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Canada rising to NASA's space elevator challenge
Two Canadian teams are front-runners for a $2-million prize in a NASA-sponsored power-beaming contest in California.
Our 21st century civilization is facing serious challenges with climate change, energy, growing population, limited food production and diminishing water resources. We need innovative ideas to engineer our way out of this situation. And Canada has some of the best engineering schools on the planet, as they are discovering this week in California.
A Canadian technology company, Thoth Technology Inc., is looking to create a space elevator from hundreds of inflatable Kevlar tubes - a lightweight polyethylene material with a thickness of only a few centimeters. The elevator would carry passengers to the very edge of space. Full story and video below:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...25?hub=SciTech