The hope is still strong that one day, relatively cheap travel beyond the confines of Earth and her atmosphere lies in space elevator technology. The idea is that instead of burning up rocket fuel to get into orbit, future space payloads could just be shuffled up a giant tether. And on the forefront of this technology, and the closest to claiming NASA's $2 million space elevator prize is a group called the Kansas City Space Pirates and their robot named Maryann.