Version 0.94 of 2007 Power Beaming (Climber) Competition rulebook posted

Version 0.94 of this rulebook is now up and available for review.  Here you can find the changes from version 0.93 to 0.94 discussed.  Of course everything can be accessed from the Elevator2010 website.  As always, submit comments and recommendations to Ben Shelef at Ben AT Spaceward.org.

Ben also has the following comment on the remarks (here and here) by Professor Mark Welland.

“It’s a known fact that popular journalism, both technical and mainstream, tends to exaggerate claims. There is no argument that the SE CNT tether does not exist yet, and is much stronger than anything we produce today – nothing to the contrary was ever claimed. Still, it is not laughable to predict that totally new technology will result in large improvements, especially when the mechanism of this technology is understood. CNTs are strong enough, and composites and ropes exhibit tensile strengths very close to that of their native fibers. There’s enough evidence that the CNT tether is feasible – saying we can’t get there because we’re not already there is dead-end thinking. Just my 2c.”

Dr. Mark Welland responds

A couple of days ago, I had posted a link to a blog entry which stated that Professor Mark Welland, FRS, had said that the idea of a “Space Elevator” was nonsense.  I had also written that I was going to attempt to contact Professor Welland to try and get some clarity on the matter.

Professor Welland has responded to my query and I quote him here:

“In my talk I was discussing in general terms some of the aspects of nanotechnology that have been over hyped. I gave as an example a proposed space elevator that was on the front cover of the American Scientist magazine. Next to this image I showed the material referred to and pointed out the enormous difference between a hypothetical elevator based on the ideal strength of carbon nanotubes and the reality of the actual material that can be currently synthesised. If one puts the figures in for actual material performance as opposed to ideal performance one can easily see that material is simply not strong enough. This of course was the calculation I was referring to.”

So, his issue was that the current state of nanotube technology cannot spin them strong enough to build a Space Elevator.  Well, we all know that and most of us believe that the technology WILL get there (and quickly, I hope).

Funding for NASA’s Centennial Challenges

Several weeks ago, I had posted a link to TopSpacer’s article at hobbyspace.com, an article discussing “funding for the Centennial Challenges program will be zeroed out for 2007” and wondering what that meant.  Then a few days ago, the Space Frontier Foundation issues a press release saying essentially the same thing that TopSpacer’s article did.  I contacted Jeff Krukin, the Executive Director of the Space Frontier Foundation, and asked him if the current games are in jeopardy.  He replied that they are not;

“The prized that have already been announced are funded with money appropriated in previous years.  Future (not yet announced) prized are dependent on new funding provided in FY2007 or later, so there is no funding for new prizes.”

Yesterday, over at Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log, he said essentially the same thing; funding for the existing prizes (including the Space Elevator challenge) is there, but funding for NEW prizes is not.

Russia will develop space elevators (Part 2)

In Part 2 of an article I blogged about a couple of days ago, the Russian News & Information Agency (Novosti) reports on a rather unique “Space elevator” concept, designed to deliver payloads from the Earth to the Moon and back.

An excerpt: “Theoretical studies and experiments showed that the cluster should comprise two cableway systems, one in a low circular and the other in a low elliptical Earth orbit, and one cableway in a circular equatorial lunar orbit. The dimensions of all three cableways should create different gravitational potentials at each end. By adjusting tether length, it will be possible to change each orbital system’s angular speed of rotation.”

Russia will develop space elevators

This Novisti (Russian News & Information Agency) article describes a rather unique take on a Space Elevator.

An excerpt: “Scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a unique space elevator for lunar and Martian missions. Although a bit slower, the new system will cut back on interplanetary delivery expenses.  A space elevator consists of satellites, spacecraft and payloads linked by long, thin, flexible elements. The simplest system links two spacecraft by means of a cable with a length of several dozen or even several hundred kilometers. This tandem, which resembles a space sling, revolves around its center of gravity, which in turn has a predetermined orbit. Either of the two spacecraft can therefore launch a payload along any required trajectory without any rocket engines.”

