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Space Sci-Fi

ESA Announces Space Elevator Sci-Fi Contest 27

Posted by michael from the beanstalk dept.
Neil Halelamien writes "The European Space Agency has announced the 2005 Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction competition. For the competition, the ESA's Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications (ITSF) project is accepting short stories and artwork which incorporates or depicts a space elevator in some way. The competition is open to members of all nations, with a submission deadline of February 25, 2005. Winners and runners-up in each category will receive $600 and $300 respectively, with winning entries appearing in an upcoming book on the space elevator."
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ESA Announces Space Elevator Sci-Fi Contest More

ESA Announces Space Elevator Sci-Fi Contest

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  • Prize money (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Red Moose ( 31712 )
    So that's 3.50 and 1.75 in current exchange rates. Enough for a wrap and maybe a smoothie here in Ireland, probably the $600 and $300 will help a few hundred American's buy houses or maybe a gallon of petrol.

  • Building it... (Score:3, Informative)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:45PM (#11107307) Homepage
    will not be the problem I think, but producing so much high-quality carbon nanotubes will be a real challenge.

  • Rainbow Mars (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @01:49PM (#11107369) Homepage
    Everyone who is interested in space elevators may also be interested in the book Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven, which features a (sort of) organic space elevator; a tree that grows from a planet far into space. Nice story.
    • That was my first thought given given this article is from the "Beanstalk dept."

      -- John.
    • Charles Sheffield has an excellent description of building a space elevator in his book "Web Between the Worlds". Building it is a major difficulty as it is a structure in tension; you can't just pile stuff on the top until you are high enough.
      • Yeah, this tree in Niven's book solved that problem by bringing its seed in a stationary orbit and have it grow a root and a stem in opposite directions.

  • Get the word out (Score:2, Insightful)

    by AndreySeven ( 840823 )
    A lot of people that I have talked to about this, simply dismiss it as science fiction, even thought in one for or another it could be feasible(with a few breakthroughs in technology).

    Maybe this will let more people know about the ideas, especially scientists.

  • This is the lowest budget ad campaign I ever saw (Score:5, Insightful)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @02:23PM (#11107949) Journal
    But even more annoying is the misuse of the names of some SF writers whose genius foresaw technology when engineers had not yet dreamed of it.

    Instead of just using the names to promote an existing project that needs some PR, why not have a contest more in the spirit of those writers and ask for a work of SF that predicts some technology we have not heard of yet?
    • misuse of the names of some SF writers

      Whoa, hold yer horses. Have you RTF endorsements of the contest by Clarke and Bradbury on their website?

      existing project that needs some PR

      Wish it were so, but we're far from that. We've barely reached the point where the possibility of actually building it is being taken seriously at all.
      • I should have spent a few more words saying what I meant....I did not mean that the names were used without permission. I meant that those names, because they are associated with imaginations that LEAD technical developments, set up an expectation about the contest which was contrary to the nature of the contest [which nature we can charitably describe as reacting to technical developments.]
        write briefly, explain at length:(
        The space tehter idea has some visibility...it was the cover story on a SciAm thi
        • Fair enough, I understand your sentiment. I just don't think that requiring that the story features a space elevator in some way is all that restrictive. Not trivial in fact to think of an SF story into which a space elevator couldn't be happily worked in. If you want to be wild and imaginative, how about a story about what will *replace* space elevators in some far future?
  • $600 eh, cheaper than hiring engineers I guess.
  • I doubt that any of them will be better than the master.

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