Detailed, final planning for this year’s Space Elevator Games has moved into high gear.  Weekly conference calls, organized by Ben Shelef of the Spaceward Foundation, are now being held to coordinate all activities.

In this week’s call, the general schedule leading up to the Games was discussed.  The initial testing and qualification runs for the climbers will be held on October 16th, 17th and 18th.  Teams will have to demonstrate that their lifters actually function and that they are safe and “well-behaved” (i.e. they will start and stop upon command).  The 19th is being reserved for setting up the actual climber competition crane and associated equipment as well as moving the climber teams into “Climbers Row”, their designated area in the show.  The actual competition will be held on the 20th and 21st, with climbs planned to occur every hour, on the hour.

As most of you already know, this year’s Space Elevator Games are being held in conjunction with the XPrize Cup.  In the fairground setup for this competition, an area has been reserved exclusively for use by the Space Elevator Competition.  “Climbers Row”, alluded to earlier, will consist of two large tents.  In these tents will be booths for this year’s competitors and perhaps others who may be competing next year.

The number of teams competing in the Climber competition has been reduced to 13 as some teams have dropped out.  Still remaining are three teams from Canada (#104 Canada1, #115 Snowstar and #158 Punkworks), two from Europe (#165 Max Born College and #181 Recens) and eight from the USA (#101 MClimber, #110 SpaceMiners, #133 Starclimber, #143 Centaurus, #151 Space Hokie, #173 Kansas City Space Pirates, #179 Lone Star and #188 Lite Won).  Several different power beaming schemes are planned.

It should be a lot of fun.  If you haven’t made your travel plans yet, you’d better hurry as the local hotels are filling up fast.

See you there!