BuyMeToTheStars.com

One of the biggest attractions of a Space Elevator is, of course, its potential to open up space to people who are not either astronauts or rich tourists.

Over at BuyMeToTheStars.com, Mike Halls-Moore is trying a different approach to get to space; he’s selling “stellar objects” on his website to raise money for a future flight on a commercial space vehicle (Virgin Galactic, etc.).

Good luck, Mike.  Perhaps you will be able to use your funds for a Lift ticket 🙂

Scraping the sky

Over at E’S FLAT, AH’S FLAT TOO, Rahul relates how Professor Mark Welland, FRS, considers the idea of Space Elevator to be nonsense; “any undergraduate physics student could tell you why it was nonsense and this sort of irresponsible hype in the press had done great damage to nanoscience.”

I googled Dr. Welland, and he certainly does seem to have a lot of credentials.  I am going to attempt to contact Dr. Welland and ask him why the idea of a Space Elevator is “nonsense.”

Robots rule at FIRST LEGO League

I’ve blogged about these LEGO competitions before (here, here and here) and here is yet another story, this one from the London Times-Mirror, about these ongoing games and how they include the concept of a Space Elevator.

This is so cool, introducing young children to such concepts.  You see things such as this, and also how Space Elevators are becoming more and more a part of computer Games, as well as the creation of LiftPort and the Space Elevator Games (and the publicity that surrounds them), and it’s apparent that the idea of a Space Elevator continues to percolate through various layers of society.  This will pay off, I think, in public support for building a Space Elevator when the day comes that carbon nanotubes of sufficient length and strength are finally created.

Solar Power Satellites to Reforge Political Landscape?

On the LiftPort Blog, Tom Nugent has posted some thoughts as to which nations, more than others, might see Solar Power Satellites (SPS) as being very valuable from a national security perspective.

I completely agree.  I think that deploying SPS is the “killer app” for a Space Elevator.  I also think it’s a reason why being first in deploying a Space Elevator might not be the huge advantage its often touted to be.  For example, I could see a country, like Japan, deploying their own Space Elevator(s), even if others already exist, just from a Security standpoint.

The Space Elevator Journal debuts…

A new site for Space Elevator fans and junkies has turned up, Patrick Boake’s Space Elevator Journal.

Patrick contributed Return on Investment to the “LiftPort: Opening Space to Everyone” book.  His brief bio in that book states, in part; “Patrick Boake is a freelance techno-journalist in Toronto, Canada.”

Patrick has also set up a Google-based Space Elevator Search Engine.

Welcome, Patrick.  I hope you’ll be able to provide us with, among other things, on-the-spot updates from the Canadian teams as they get ready to compete for the 2007 Space Elevator Games.

Interview with Ben Shelef

Recently, I had an (email) conversation with Ben Shelef, co-founder of Spaceward and CEO of Elevator2010.  We discussed the recently completed Space Elevator Games and the ones scheduled for next year.

Q. In your opinion, what was the most significant accomplishment of the 2006 Games?

The most significant accomplishment was the scale of what happened – this was the first “real”, or full-form competition, and we had 12 teams arriving with real hardware, 2 from Europe, 3 from Canada, 7 from the US – we’ve got ourselves a Space Elevator competition now!  A few more teams were registered and couldn’t produce hardware in time – all in all we had 20 teams that tried.  This is a good base to building the 2007 games from.  Obviously this year USST was head and shoulders above everyone else, with their 2-seconds-too-slow climb, but I’m betting in 2007 we will see plenty of climbers zooming up at over 2 m/s.

Q. The biggest mistake made by entrants in the 2006 Tether competition, was, in hindsight, fairly obvious; trying to push the 2 meter minimum length requirement too far.  What, in your opinion, was the biggest mistake made by entrants in the 2006 Climber competition?

