Daily Archives: August 12, 2010

Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson are HERE

Today I was very privileged to help welcome Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson to Seattle.  Everybody’s connections were on time so everyone showed up on time.

Peter Swan, ISEC Director and Vice-President arrived first this morning.  Jerome Pearson arrived shortly thereafter and they waited behind Security for Yuri to appear.  He and Eugene Schlusser (Yuri’s translator and traveling companion) were met at their gate by Peter and Jerome and then they all came downstairs to collect their luggage.  Michael Laine (of LiftPort fame), John Lee (of the Leeward Space Foundation) and Belinda Young (our publicist) were also part of the welcoming committee.

ISEC has hired a photographer / filmographer (Owen Kinding) and he was there to record all of the events.  In addition, we had a camera man from the local NBC affiliate (King 5 TV) recording things too.  He interviewed me and I now live in mortal fear of having said something stupid on camera.  If you’re in the Seattle area or if they broadcast on the Internet, you might want to tune in tonight at 10:00PM local (US Pacific) and see if I made a fool of myself.  Hopefully, most of the footage is of Yuri and Jerome.

It really was a thrill to shake both Yuri’s and Jerome’s hand today.  I have been working on making this happen for several months now and to see it all come to fruition was very satisfying.  I think they are going to be huge hit at the conference (which kicks off tonight with a Public presentation).

We’re back at the hotel now, getting ready to go to dinner.  After that, we’re all going to attend the Public presentation (presented by ISEC Board Member Bryan Laubscher).

They’re HERE – it’s really happened!

(A few pictures for you.  The topmost is of Yuri Artsutanov, on the left, and Jerome Pearson.  The middle picture is of our group getting filmed and interviewed by NBC news.  And the bottom picture is a more formal group shot.  In the front, from left to right, are Eugene Schlusser, Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson.  In the back, from left to right, are Peter Swan, Michael Laine, John Lee and yours truly.  As always, clicking on any of the picture thumbnails will display for you a full-size version of the picture.)

Latest updates on the Strong Tether Challenge

Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation, organizers of the Space Elevator Games, arrived in Seattle / Redmond today.  He tells me that there will be at least two contestants, and possibly a third, in this year’s Strong Tether Challenge.  All of the contestants are bringing entries made out of carbon nanotubes.

This is über-mega-cool.  In 2007, there was a single carbon nanotube entry from team DeltaX, a collaboration between MIT and Nanocomp.  In 2009, there was another single carbon nanotube entry from Shizuoka University in Japan.  Neither one performed very well.  The Delta-X entry slipped at the knot tied in the loop (very high tech ) while the Shizuoka entry, a ‘tape’ formed from nanotubes held solely by Van der Walls forces, broke at a very low level.

But that was the past and this is now the future.  With two, maybe three entries, we could see some very good performances.  The lack of a material strong enough is the single biggest obstacle in the way of building a Space Elevator.  Having some sort of breakthrough demonstrated at this year’s Space Elevator Games – Strong Tether Challenge would be nothing short of monumental.

Plus, if there are any winners, there is a cool $2 Million dollar prize purse, courtesy of NASA, to be awarded.

So, stay tuned.  Despite a last-minute glitch, we’re still hopeful of broadcasting the competition live on uStream.  Details will be posted here (and on Twitter) as soon as they are available.