How does one enter competitions like this?

I wish I could enter. Really, how does one enter a competition like this. Granted it's not something I know much about.

But hey, I've go an idea:
As we've already seen trains use Magnets to propell fowards at amazingly high speeds ie. "MagLev", couldn't you accomplish similar results by creating a MagLev Space Elevator that moves vertically instead of horizontally. As a result there would be minmal friction and you could potentially max out at much higher speeds. Hey you could potentially launch something into space with enough inertia, momentum, & speed for a fraction of the energy required & cost.

Am I crazy or could this be a possible solution???

Right now lasers are the most popular method of getting elevator up. The weight of the magnets used in mag-lev trains makes them prohibitively heavy for this use. Although some have suggested that if Bucky tubes were used it might be possible to pass current up the tubes them selves.

As for standing up an actual space bridge... There are several theories out there. My favorite involves "hanging" the bridge from an anchor, like a largish asteroid harvested from the belt between mars and Jupiter. The base of the elevator wouldn't actually touch the surface of the earth but hang in pacific ocean some where on the equator. One of the issues with this is no one is sure of the effects of static electricity on the cable since 62 miles of it will be the atmosphere. It would generate a charge just like a helicopter blade in dense dry air.

all in all there are many issues to over come but science is getting closer.

Once nanotechnology is perfected, the "cable" needed to suspend a line will not be an issue. Also, the cable itself will be anchored to the earth so it's grounded if any static charge develops. The lift energy could be separated to two stages: 1. use helium balloon(s) to lift the cargo up to its highest point, 2. then switch to lift cables from the station to reel up the platform/cargo the remaining distance. (if there is no time deadline...)

Well you start by using your google-fu

http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010

The idea has 2 main parts, the elevator and the tether/cable. The elevator part has an array of "laser solar cells" that collect the energy from the laser and are used to power the elevator as it climbs up.

The tether/cable is theoretically made out of carbon nanotubes so it's light enough to be strung between a space station in low orbit and a mobile, on-the-water "ground" station. The ground station has to be on the water and mobile so that it can be moved around space debris and around bad weather systems.

I like the theory posed by SonicRush. I would propose a technology similar to MagLev. It's called a RailGun and it involves rapidly accerating a projectile using superconducting magnets. The idea is that you accelerate an object to a fraction of the speed of light by using the magnets to rapidly pull the object through the chamber till it is shot out of the chamber. The RailGun concept is a military one, but I think the technology could be applicable to a space elevator system. My idea would be to create a vertical RailGun chamber, instead of launching a projectile weapon, it would be the space platform with applicable load. There may be problems with G forces for humans on board and exceeding of stress tolerances on equipment at that level of acceleration but certainly an interesting idea to play around with.

Blowing up the suface of the moon. Elevator to space! Why? I'm sure science can wait for us to destroy this
panet before we destroy out moon and who knows what else. I thought the moon belonged to everyone but somehow Nasa owns it. I didNt get a vote on sending bombs there.

"I thought the moon belonged to everyone but somehow Nasa owns it."
And there was me thinking the Moon was owned by the Earth. They both will still be here long after we're gone....

This competition has been going on for some time now so its nice to hear that they're actually making some headway with it.
To be honest, I think they should have already completed this task many years ago and saved $billions in upwards thrust fuel costs.

pLanet.
accerating. (rail gun is for rapid acceLerating. won't work. will climb carbon nanotube wire slowly.)

The big problem with the space elevator concept is that the strongest materials are not strong enough to support their weight against the force of gravity. As a result, to construct a space elevator requires an entirely new type of material that is much stronger than carbon nanotubes (which themselves are vastly stronger than usual construction materials such as steel). It is not clear that such materials exist at all.

This past week, I've seen someone use "search-fu" and now "Google-fu."

This silliness needs to stop. It isn't cool-fu; it's annoying-fu.

@Shut up fu
Sorry my good man but the fact that you are unfamiliar with a modality of communication is really your problem, not others.

Clearly your google-fu is weak or you would have understood this. Search-fu on the other hand is a misuse of the the suffix.

Hey, maybe its just me, but that 22,000 mile figure sounds way off. I mean the ISS holds orbit under 200 miles away from earth's surface, right? What need would a space elevator have to being out so far?

the 22000 mile cable is correct. the shuttle can orbit at 200 miles because it can circle the earth, but with a space elevator you would not want the cable wraping around the planet so you need to go out to geosyncronus orbit where an object can stay in orbit over the same point on the ground.

There's a spirited discussion of this on physorg - mainly between the "if you want it bad enough you can ignore any reality that intrudes and then call the other side names" set on one side and the engineers on the other.

Spcnow, what you described is a coilgun, not a railgun.

5 meters per second hardly seems sufficient for a 22,000 mile elevator.
(22,000/3)x5=36,666.66 kilometers, or 36,666,666.66 meters.
/5=7,333,333.33 seconds, which is 122,222.22 minutes, or 2037 hours, or 85 days.

days is right, the thing is, you are trading days to get something into orbital height, for the current way, which is use millions of dollars on rockets to get it there in a few days at most.
The 5 meters per second is a target in these small scale experimental projects. Once that is reached, the target will be a higher speed, dependent on stronger cables.

Once this was actually made, no one would be using rockets anymore except the military.

even with 85 days to get to geostationary orbit, it would be a huge savings in launching satellites of all kinds. Right now a huge rocket is built over a year or so, filled with expensive fuel, and used once to launch a few hundred pounds into orbit.

5 meters per second is really zipping along, considering it's got to be done with solar cells powered by a laser, and it's vertical, trying to grip a cable suspended by a helicopter and climb 1000 feet. It's 11 miles per hour.

Re: altitude. 22,000 miles is correct--that's geosynchronous orbit. The ISS, at 220 miles, orbits the earth every 90 minutes or so. At GEO, you orbit once every 24 hours--so your communications satellite or space elevator stay in one place over the surface. Otherwise, the base of the cable would be zooming along!

Re: bombing the moon. We didn't bomb the moon. We crashed an expended rocket into the surface, just like mother nature does all the time, with big rocks. Please, a little common sense???