That would be maturity.  Several of the climbers had it in them to go 1m/s, but they were just not fully prepared, were debugging the system on the pad – one of our strongest pushes this year is to whip the teams into starting early, and keeping a constant pace.  We will require video evidence of a complete working system 1 month before the competition so they can spend the next remaining time fine-tuning and putting a nice paint job on the climber. This is a concept we came up with this year, but were too late to enforce properly.  This year, it will be very high on our radar screen.

Q. What was your biggest regret about the 2006 Games?

None really.  All you have to do is step outside of the day-to-day activities and look back – we’ve covered a huge amount of ground, and have a path forward that is both exciting and feasible – We couldn’t have asked for more.

Q. What are your thoughts on how well the “Games partnership” worked with XPrizeCup this year?

It was a good call for both of us to do this together.  We complement each other, and it worked out fine for both of us.

Q. I know it’s early, but do you have any preferences on working with XPrizeCup for the 2007 games?

We’re already talking about this, but won’t know for sure for a couple of months.

Q. What are the most significant changes in this year’s Climber (Power Beaming) competition rules?

Other than the increased difficulty, it’s mostly about instilling process in both the teams (see the list of deliverables) and pad operations. We need to increase the level of technical maturity of the climbers, since it is clear now that plenty of people have ideas about how to build the power beaming part, but are failing at the nuts-and-bolts level.  We also have to build a more complicated anchor point to deal with the effects of wind on the climbers.  In space, there is no wind, so we have to provide a more protective environment for the climbers.

Q. What are the most significant changes in this year’s Tether competition rules?

Very little, actually.  We have a slightly more clever way of rating a tether’s performance (best of its losing point and all of its winning points) and so now can have 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.

Q. How did the idea for a Climber “newbie” event come about?

We actually had “limited” registration this year.  Experience obviously counts, and the 2006 format seems feasible as a first shot (e.g. TurboCrawler, MClimber, and of course – Kansas City).

Q. With the Prize money now up to $500,000 for a single winner, do you expect to see more significant corporate sponsorship in the 2007 Games?

We’d better….   we’re working on it.

Q. Do you think we have a realistic chance of seeing any entrants in the 2007 Tether competition that employ carbon nanotubes in their tethers?

Yes, and you can quote me on that.

Thank you Ben.

One other note; Elevator2010 is publishing the comments submitted to them on the 2007 Rulebooks and their response.  You can find that here.

Video of USST’s First-place climb in the 2006 Space Elevator Games

The video from this year’s first place climb by USST is now on YouTube.
Thanks to Clayton Ruszkowski from the USST team for the tip – and, once again, congratulations to Clayton and the rest of the USST team for their very impressive performance this year.  Team USST finished first in both the 2005 and 2006 Space Elevator games and have to be considered the early, heavy favorites for the 2007 Games.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkdfuQdoW_Q[/youtube]
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A half-million dollars (US Dollars no less) would buy an awful lot of Canadian Beer…

Rulebooks for next year’s Space Elevator Games now available!

The initial Rulebooks for next year’s Climber (Power Beaming) and Tether competitions have been posted by Elevator2010.  To quote Ben Shelef, Elevator2010 CEO; “We’re taking public comments on the rulebooks, [and] will post 1.0 rulebooks by the end of the month.”

The Climber (Power Beaming) rulebook can be found here and the Tether rulebook can be found here.  Of course, both are available on the Elevator2010 website.

One new item noted on the Elevator2010 website is a Climber competition for newbies; “If you are a new team, and only want to try your hand at it, we have the “limited” games, in which no money is on the line (as of yet…), the metric is 1 m/s, and the height is comparable to this year’s games. We will publish a separate rulebook for the limited competition shortly.”

So, for all you future competitors, now’s the time to get started!!  Holidays?  Who cares about the holidays?

Space Elevators and Legos

I’ve posted about this before, the First Lego League (FLL) has a “Nano Quest Challenge“, including the design (with Legos, of course) of a Space Elevator.  This is uber-cool.

