The second annual Space Elevator games in Las Cruces, N.M did not have any winner this year as judges decided not to award the $200,000 prize, that was up for grabs, to any of the participants.
The Space Elevator competition was organized by Ben Shelef, an executive with the Spaceward Foundation, with a view to boost the private development of space tourism and technology used for space exploration.
The two-day event that ended on Sunday had about 20 teams competing with each other in three major events, the Space Elevator Games being one of them and the Lunar Lander Challenge, the Vertical Lander Challenge being the other two, with the X Prize Cup and the $2.5 million being the prize money offered by NASA.
Although none of the teams were declared winners, the University of Saskatchewan Team (USST) was just two seconds short of winning the prize, as they managed to climb 200-foot- high carbon fiber ribbon in two seconds over the time allotted to them.
When informed about the results, Matthew Evans, USST president said, "We were very excited we did as well as we did."
"We came so close, but didn't get it. It was fair. You couldn't get it any more precise. We just needed a little more power from the spotlights," added Evans.
Shelef, however, added, "You have to understand, this is a brand new thing," he said. "For year one, we attracted seven teams and didn't climb the tether. This year we had four teams make it up to the top, and one came very close to claiming the prize. We didn't want to make the competition too easy and we can't make it too hard, so it looks like we are walking the line."
None of the teams were able to win the tether competition as well (another $200,000 challenge) that involved making the tether strong enough to carry an elevator to space.
Since there were no winners for both the events this time, Shelef declared that the prize money would roll over to next year, with the power-beam climber competition as well as the tether competition giving away $500,000 as the prize money.
"Next year we will go twice as high, and they will need to go twice as fast," Shelef said.
