anchor in the western equatorial Pacific, construction costs, construction schedule, and environmental hazards. 21st century To speed space elevator development, proponents have organized several competitions, similar to the Ansari X Prize, for relevant technologies. Among them are Elevator:2010, which organized annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems from 2005 to 2009, the Robogames Space Elevator Ribbon Climbing competition, as well as NASA's Centennial Challenges program, which, in March 2005, announced a partnership with the Spaceward Foundation (the operator of Elevator:2010), raising the total value of prizes to US$400,000. The first European Space Elevator Challenge (EuSEC) to establish a climber structure took place in August 2011. In 2005, "the LiftPort Group of space elevator companies announced that it will be building a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant in Millville, New Jersey, to supply various glass, plastic and metal companies with these strong materials. Although LiftPort hopes to eventually use carbon nanotubes in the construction of a space elevator, this move will allow it to make money in the short term and conduct research and development into new production methods." Their announced goal was a space elevator launch in 2010. On February 13, 2006, the LiftPort Group announced that, earlier the same month, they had tested a mile of "space-elevator tether" made of carbon-fiber composite strings and fiberglass tape measuring wide and 1 mm (approx. 13 sheets of paper) thick, lifted with balloons. In April 2019, Liftport CEO Michael Laine admitted little progress has been made on the company's lofty space elevator ambitions, even after receiving more than $200,000 in seed funding. The carbon nanotube manufacturing facility that Liftport announced in 2005 was never built. In 2007, Elevator:2010 held the 2007 Space Elevator games, which featured US$500,000 awards for each of the two competitions, ($1,000,000 total) as well as an additional $4,000,000 to be awarded over the next five years for space elevator related technologies. No teams won the competition, but a team from MIT entered the first 2-gram (0.07 oz), 100-percent carbon nanotube entry into the competition. Japan held an international conference in November 2008 to draw up a timetable for building the elevator. In 2012, the Obayashi Corporation announced that it could build a space elevator by 2050 using carbon nanotube technology. The design's passenger climber would be able to reach the GEO level after an 8-day trip. Further details have been published in 2016. In 2013, the International Academy