The NXT-STEP is keeping us updated on events in this competition.

The UBC SnowStar team, the same that was in this year’s Space Elevator Games, visited the Robotics Club to give them the benefit of their experience and expertise.  We also learn that UBC’s Steve Jones still plays with Legos (a mark of distinction) and went to Austria earlier this year to participate in a paper airplane contest…

Disneyland’s Space Elevator

Of COURSE this is a good idea.  As someone who has ridden Space Mountain perhaps a bit too often (“Mommy, why doesn’t Daddy want to go on any other rides?”), Disney and a Space Elevator go together like Fish and Chips and Ham and Eggs (apologies to all of the Vegans out there…).

But I don’t see it happening by “January of 2007″…

More Space-Elevator themed videos on YouTube

Three new videos of possible interest to Space Elevator enthusiasts have been posted on YouTube.

The USST qualifying run at this year’s Space Elevator Games.  It’s a longer version than the one I had posted earlier.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW5OV0tgvq0[/youtube]
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A promo for LiftPort – pretty cool in my opinion.  For some reason it makes me think of Fantasia.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAoCkrbA0nY[/youtube]
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A trailer for a new movie, PX.  It’s a bit cheesy, IMHO…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j65-n4xuhVs[/youtube]

Comments and Spam – Round 2

Well, the Math plugin turned out to be useless – I received as much Spam after I plugged it in as I did beforehand (though I don’t understand why).  I’ve turned on the Akismet Plugin and, so far anyway, it seems to be working.  But I don’t know if I like it because I still have to sift through the Spam it blocked to see if there are any comments that should have been posted.  I’ll hope that people post a bunch of comments in the next week or so (hint hint) and see if they all get through.  if some of them get erroneously blocked (and I have to manually release them), then maybe I’ll look for yet another plugin.

Sigh…

Comments and Spam

I’ve just added a Spam filter to my Comments. I now receive several hundred Spam comments each day and am getting tired of having to sift through them all to find the occasional, “real” Comment.  The filter I’m now trying is entitled “Did You Pass Math?”, asking the user for the answer to a simple math question.  The location of the answer box is a bit clumsy, but doable.

I’ll see how this works.  If someone has a problem with it or can suggest a better WordPress plugin, please email me at Ted AT SpaceElevatorBlog.com.  Thanks…

Space Elevators & radiation

NewScientistSpace has recently published two articles referencing another article in Acta Astronautica on the dangers that Radiation will pose to travellers using the Space Elevator.  The first article requires you to subscribe while the second article does not.  I have a subscription and so was able to read the entire first article.  The second is better and more complete, so don’t waste your money on a subscription just to read the first article.

The original article in Acta Astronautica is by Blaise Gassend and Anders Jorgensen.

Onward (and upward)

Earlier I had posted a link to an article predicting a functioning Space Elevator by 2099.  Here’s an article that predicts the first attempt to launch a Space Elevator (in 2025) will fail, but that “By 2050 we will have fully functioning space elevators operating at full capacity, moving both people and supplies into space.”

Better than 2099, but still not good enough.  2015 is the number I’m looking for…

Who knew?

Who knew that 1) Michael Laine, President & Founder of Liftport, is a descendant of Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark fame) and 2) LiftPort had an entry in the recently completed Space Elevator Games?  I’ll accept the ancestor item, but, unless it was a super-secret stealth entry, they did not have an entry in the games.

Both bits of info (along with note that Michael will be speaking tomorrow at the Bainbridge Performing Arts Playhouse) can be found in this article.

Click on the thumbnails for (slightly) larger versions…

New YouTube Space Elevator videos

Several new Space-Elevator themed videos have been posted over at YouTube.  Most, though not all, are from or related to the just-completed Space Elevator games.

This must be an older video, and it uses some of the ISR Space-Elevator video footage, but some of it was new for me;

This video was taken of the Climber Work area, either before or during the competition.

