Light Racers Registration Opens

Spaceward Foundation News Bulletin
PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ted Semon
Spaceward Foundation, Mountain View, Calif.
ted@spaceward.org
(630) 240-4797




MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA; JULY 30 2007 - The Spaceward Foundation opened registration today for the 2007 Great Light Racer Championship.

The Light Racers Championship, a space technology competition, challenges kids, young adults and grown ups to design, build, and race beam-powered lunar rovers that could help NASA get to the ice deposits located in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar poles.

Total prize purse this year is $10,000, and registration has just opened. See http://www.LightRacers.org for details.

"We are thrilled to have a competition designed specifically for kids - reaching out to the scientists and engineers of the future is the most important thing we can do" said Meekk Shelef, president of the Spaceward Foundation. “We already had a high-school team at the Space Elevator games, but this competition is all about the young students”.

The finals will be held together with Spaceward’s $4,000,000 Space Elevator games at the Davis County Event Center just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. The qualifying rounds will start on October 15, and the event will be open to the public between October 19 and October 21. See http://www.spaceward.org for details.

“The Light Racers take the concept of power beaming, which is one of the cornerstones of the Space Elevator design, and illustrate how the same technology is useful on a much nearer-term project.” said Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation. “It is impressive to see how many of the real-life consideration that will go into a beam-powered lunar rover design are tackled by the kids participating in the Light Racer project”.

The Light Racers are also being developed as a platform for teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) to middle and high school students.

For media resources and information visit http://www.spaceward.org/press.html, call (630) 240-4797, or email ted@spaceward.org.

The Spaceward Foundation is a public-funds, non-profit organization dedicated
to furthering space science and technology in the public mindshare and in educational curriculums. We believe that expanding mankind's habitat is essential to its survival, and that the most effective way to induce long-term change is through education.

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Registration for the Great Light Racer Championship is now open – Finals to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 19 – October 21.

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The Spaceward Foundation is a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit dedicated to furthering Space exploration in educational curriculums and the public mindshare - http://www.spaceward.org.
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