Daily Archives: August 27, 2006

53 days and counting!

Elevator2010 has just sent out an email to its elevator2010-announcements list.  It is quoted below, in its entirety, thanks to the kind permission of Ben Shelef, co-founder of Elevator2010.  If you want to get these announcements directly, all you have to do is to subscribe to the Elevator2010 announcement list at their website – I encourage you to do so.  And Ben, thanks for the very kind words about this blog.

Hello folks, and greetings from Elevator Central.  It’s been a long time since our last update.

We are now a less than 2 months before the competition, and things are beginning to ramp up.

In this update:
– Formal venue announcement
– Multimedia Space Elevator CD-ROM
– Space Elevator Blog
– Qualification Week
– Details on how you can help with the competition
– IAC conference pointer

——-

X-PRIZE:
First and foremost, we have signed an MOU with the X-PRIZE foundation to hold the games at the X-PRIZE Cup in New Mexico on October 20th.  The Cup is the most natural place for us to hold the competition – a weekend dedicated to emerging space technologies.  Please check out their web site (
http://www.xprizecup.com).  We’d like to thank Peter Diamandis for his kind offer and cooperation!   This cup is a full-blown airshow style event, and we can think of no better way to spend the weekend – be there of be square!
CD-ROM:
In advance of the event, and in response to many requests, we have produced a Space Elevator Multi-Media CD-ROM which explains and illustrates the Space Elevator concept, its history, and Spaceward’s plans for advancing its cause.   The CD-ROM contains Alan Chan’s incredible computer generated Space Elevator movie, news coverage of last year’s competition, and a 50 minute narrated slideshow telling the story of the Space Elevator, starting in 1960 and continuing through today.  The CD-ROM, like the rest of our branded items, is available as a gift acknowledging your donation at
http://www.elevator2010.org/site/shop.html. We also talked Alan Chan into throwing in a trailer for one of his current Sci-Fi projects, “Postcards from the Future”.  Special thanks goes to Dave Carty, who produced the CD.

Space Elevator Blog:
There’s a new Space Elevator web site in town –
https://www.spaceelevatorblog.com.  Ted Semon has been doing a phenomenal job with this Blog, and he deserves your support – check it out.

Qualification Week:
As you know, we have a lot more teams registered this year than we had last year. ( 20 vs. 8 )  For this reason, we will be holding a “testing and qualification” week, on site, starting on 10/14. Only teams that can run successfully on a short 30-foot test track will move on to the main 200-foot event. For those of you who want to experience the competition up-close and personal, we’re looking for volunteers to help during that week – see below for details.

Volunteer:
We are looking to expand our staff of volunteers now, since the work pace is picking up. If you think you can help and have the time, please contact us at
elevator2010 AT spaceward.org. There are three types of help we’re looking for:

1. Work that needs to be done between now and the show.  We need help with planning, engineering work, general office work, and planning.  Did we mention planning?
2. Help with running the qualification week (10/14 – 10/22).  This is the core volunteer group that will help run the event.  We will meet several times in the period leading to the competition, but the bulk of the work will be during that week, full time, on site.  Example includes: video shoot and narration, technical hands, forklift and general driving, etc.  A volunteer RV will depart Mountain View on 10/13 (Friday evening) and drive back 10/22 (Sunday evening)
3. Help during the show itself (10/20 – 10/21). This will include helping with various tasks at the event itself:

We will publish a more specific list of positions we need in the coming weeks, but if you have the ability to contribute time, please let us know now.

IAC:
Finally, for our fans in Europe, we’d like to point out this year IAC conference, to be held on October 6th in Valencia, Spain. Other then being a great international space forum, the conference will have a full Space Elevator session.  The conference home page is at
http://www.iafastro.com/index.php?id=78
That’s it for this update.  We do have a few more things cooking, but we’re going to hold off on those until they’re ready, and this will give us good reason to send another update your way soon (rather than wait 3 months)

As usual, our links:

Spaceward:  http://www.spaceward.org
Elevator2010:  http://www.elevator2010.org
Shop/Donations:  http://www.elevator2010.org/site/shop.html

Cheers,

  Ben, Meekk, and the test of the Spaceward crew.
_______________________________________________
Elevator2010-announcements mailing list
Elevator2010-announcements AT spaceward.org
http://www.spaceward.org/mailman/listinfo/elevator2010-announcements

The Thrill of Flying High

In this Indian (sub-continent, not Native American) online newspaper article, Dr. S. S. Verma discusses various space technologies, including Space Elevators.  I thought it interesting because it’s just another indication of how far and wide this idea has spread.

IMHO, India is going to be a world power in the not-too-distant future.  They will certainly have the technical capabilities to build a Space Elevator, once it becomes possible.  And paraphrasing Robert Heinlein; “the laws of Physics work for everyone”.