This is a video of the USST team during a qualification attempt.  You have to turn your head sideways to view it.  If someone knows how to change its orientation, please let me know…

This is a video of part of the University of Michigan’s MClimber historic rise to the top of the tether, including a very bad pun at the end.

This is a video of one of the SpaceMiners climber, one we didn’t see in this years competition.  This video is of the steering mechanism for a SpaceMiners climber.

Another conceptual video of how a Space Elevator might look.

A 5+ minute German documentary on the Space Elevator and TurboCrawler.

 

Finally, here’s a video trailer from the XPrizeCup.

 

Space Elevator coin up for auction

Over at the Mondolithic Sketchbook, they note they are now auctioning off Space Elevator-themed coins at eBay.

As noted on the description, the coins are pure (.999) silver and are being auctioned off with a starting bid of $75.00.

Click on the thumbnail at left to view a larger version.

 

Some may not know that the picture depicted is based on some work they’ve done earlier.  Click on the thumbnail at left to view a larger version.

 

 

I’m sure these coins are not “legal tender”, but both LiftPort and Elevator2010 could advertise that they would accept these in payment, LiftPort for Lift Tickets and Spaceward for a T-shirt or something 🙂

Recens – The Climber we never saw…

There’s an old joke that goes something like this; “What do you call someone who speaks three languages?  Answer – Trilingual.  What do you call someone who speaks two languages?  Answer – Bilingual.  What do you call someone who speaks one language?  Answer – American.”

I was reminded of this joke by a recent email conversation I had with Elisenda Bou from the Spanish Recens team.  In her emails to me, she apologized for her “English”.  I pointed out to her that “her English” was good enough to allow us to converse and was, in any event, much better than “my Spanish.”

As followers of this year’s Space Elevator games know, Recens supposedly had their Climber “lost” by UPS somewhere between the shipping point in Spain and the receiving point in Las Cruces, New Mexico (the particular story I heard was that it was “lost in Kentucky”).  I had written earlier that I was very upset with UPS for losing this Climber – how badly does this reflect on American competence when one of our corporations does something like this?  As with many stories like this, however, it is not always as it first appears.  It seems the problems started in Europe when, upon the advice of their Cargo Agent, Recens declared the value of their shipment to be no more than $100.00 (to try and bypass any customs issues).  The package was opened in Germany and was worth obviously more than that and this is where the trouble began.  According to Elisenda, this is where their Climber is now.  I wonder how the story of “lost in Kentucky” got started?  Or, maybe it made it that far and then got shipped back to Germany?  Anyway, as I have unwittingly passed along something (UPS lost the Climber in Kentucky) that now appears to be untrue, I wanted to post the facts as I now understand them.

In any event, Recens seems to have taken their setback very graciously and worked with USST and other teams (see Matt Abrams posting over at the Starclimber blog) in order to be a positive force at the just-concluded Space Elevator games.  Elisenda did confirm that they temporarily purchased the USST climber so that they could share the resource they did have at the Games, their spotlights.

Elisenda also emailed me some pictures of their Climber, shown below.  Recens prime sponsor was a museum in Spain and so their Climber, when it’s returned to them (not the USST Climber) is going to be shown at this museum, first at their Madrid location and then at their Barcelona location.

Click on the picture thumbnails to view a larger version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment Analysis

Over at the LiftPort Blog, Manuel Antonio Cuba (Latin American Research Coordinator) has posted a very interesting analysis of comments relating to the Space Elevator concept that were posted on Spanish-language sites.  It’s too long for me to summarize his analysis in a short blog posting, so I recommend that you jump over there and read it for yourself.  One set of statistics that stood out, though, were that “3 % of people who made negative comments think that we should burn in hell.”  I’m not going to worry about that one too much…

Centennial Challenges – making progress but under threat

Over at hobbyspace.com, TopSpacer writes that “…funding for the Centennial Challenges program will be zeroed out for 2007 if the current Senate version of the NASA appropriations bill becomes law.”  He further writes, however, “Regardless of this bill, the pool of money for the CC will keep the current Challenges going till 2010. However, there will be no new challenges and a couple that were almost ready to be implemented will be killed.”

