A slow day at the fairgrounds today.  It was rainy all day so not much could be done outside.  Instead, workers concentrated on getting Climbers Row and other indoor facilities into shape.

Still no news on the German team’s TurboCrawler lifter.  It appears that we can’t even find out whether or not their Lifter has been released from Customs or not.  So, we don’t know if it is actually on the last leg of its journey to Las Cruces or still stuck in LA Customs.  Without knowing all the ins and outs of the situation, its hard to make a definitive judgment on why this snafu occurred, but it certainly doesn’t reflect well on our country’s hospitality (or our competence).  If the Lifter isn’t released until Monday, it won’t make it to Las Cruces until the last possible moment, giving the Germans almost no time to get it in the shape they want for the competition.

One other note; the USST team called the Elevator2010 crew today and said that they were crossing Wisconsin on the way to Las Cruces.  This means that they’ve made it past Customs at the US – Canadian border and so, presumably, will arrive on time and intact.

More teams are expected to arrive tomorrow.

The first members of the Elevator2010 Team, Ben Shelef (Spaceward Foundation and Elevator2010 CEO), Dave Carty (Launch Director) and Benjamin Bakhshi (Intern), have, after a long and grueling 20-hour drive from California, arrived onsite with a truck full of equipment.  They report that things at the site “look good”.

The Kansas City Space Pirates have arrived in force.  Team Captain Brian Turner has brought along his younger sister, his mother, his father, his stepfather, the neighbor’s kids, the neighbor’s kid’s mother, etc., 15 in all.  They arrived in a convoy consisting of 3 trucks and 2 trailers and are now working on fine-tuning their Solar Concentrator mirror array, a truly impressive structure.  They have twenty (count them, 20) mirrors; each sporting a dimension of 10 feet by 4 feet.  These will be tuned to produce a spot that is only 3 feet in diameter.  This will be further concentrated on the climber (by a factor of 30) by use of a parabolic trough.  This beam will then be focused on water-cooled, high-power solar cells.  In my opinion, it’s either going to run like a bat out of hell or burn their climber to a crisp 🙂  The photo shows some of the Space Pirate Mirror Arrays – Brian’s mom is in the background and, on the Elevator2010 website, you can see her hauling one of the mirrors around – click on the photo to view a larger version of it.

The German TurboCrawler team is in a bind, however.  Their equipment has failed to clear customs in Los Angeles and, with them needing to set it up ASAP for their Qualification runs, they  have a problem indeed.  Dave Carty from the Elevator2010 team is working with them and with Customs to try and get this sorted out ASAP.  Let’s wish our German friends luck, and, if you know someone at LA Customs, shoot off an email to Ben Shelef (ben AT spaceward.org).

Also, Ben reports that Creative Media Institute, who is documenting the competition, is also onsite and taking it all in.

More tomorrow !

An article from the Ottawa Citizen about the UBC entry for the 2006 Space Elevator Games.

Here’s an article from the Ottawa Citizen discussing the unveiling of Team Snowstar’s entry in this year’s Space Elevator Games.

And here’s another article from CBCNews on the same topic.

It’s starting to happen!  The Elevator2010 team is now on the road to Las Cruces and should be arriving tomorrow, Friday, around noon.  Others are also beginning to converge; the Kansas City Space Pirates are on site and the German Team (TurboCrawler) should also be there by now.

This is so cool – a year’s worth of hard work is beginning to pay off!

The Snowstar team is officially unveiling their lifter for this year’s Space Elevator Games.  The posting discusses the media preview (to be held on October 12th only) and has several photos available for download.

In last year’s competition, Team Snowstar was voted “Most Likely to Win” in this year’s competition and they are sure to make a strong showing this year.

Only 10 more days until the start of the Space Elevator Games.  I’m not associated with any of the Climber or Tether teams, but I can imagine the frantic pace they’re working at now to finalize their entries. 

