Alpena native and electrical engineer Steve Beland of Lake Forest Park, Wash., has won a share of a $900,000 prize for successfully competing in a recent high tech Space Elevator Competition.
Funded by a NASA program to explore bold technology, the contest is intended to encourage development of the science fiction concept of space elevators as a way to reach space without the risk and expense of rockets.
Beland was a part of a LaserMotive team that designed a robot powered by a ground-based laser beam enabling it to climb a long cable dangling from a helicopter. Teams, including ones from Missouri and Alaska, traveled to Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert to compete, a place most familiar to the public as a space-shuttle landing site.
The contest required machines to climb 2,953 feet up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high. The vehicle designed by Beland's LaserMotive team zipped up to the top in just over four minutes and immediately repeated the feat, which qualified it for the $900,000 prize.
The next challenge for the team is to complete the feat in under four, or even three minutes, to qualify the team for a $1.1 million prize, in addition to the $900,000.
Beland, the son of Joe and Kay Beland of Alpena, is a 1981 graduate of Alpena High School and a 1986 graduate of Michigan Technological University with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. He received a master's degree in systems engineering in 2006 from the University of Missouri Rolla (now called Missouri University of Science & Technology).
Beland has worked on the development of flight control systems for large commercial transport airplanes in Seattle since graduation from MTU. He is a recognized industry expert in the safety of complex airplane systems, and has published papers and substantially contributed to writing industry standards for design assurance of complex electron hardware.
"I got interested in the space elevator project while working on a graduate degree in systems engineering doing course work online while working my day job and raising a family," Beland said. "I was writing a few papers on complex system engineering topics and sometimes used the space elevator as an example to illustrate points made in the systems engineering ideas proposed in the papers."
In the pursuit of this graduate work, Beland became acquainted with Tom Nugent, now LaserMotive president, and sought his input on the research. When Nugent and Jordin Kare, now LaserMotive chief scientist, decided to form a team in late 2006, Nugent invited him to attend the first meeting in a coffee shop with a few others and the adventure began.
The LaserMotive team has a core of about a dozen people, ranging from physics doctorates, technicians, a machine-shop owner (Twin Tec), a software company owner (Coolearth Software), and engineers, all surrounded by lots of support from family and friends. Beland at one point even pulled in his father to help with the project.
"My dad helped out during a visit on Labor Day weekend in 2008 as we built a treadmill to test our climber," he said.
The lasers used in the team's project are infrared and not visible, but very powerful. They have an output of several million laser pointers all working together.
"I have personally cooked hotdogs with the lasers a couple times," Beland said. "We were testing the lasers in our lab and we didn't want to waste the energy so we put some hotdogs on a stick to take advantage of the opportunity, and then repeated the delicious feat for the contest organizer."
Nugent and Kare, as LaserMotive's founders, share a passion for laser-power beaming and its potential applications. The team brought 10 people to California for the competition, including Beland.
