Enthusiasts on Friday unveiled an effort to establish an annual competition for space-elevator technologies, taking a page from the playbook for other high-tech contests such as the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
The U.S. goal of a human mission to Mars faces many hurdles, among them a shortage of space radiobiologists. It's a shortage NASA addressed in part with its first space radiation summer school, held last month at Brookhaven National Laboratory.