Daily Archives: June 15, 2009

What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with this picture indeed…

This picture was taken early this afternoon, looking out the hanger/warehouse/workshop where we’ve headquartered and are putting together all our stuff.  Outside this building is the Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert.  This is June.  It is supposed to be bright and sunny.  Instead it’s overcast and there is a forecast of rain.

Unfortunately, it has cancelled any chance we had of doing a test flight tomorrow.  This means that this testflight will happen, at the earliest, on Wednesday.  This also means that an already tight schedule has gotten even tighter.

I’m VERY GLAD that the NASA people here are truly a ‘can do’ crowd.  They want to make this happen and are pulling out all the stops to do so.  So, being late will be a problem, not a potential disaster.

Rain in the Mojave in June?

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More Monday Nuts & Bolts…

Here are some more pictures from today’s work…

This first picture is of a reusable breakaway link, a safety device attaching the kilometer-long steel cable that the climbers will be ascending/descending to the helicopter.  It has a rated release point of 3,500 pounds.  This means that in the unlikely event where the helicopter is pulling on the cable with that much force (or more), then the link will separate and the helicopter will be free of the tether.

Of course, if that happens, the cable and anything that might be on it (like a Climber) is going to fall.  All of the teams and the NASA and Spaceward personnel will be inside trailers, protected from falling debris.  However, the person operating the winch (which pays out and retracts the steel cable) is out in the open.  And that’s the subject of this next picture.  An overhead shelter is being built for the winch operator.  This picture is of the ceiling for that shelter.  The combination of chain-link fence, 2×4′ and plywood should keep the operator safe.

And this last picture is of the KC Space Pirates crew, enjoying a bit of lunch.  They’re hard workers – I guess they’ve earned it 🙂

Tomorrow or Wednesday should see the arrival of at least 2 more of the teams.  Also, the filming crew from the Chicago video production company Bitter Jester Creative, Inc. will be arriving tonight.  This group has been filming the competition and the participants and the organizers for the past few years.  While certainly interested in he technical coolness of these games, they are focusing on the human element.  I think their final product is going to be fascinating…

(Click on any of the picture thumbnails for a larger version)

Monday first tasks…

We’re now here at Dryden, on the base, in the workshop, beginning to put the physical structures in place for this year’s Space Elevator Games (the planning structures were started long ago).  Today is a day for building stuff (‘swinging a hammer’) and, if all goes according to plan, we hope to do our first actual flight test at noon tomorrow.  That’s extraordinarily ambitious, but we’re going to give it a go as they say.

Here are a couple of early pictures from today.  The first shows the KC Space Pirates trailer (the Space Pirates are currently the only team on site – though others are supposed to show up this week too) while the second shows some Spaceward Volunteers and NASA shop personnel getting their hands dirty.

More here later and also on the official website of the Games, www.spaceelevatorgames.org.

If you want to follow things minute-by-minute, I’m also using Twitter – follow me as “SEGames”…

(Click on the picture thumbnails for a larger version)