USST gets some hometown press coverage here.
And, from their Website news tab, we learn that, among other things, the USST team has received official approval from the FAA to operate their Climber’s laser and that they appeared on a local TV show (CTV’s News at Noon) on Monday, September 10th.
This video was posted on YouTube a few days ago. It showed that the country of origin was Canada, but, as there are several teams from Canada entered this year, I had to email the person who put the video up to see which team it was from. The McGill Space Elevator Team’s Simon replied to my query:
“We’re on the McGill team. I’ll be posting more videos soon.”
You can’t see too much on the video, so I’m looking forward to the additional postings.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXA9Bb_WdU4[/youtube]
Ben Shelef, CEO of Spaceward, the organization that is putting on the Space Elevator Games, has come up with two additional mockup views of the venue for this year’s Space Elevator Games. Ben tells me that these views are to scale.
If this is true (and I’m sure it is), it is mind-boggling how high the Climbers are actually going to have to go this year – 100 meters is a long way up there.
If you plan on attending the Games this year, make sure you bring your binoculars or ensure that your camera has a decent telephoto lens!
(Click on the pictures for a larger version)
Following in the footsteps of the Kansas City Space Pirates’ Brian Turner, who created an animated view of the upcoming Space Elevator Games Climber / Power-Beaming competition, Tom Nugent of LaserMotive has come up with his own version. He talks about it in LaserMotive’s latest blog post, here.
Space Elevator afficianados will instantly know who both Dr. Laubscher and Eric Westling are. For those of you who don’t, let me quote a (very) abbreviated bit from their resumés as posted on the Space Show website:
“Bryan E. Laubscher received his Ph.D. in physics in 1994 from the University of New Mexico with a concentration in astrophysics. Bryan has just returned to Los Alamos National Laboratory from a year-long Entrepreneurial Leave to Seattle. There he started a company to develop the strongest materials ever created. These materials are based upon carbon nanotubes…”. Bryan is also heavily involved in the Space Elevator Games, taking the role of Safety officer for this year’s games.
“Eric Westling is a science writer, pundit on science, technology, and economics. He is the co-author of “The Space Elevator” with Dr. Brad Edwards . In addition, Mr. Westling is retired and is a former Army officer and helicopter pilot, civilian Airline Transport Pilot (ATP), former consultant to many small companies regarding engineering, computer, and business troubleshooting.”
To be able to listen to one or the other expound on the Space Elevator and the reasons we should build one is a treat. To be able to listen to both of them on the same show is something special. Both of these gentlemen appeared on Tuesday’s edition of The Space Show. From the show summary:
“Dr. Bryan Laubscher and Eric Westling were the guests for this Space Show program. We began our discussion with a review of the rocket equation and both Eric and Bryan took us through the chemistry and physics of rockets, mass ratios, etc. With extensive questioning by listeners as well as myself, both guests explained why chemical rocket propulsion breakthroughs were unlikely. I urge listeners to pay attention to this discussion. If you disagree, send our guests a note and explain why they are not correct. We next turned out attention to the science, engineering, financing, and politics behind developing the space elevator. We went through ribbon development, propulsion development, political decision making for basic R&D funding, what’s in it for a private sector profit motivated company and much more. This program is a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of the space elevator. Toward the end of the program, listeners asked about other nations being able to develop the space elevator, primarily India and China. You will want to hear what both Bryan and Eric have to say about this and about our technology and science compared to the same in other countries. They also explained what it means politically and economically for another nation to control the space elevator technology. As a result of another listener question, we discussed black budget financing and R&D as a possibility for the space elevator – right now. Bryan answered the question from his perspective as a Los Alamos scientist.”
You can listen to the interview by visiting The Space Show website or else clicking here.
Highly, highly recommended…
On the KC Space Pirates website, Brian Turner has placed an animated version of the launching pad to be used for the Climber/Power Beaming event in this year’s Space Elevator games. He also shows where he is going to be placing his team’s mirrors (but the anti-rotation wire and Belay line are not shown).
And, he displays great confidence by displaying the (in)famous line: “Abandon Hope all ye who enter here”…
Ben Shelef recently sent me the link to this clip. It’s very cool and is an early harbinger of power beaming technologies we now see being developed in the Space Elevator Games.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkVlkSnoGNM[/youtube]
This clip has been around for a while – I vaguely remember seeing a portion of it some time back. But thank you, Ben, for pointing it out to me so that I can put it up on the blog…
The latest newsletter from Spaceward:
Newsletter #3 – September 08, 2007
Announcements:For those of you new to this newsletter, previous letters are archived at www.spaceward.org/press.html#newsLetters, including the power-beaming technology overview from newsletter #2. This will help you keep up with some of the comments in the team preview below.Fans of Dr. David Livingstone’s Space Show as well as Space Elevator enthusiasts can find our 90 minute SE special conversation with the good doctor here. We talk about the coming games, the Space Elevator, Light Racers, and a little bit about the Space program and Space politics.
A quick reminder on behalf of the European Spaceward Foundation – Registration for the 2007 Climber Workshop in Luxemburg is open – read all about it at www.eurospaceward.org.
Team registration for Light Racers: Welcome to our new team from Farmington. If you’re considering participating in the Great Light Racer Championship, please sign up to the Light Racer mailing list, since we’ll use this list to announce special offers (Solar Panels!) rule updates, practice times, etc. Take a couple of minutes and read through the pages available at www.lightRacers.org. A new picture-by-picture guide to building a Light Racer is available too.
