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EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) - A laser-powered robot failed to complete its climb up a long cable dangling from a helicopter Wednesday in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators.
The highly technical contest brought teams from Missouri, Alaska and Seattle to Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert, most familiar to the public as a space shuttle landing site.
The contest requires their machines to climb 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high.
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