Editing Centennial Challenges (section)

===Power beam challenge===
[[Space elevator competitions|Power Beam competitions]] were held in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009. They were directed at space elevator applications. Teams built mechanical devices (climbers) that could propel themselves up a vertical cable. The power supply for the device was not self-contained but remained on the ground. The technical challenge was to transmit the power to the climber and transform it into mechanical motion, efficiently and reliably.

This was a competition to build a wirelessly-powered ribbon-climbing robot. The contest involves having the robot lift a large payload within a limited timeframe. The first competition in 2005 would have awarded US$50,000, US$20,000, and US$10,000 to the three best-performing teams, meeting the minimum benchmark of 1&nbsp;m/s. However, no team met this standard, with only two teams climbing under beam power. This prize also increased to US$200,000 in 2006, but no team was able to accomplish the full set of requirements. See [[Elevator:2010]] for more information on Power Beam Challenge as well as other challenges related to space elevator technologies.

In 2007 the prize money was raised to US$500,000 USD for this competition.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}

In the 2009 competition, the competitors drove their laser-powered devices up a cable one kilometer high, suspended from a helicopter. [[LaserMotive|LaserMotive LLC]] was awarded US$900,000 in the 2009 Power Beaming Challenge.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20091107095428/http://live.spaceelevatorgames.org/ Official results, as well as video and photography, are available at]</ref>