LaserMotive won the Space Elevator Games 2009 and took home $900,000.00

Space Elevator Games 2009 was a three-day competition of various teams from private companies' space elevator projects. The game ran from November 4 to 6, 2009. And the result is what we expected to be from one of the best space elevator project in terms of speed and endurance.

LaserMotive, won three times in the three days of competing against Kansa's Space Pirates and University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST). They were the first teams to have lasted these competition, and the first to have produced a winner.

The team from Seattle, LaserMotive took home the first level prize of $900,000.00. These three teams competed for the $1.1 million and $900,000 prizes in this year's event.

LaserMotive made 4 runs of above 2m/s (6.6ft/s), an impressive climb considering that this is the first time a team has made the 1km mark, let alone qualify for one of the prizes! Their top time of 3-minutes 47-seconds was on Thursday, the last day of the competition.

The Space Elevator Games/Power Beaming Challenge are part of NASA's Centennial Challenges program, which provides monetary incentives for private companies to develop technologies in space-related fields.