On the LaserMotive Blog, a couple of new entries have been posted.

The first one has to do with cooking hot dogs.  Now, you might reasonably ask what this would have to do with a Space Elevator or the Space Elevator Games.  Well, if you read the post, you’ll find that high-powered lasers can do other things besides powering Climbers…

The second post has to do with stress testing, both planned and unplanned.  It is an axiom of good system’s engineering that you can never do enough testing.  As a veteran of many years with software systems, I can attest to the truth of this.  But sometimes a planned test can turn into an unplanned test.  Check out this LaserMotive post (complete with video) showing how they have been stress-testing their climber.

Finally, as noted via Twitter (follow us at SEGames for the latest updates as they happen), the LaserMotive team has arrived here at the NASA Dryden facility (where the Games will be held this year) for onsite testing.

This first photo is of the climber that they’ll be using for the tests.  I’m told that this is “Rev 1” of the climber which will be used.  It’s much lighter and stronger than the one they used the last time around.  I and everyone else here will be very interested to see how it performs.  LaserMotive is now a ‘blooded’ team and I’m sure there are many, many ‘lessons learned’ from the previous competition built into this climber.

The second photo is a close-up of the wheels which actually grip the cable.  These wheels come from an inline skate, ground down to the proper diameter.  It’s tough to go to a company catalog (even from someone like McMasters) and look for “Space Elevator Climber drive wheels” – so LaserMotive (and all the other teams, of course) have to adapt parts from other devices or custom-make them.

It’s part of the Challenge 🙂

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