I’ve received two updates from Bert Murray, captain of the NSS Space Elevator team.

The first is about a BBC TV show that their climber was featured on.  The show series is “James May Big Idea: Power to the People“.  I had blogged about the making of this show, before, in April – and it’s finally made it to the small screen.  Unfortunately, you can only see it if you are a UK resident.  If you are, drop me a line / comment to let me know what it looked like (or send me the YouTube link 🙂 ).

From the show notes:

Continuing his journey to the US, James encounters a group of dedicated aerospace engineers who are planning to make a lift that will reach 20,000 miles into the skies. Their idea is to build a power station in space. James watches enthralled as they take their first tentative steps towards their goal – and a crack at a $2million [£1million] prize.

Their second item concerns recent laser testing they have done.  Hot on the heels of the KC Space Pirates announcing that they were successfully able to beam useful power for a full kilometer, NSS announces that they, too, can do this:

“The NSS Team has completed four Laser tests with Trumpf. The last test was long range and outside shooting over 1Km. Attached is an IR photo of powering a “test array” from 1000 meters.”

You can view the picture online or click on the thumbnail for the full-size version.