The Climber competition seems to get most of the attention and there’s no doubt that it will be visually very appealing – watching each team’s entry as it attempts to climb faster and with more weight than their competitors.  But I think the tether competition is going to be very interesting, too.  As Michael Remington of Team Astroaraneae puts it “The tether competition will be head-to-head, while the lifter competition is essentially a time-trial.”  As of now, there are three tether competitors who definitely will be there and two more who may or may not make it.

In the tether competition, two tethers will be mounted on a pulling mechanism.  The pulling mechanism will do its thing while the tethers will be trying to stay in one piece.  The scoring mechanism is essentially a measuring and lockout circuit; it will measure when one of the tethers breaks or stretches more than allowed.  When this happens, a signal will be sent to light up a lamp signifying the winner (the other tether, of course), while the lockout circuit will prevent the winning tether from lighting up the other lamp.  Matches are best two out of three.  Tethers may weigh no more than two grams.

A two-gram “House tether” may be used as one of the competitors in order to create evenly numbered brackets.  This depends on how many competitors show up.  If there are four entries (a distinct possibility), they’ll be divided into two brackets of two each to compete, with the two winners competing against each other for the right to compete for a chance to win the prize.

Once a head-to-head winner has been declared, it will be matched against a three-gram House tether.  If it can beat this tether, then it will be awarded the $200,000.00 Prize money.  As the House tether will weigh 50% more than the competitors tether (three grams vs. two grams), this means that the competitors tether must be 50% stronger than the House tether to win the prize.

The plan is to increase the strength requirements each year (as well as including new requirements when appropriate).  Teams know this; Patrick Littlejohn of Team Snowstar states; “The Snowstar Tether group has been working since January 2006, with an emphasis on extensive testing in order to get the best results out of conventional materials. As the competition progresses through 2010, we hope to incorporate more and more next gen materials into our research and development until one day a working elevator is a reality.  If we win, we will be throwing one hell of a party.”

The official tether competition rules can be found here and this year’s tether entrants can be found here.

The latest from the Spaceward Foundation:

Hello Folks.It took till now, but we’ve finally been given permission to share with you a bit of very good news.NASA’s Centennial Challenges program has increased its commitment to our project, and we now have a total of $4,000,000 in prize purse to disburse over the next 5 years. Yes, that’s right – 10 times the purse we’ve had so far, and a solid commitment through 2010 – two things which will enable us to take our program to the next level.To make the most efficient and prudent use of these funds, we will follow an escalating prize purse strategy – this year’s prize purse will remain $200,000 per each of our two competitions, increasing to $300,000 in 2007, and so on, until we reach $600,000 in 2010. Any unwon prizes (and we do not intend to have a winner every year – that will mean we have made it too easy!) will automatically roll over to the following year.Still, the same catch that applied last year will continue to apply in the years to come – NASA provides us with the prize money, but not with operating funds. In order to bring our operations to a level that matches the prize purse, we need to get commercial sponsorship.We’re therefore asking you, our fan base, to act as our ambassadors. We have started a phenomenon that spawns the nation and the globe. This year’s games are an order of magnitude larger than last year’s, and we have every opportunity to take the 2007 games literally through the roof – but it all depends on how well we perform this year, both technically and commercially.

Ben Shelef of Spaceward and Elevator2010 gives us the latest goings-on for the upcoming Space Elevator Games.  Lots of info here – be sure to read it all. 

Hello folks, and greetings from Elevator Central.

In this issue:

– I&Q week – the place to be.
– Status report.
– Sponsorship opportunities at the games.
– Volunteers for Las Cruces.
– Special thanks.

* I&Q week

Probably the most interesting part of the games this year will not happen during the competition itself, but during the week leading to it.  In this week, we will set up a little “Olympic village”, at the county fairgrounds next to the airport. The purpose of this week is for the teams to assemble and integrate their Space Elevator climbers with our track infrastructure.  Since many of the teams are driving to the competition in RVs, the Space Elevator village will take on a very special character – this is where people from all over the world, who have spent the last year pursuing the same dream, will get a chance to meet for the first time and work together towards making that dream come true. We expect some rivalry, of course, but as one of the team members expressed himself in an email not too long ago, the real competition is with the skeptics out there. Based on our experience with the teams of last year, this will be a very special time.  We want this to become the beginning of a yearly Space Elevator tradition where the Space Elevator community gets together to exchange ideas.

