors that will send a concentrated beam of sunlight straight up to the prototype, where dozens of solar panels will power its electric motor.

This is the third year NASA has run its space elevator competition and UBC's team is one of the few to have competed in each one. Each year, the goals get tougher and the prize gets bigger.

Last year, for example, prototypes were required to ascend just 60 metres in a minute for a $150,000 prize. So far, no prototype has met the minimum standards and no prize has been won.

Damir Hot, Snowstar's captain, said their prototype this year is slightly more advanced - with better solar cells, for example. But the team's main focus this year has been relentless testing - making sure every element of the device works as expected. That hasn't always been easy. Most of the cranes capable of holding a 120-metre tether are booked out months in advance by the city's movie industry. And, as Vancouverites know, sunlight here is in short supply.

"Vancouver is difficult," said Hot. "We have to work around it... That's why concentrated sunlight helps."

In part due to those restrictions, the UBC team hasn't done a full-scale test of its prototype.

However, Hot said a partial test using less than half the device's systems was able to reach speeds of 1.2 metres a second - giving the team hope it can win.

About 25 undergraduate students at UBC are part of the Snowstar project and all of them volunteer their time. None of them receives any class credit for their work on the project and, unless they win the big prize, none of them gets paid.

Hot estimates his team has put in 10,000 hours on the project over the past few months.

Colin Janssen, one of the team members, said as the competition date draws near, some students have spent 20 or more hours a week in the lab.

"Just this past weekend, Saturday and Sunday, I was here for a total of 13 hours," he said. "I put off a lot of homework that I should have been handing in today. But it's all worth it."

The competition will be held near Salt Lake City from Oct. 19 to 21.[/q]

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