Hmmm, are we in imminent danger or aren’t we?

Space Elevator Game Media Roundup

There have been many, many articles and blog entries which have been published over the past several days discussing the 2006 Space Elevator Games.  I’m going to list them all in this posting as, while the articles aren’t exactly the same, the theme of them generally are.  If I run across an article that has a decidedly different take on things, I’ll break it out into a separate post.  Otherwise, you’ll find them accumulated here.

I’ll be listing them by date they were published and will keep this posting up-to-date, at least over the next few weeks.  If you spot a duplicate article (many times a particular publication will just reprint someone else’s story – giving credit, of course), please let me know and I’ll pull it.  We have enough originals that we don’t need the duplicates 🙂

26 October, 2006

* Thrills and Spills at the X-Prize Cup – BBC (Thanks to commenter Andrew Swallow) 

* X-Prize Space Elevator Race Ends With No Winners – Space.com

* Actually, they really are rocket scientists – Toronto Star

25 October, 2006

* Explorers Web Special: The People’s race for space – XPrize Cup 2006 – Python.com

24 October, 2006

* No Winner in Space Elevator Competition – dailytech.com

* Space Elevator Games – RocketBoom.com

23 October, 2006

* Space Elevator Games 2006 Wrap-up by Dr. Brad Edwards – Space Elevator Reference

* Robot Climber comes oh-so-close to prize – MSNBC.com

* Canadian space elevator teams caught up in rules dispute – cbc.ca

* Climbers Fail to Lasso Prize – Wired.news

* Space elevator falls short of prize – Seattle Times

* Clarifications on Space Elevator Games Media – Space Elevator Reference

* Nobody is winner in the NASA X Prize games – Star-Telegram.com

* No elevator winner … yet – Astroprof’s Page

* No winners in Space Elevator Games this year – earthtimes.org

* To boldly go where no man has gone before … (Up the ribbon?) – Digital Dharma

* Amateur rocketeers reach for space – CNN.com

* Take the elevator to heaven – The Standard

22 October, 2006

* Thrills and Spills abount at rocket fest – MSNBC.com

* Space Elevator Competition Extended One Day – Space.com

* Tensions rise at space elevator challenge – NewScientist.com

* Space Elevator Games Over for this Year – Space Elevator Reference

21 October, 2006

* NASA Space Elevator Competition in the New Mexico Desert – Daily Tech

* Space Elevator Update – Day 2 – USST has winning run – Space Elevator Reference

* Canadians vie for Space Elevator Victory – cbc.ca

20 October, 2006

* Handicapping the Space Elevator Games – Space.com 

* Space Elevator Games Update from Dr. Brad Edwards – Space Elevator Reference

* Space Elevator Competition Update Day 1 – Space Elevator Reference

* Space Elevator Competition Day 1 – Update 2 – Space Elevator Reference

* Space Elevator scandal – NewScientist.com blog

* UBC Snowstar Team Makes it Six Qualified for Today’s Space Elevator Competition – Space Elevator Reference

* Space Elevator Update – NewScientist.com blog

19 October, 2006

* Nowhere to Go But Up – Wired News

* Space Elevator Visions Going Up – latimes.com

* Fifth Team Qualifies for the Space Elevator Games and In the News – Space Elevator Reference

18 October, 2006

* Space Elevator Games Qualification Update – Space Elevator Reference 

Unknown Date

* NASA’s Space Elevator Competition – The Future of Things

Space Elevator Games – no winner this year

Over at the Space Elevator Reference, they are reporting that USST did not win the climber prize this year, so I guess the problems they had on the descent were enough to disqualify them (when I have or find a more complete explanation of exactly what the problem was, I’ll either report it or point readers to it).  Nevertheless, their climb was quite impressive.

