KC Space Pirates status report

July 8th, 2009

I received this email today from Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates:

In case you have not heard the games are now set for the 1st week in August. I have been reading about all of this and had it in my mind that everyone else knew. Sorry, let me give you a recap of all of the high intensity happenings.

The safety review triggered by the cable breaking is done and things are moving forward. There will be another helicopter test in about 2 weeks to make sure that there will not be any problems with that operation. There will also be another round of laser testing to accommodate the rest of the TRUMPF teams that did not get done during the last testing.

Lasermotive has also passed the qualification requirements so the number of qualified teams stands at 2. We are expecting 1 or maybe 2 more during the next round of testing.

The coverage of the KC Space Pirates on the Science channel was pretty good. With a good overview and coverage of the space elevator challenges. We went from being able to deliver good sound bites while projecting an air of professionalism to producing cheesy quotes while looking like a group of hobbyist working from our garage. I can’t complain, because we are a group of hobbyist working out of a garage and I suppose I am a little on the cheesy side. Oh well. They showed some of our sponsor logos and that is the most I could hope for. They also left out some of the most embarrassing footage. And it was all a lot of fun.

Our to-do list for the competition actually has an end in sight. That is good because the added test dates ate up most of the added time.

Brian Turner

It won’t be long now…

Entry Filed under: News / Announcements, Elevator2010