I&Q week (Integration and Qualification) will also determine which teams are good enough to participate in the competition itself.  In order to qualify, the teams have to complete a 30′ ascent at a quarter of the competition minimum speed – slightly less than 1 foot per second.  We wish all 12 teams the best of luck!

* Status report

With 12 climber and 4 tether teams remaining in the running, the competition is promising to be a high-octane event.  We don’t want to spill too many beans, but let’s just say that from what we already know, Ken Davidian from NASA’s Centennial Challenges program had better get these large cardboard checks printed nice and pretty…   and get a pen to sign them!

Climber row, our 2-day Space Elevator museum at the X-Prize Cup, is shaping up beautifully – 200′ long, 30′ wide, and 30′ tall, it will barely be large enough able to contain the climbers, many of which span more than 15′ in diameter. The race track is coming along nicely too, with help from Dave Carty (the same guy that created the Space Elevator multimedia CDs). Roger Gilbertson of the bay area robotics society has agreed to be our MC, and will be narrating the event and interviewing our guests throughout the two competition days.

* Sponsorship opportunities

We have been shy so far about getting sponsorship for the games, frankly, because we did not know how well the competition will shape up. (Rather go unsponsored than not deliver on what we promise – right?) Well – we are now very confident that the competition will be spectacular, so are opening up sponsorship opportunities.  If you or your company like Space Education projects, think the Space Elevator is important, and would like exposure to 25,000 of space-curious spectators and all the who’s who of Space 2.0 – please check out the information at http://www.elevator2010.org/site/sponsorshipXP.html 

Large business or small, private or corporate, we have an option that will work for you. 

* Volunteers for Las Cruces

As mentioned before, we’re looking for on-site help at Las Cruces. An advanced team will arrive at Las Cruces on or about 10/12, and will start working setting up I&Q week at the fairgrounds.  If you are a resident of Las Cruces or El Paso, or if you want to join us for the entire week, please email us.

Our travel schedule is not final yet, but we will be able to pick up people along the Bay area – Los Angeles – Phoenix – Tucson – Las Cruces route.   Please include the date from which you can be available.

* Special thanks

We’d like to thank so much the exceptional people of Las Cruces who are making this possible by going all out and giving us a hand:

– Mayor Bill Mattiace.
– County engineer Jorge Granados.
– Ken Wooten of Wooten construction.
– Phil Cordova of Alliance Riggers & Constructors in El Paso.
– Jon Benson and Mark Medoff of New Mexico State University Creative Media Institute.
– Pat Hynes of New Mexico State University and New Mexico Space Grant Consortium.
– Peter Diamandis and the X-Prize Crew, including Rick Winquest, Mike Kelly, Paul Birkeland, and Nicole Jordan – without whom none of this would have been possible.

* As usual…

Our web site:  http://www.spaceward.org/
Space Elevator competition:  http://www.elevator2010.org/
Our web shop:  http://www.elevator2010.org/site/shop.html
——–

That’s that for this update… 3 Weeks and counting – we hope to see you soon in Las Cruces.

Sincerely,

  The Spaceward Crew

I learned today that Dr. Bradley Edwards is in the final stages of releasing two new books relating to the Space Elevator.  The first, written in conjunction with Phil Ragan, is a book dedicated to explaining the concept of the Space Elevator to the layman.  It’s entitled “Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator“.

The second book is co-edited by Dr. Edwards and David Raitt and is a collection of Sci-Fi stories resulting from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) contest for young authors who wanted to write about the Space Elevator.  It’s entitled “Running the Line“.  I had posted about this contest earlier.  The ESA story about this contest can be found here.

Dr. Edwards is planning on bringing several cases of these books to the upcoming Space Elevator Games so you can get an autographed copy of these books there (which is what I’m planning on doing).  They will also be available via Amazon (and other places, I’m sure) and when they’re out, I’ll post a follow-up.

This is great news – I’m really looking forward to both of these books!