Even more impressive is that they used their second choice of power supply to power their Climber.  They had originally planned to launch via laser power, but couldn’t get their laser to work properly at the Games, so they used spot lights instead.  Even that was enough to drive them up to the top of the tether in prize-winning time.  I’m sure they’ll be putting in more effort into having a ready laser for next year.  And, as it’s envisioned that a “real” space elevator will be laser-powered, this can’t but help move the effort along.

A side note on the USST effort; as I noted on an earlier posting, they made a deal with the Spanish Team, Recens (and perhaps TurboCrawler – I’m trying to verify that) to use their spotlights to power their climb.  Recens, as readers know, were the victim of a major UPS snafu – UPS lost their climber, which they had shipped from Spain, somewhere in Kentucky. 

Recens had promised to donate their climber to a local Spanish museum when the games were over, but as the climber was lost, they were in danger of being unable to fulfill that promise.  It was announced during the Games that USST sold their climber to Recens (rumoured to be for the princely sum of 1 (one) US Dollar) and that Recens was going to take that climber back to Spain to donate to the museum.  So, all-in-all, a good deal for everyone involved.

Day 2 (Part 12)

The Tether Challenge ended just about a half-hour ago and NASA’s Prize money for the Tether Challenge is safe for another year.

Four teams entered the competition; Astroaraneae, UBC, Centaurus Aerospace and Bryan Laubscher.  Lots were drawn to determine who would face who in the two semi-final qualifying matches.  Centaurus Aerospace drew Astroaraneae and UBC drew Bryan Laubscher.

Tethers from Centaurus Aerospace and Astroaraneae were both weighed and both came in under the 2 gram limit.  They were each then mounted on the Tether Pull machine and measured for length.  While Astroaraneae met the 2 meter minimum, Centaurus Aerospace did not and was disqualified.

Tethers from UBC and Bryan Laubscher were then both weighed and they, too, both came in under the 2 gram limit.  They were each then mounted on the Tether Pull machine and measured for length.  Unfortunately, neither team met the 2 meter minimum and were both, therefore, disqualified.  So, Team Astroaraneae won the competition by default.

There was much discussion and unhappiness over the disqualifications, and that topic deserves a separate post.

in the spirit of competition, however, tethers from UBC and Bryan Laubscher were matched against each other in a “non-title” match.  Team UBC won when Bryan’s tether parted at 531 pounds.  UBC then matched it’s tether against one from Centaurus Aerospace in another friendly competition.  Centaurus won when the UBC tether parted at about 880 pounds.

Astroaraneae then faced off against the house tether.  The house tether won, but the Astroaraneae tether didn’t part until 1335.9 pounds of pressure was applied – a very impressive performance.  This beat last year’s winner by about 100 pounds.

An attempt was then made to break the house tether.  It was matched against a high-quality rope, not as competition, but just to see at what level the house tether parted at.  This number would then be a factor in next year’s competition.  Unfortunately, the house tether proved to be stronger than the machine!  The aluminum rollers holding the tethers actually began to force the block holding them outward at one end and the measurement had to be halted.  They’re going to have to come up with an alternative method to measure these.

So, congratulations go out to Michael Remington and his Team Astroaraneae!  Michael and his team promise to be back next year with an even stronger composition.

Below are some pictures of the Tether Challenge.  As always, click on the thumbnails to view a larger version of the picture.

Ben Shelef explaining the rules before competition began.

 

 

 

 

 

Ben hooking up the signal lights.  These lights were “on” for each tether during the pull.  When a tether broke, it’s light would go out – the other light signifying the winner.

 

 

The “Tether Torture Machine” after being beaten by the House Tether.  Note the block holding the left side of the roller – it’s being forced outward.  Not good !

 

 

Michael Remington of Team Astroaraneae.  Congratulations again !!