The challenge was nominally for determining feasibility of a space elevator as there was a sister challenge for making high strength/weight cables (it had a big

The challenge was nominally for determining feasibility of a space elevator as there was a sister challenge for making high strength/weight cables (it had a bigger problem of the DOD snapping up the promising teams to work on armor every year). If you keep the power down to the order of 10x sunlight, it doesn’t make a very good weapon.