Daily Archives: March 8, 2008

Weltraumaufzug

Weltraumaufzug – this is how you say/write “Space Elevator” in German.  In the most recent episode of the German TV series ‘Quarks‘, the concept of the Space Elevator is explored.

I don’t speak German, so I can’t give you a word by word description of what the show was about, but for anyone who is at all familiar with the concept of a Space Elevator, most of the show will be very understandable.  IMHO, it’s really well done – the graphics and animations, some of which I’ve not seen before, are first-rate.

It’s not on YouTube (at least not yet 🙂 ), so I can’t link to it that way.  However, you can view the show here.  Maximize the screen size.  You can watch the entire show (which covers many subjects besides a Space Elevator), or you can just click on the ‘Weltraumaufzug’ link on the left-hand side to go directly to the Space Elevator episode.

The show spends some time talking about a Climber vehicle being created by some German University students.  I don’t recognize the Climber – it wasn’t the TurboCrawler entry into the 2006 Games and there is no German entry into this year’s Games (at least not yet).  I’ve emailed the show’s producer to ask her about it – when I find out, I’ll either post an update here or else will put it on a separate post.

And by the way, the videos of the 2007 Space Elevator Games at the beginning of the TV episode were all taken by yours truly.  Many of the teams and their climbers are shown.

Watch the show.  Even if you don’t speak German, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

(The picture is a screen capture from the show – click on it for a larger version (or watch the show 🙂 )