So you can jump on a rocket and get blasted into outer space or you can hit a button and take an elevator ride up into orbit.  Whoa. A space elevator?  Well the idea is cool but practically it isn’t quite there yet but someday in the future it might be possible.  Scientists have been thinking for a while about the idea of having a satellite up in space in something called a ‘geosynchronous’ orbit.  Meaning that the satellite stays in one place.  Then you drop a line from the satellite to the Earth and pull yourself up!  What you need are long very very strong lines and that is where nanotechnology comes in.  Carbon nanotubes!  stronger than steel.

A bunch of engineers who got a robot to climb up a cable hung down from a helicopter that was almost a mile off the ground.  They used solar cells to power the robot and qualified to win the $2,000,000 prize.  Who says science doesn’t pay!