And finally, as if you’ve forgotten, the 2007 Spaceward Games – October 19-21 2007: Be there or be square! For details, tickets, special hotel rates, go to www.spaceward.org. A new hotel rate is now available at the Hilton Garden Inn in Layton (In addition to the Holiday Inn Express next door.) The discounted prices expire about 3 weeks before the games, or if they sell the entire block – so get your tickets now!
Venue Sneak Preview:(Since some email readers do not show images by default, I used links instead of embedded images – just click the image name to view it)I just recently returned from another scouting week in lovely Salt Lake City. Things are coming along great, and I thought I’d share some of the pictures and some of my thoughts with you.
The first image is probably familiar to you already, a Google aerial shot showing the general layout of the grounds. The signature square concrete path will be the epicenter of activity – this is where the climbers will launch from.
The second image is of the launch pad location, taken from where the crane will be located. This year’s crane has an “elbow” type boom, and so will be almost 100′ away from the ribbon, which in my mind makes for a much prettier setup. Still, at almost 400′ tall, even 100′ doesn’t seem like much…
From the launch pad, you can follow the concrete pathway through the lawn to “climber row” – the hangar where the teams are parked when they are not on the pad. Serving as a real life Space Elevator museum, climber row features the climbers hanging from the roof beams at eye level, so you’ll be able to walk up close, talk to the teams, and get a first hand look at what makes them (both the climbers and the teams) tick.
The concrete paths are great for moving the team entries around, and the square pattern allows us to de-stage one team while the other one sets up – No traffic interference. This event center seems to have been built for our games.
Right outside climber row stands this concrete pedestal, which will be transformed (by October 15) into an 8′ Earth hemisphere, complete with Space Elevator attached. This model will also feature the moon, and mars – all to scale!
There is much more that I haven’t snapped pictures of: The question Maze, the A/V facilities where we will screen unique Space Elevator movies, the Light Racer arena, the media center (more on this in the next newsletter)
I will be headed back to SLC in a couple of weeks, and will make sure to have more show and tell for the next newsletter.
The rest of this email is dedicated to an overview of our teams – both the veterans and the newcomers. I recommend that you check out their web sites… You’ll find that the teams are about as diverse a set as we could have hoped for – universities and hobbyists, 4 countries – some are prolific bloggers, some are more secretive. One thing’s for sure: On October 19, all their secrets will be revealed.So here we go, alternating between veteran and newcomers. You’ll notice that not all 22 teams are here. As was the case last year, some teams are not able to complete their climber in time. Since we’re nice people, we allow them to roll over their entry to next year, and so we hope to see them compete yet in 2008.
Next on our agenda is the “help wanted” sectionWe’re looking for a few good men and women to act as guides – this event will draw on the larger SLC area population, and a lot of people coming to the games will never have heard about the Space Elevator before. (Gasp!) Do you know your Space Elevator basics? Can you explain them well? We’ve got a “Guide” badge waiting for you!If you feel you’re up for it, please browse to http://www.spaceward.org/help-wanted.html and register, so we can keep you informed. Please also email help-wanted@spaceward.org with a description of what you want to do at the competition.
The Spaceward Foundation is a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit dedicated to furthering Space exploration in educational curriculums and the public mindshare – http://www.spaceward.org.
Who knew? Ben Shelef, CEO of Spaceward (the umbrella organization organizing the Space Elevator Games) has enlisted the help of Homer and Marge Simpson. I can’t wait to meet them at this year’s Games!
Homer and Marge are shown at the anchor station for the Climber/Power-Beaming competition. Homer is standing on the anchor plate while Marge is next to the Belay line. In between them (but closer to Marge) is the Anti-Rotation wire, mounted on a damper and some weights.
And I just hope that’s not a Canadian Beer that Homer is holding…
(Click on the picture for a larger version)
It’s amazing – I was on vacation for about a week and got just SO far behind.
Here’s an interview by the Magic City News of LiftPort’s Brian Dunbar (this was posted on September 1st).
As many readers know, last year the Space Elevator Games were held in conjunction with the X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico. While it was nice to have the two events together, it certainly wasn’t without its problems. At times, the Space Elevator games seemed to be the “poor stepchild” of the games; events that were happening there were occasionally not announced on the speaker system and therefore ignored by the crowds; the webcam/tv coverage of the Space Elevator portion of the entire event was nonexistant and, on a personal note, the Press tent was way the hell away from the SE Games – making it a royal PITA to cover the event and live blog it as I did.
On the Space Prizes Blog, Ray writes about the other side of the coin; that not having these two events together will make seeing both of them much harder. I can’t fault his logic, but I know that I’m not going to miss the “Rocket Man” 🙂
(Picture of the RocketMan from the RocketMan website)
In the latest installment of “Meet the Team”, we are introduced to LaserMotive’s Jordin Kare. This guy has one impressive resumé – a real rocket scientist with “degrees in physics and electrical engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D in Astrophysics from U.C. Berkeley“. Rather than me list all of what he is and what he has done, read the blog post here.
(I can already hear Brian Turner of the KC Space Pirates saying “So what! Has he made a radio-controlled lawnmower? Did he get members of the US Military to aim his mirrors? Has he been on the front cover of the NY Times Sunday Magazine? Does he have a Great Dane? 🙂 )
So, I’ve only had two posts this week – far below my usual output. And, as usual, I have a good excuse 🙂
Each year around this time, I visit my mom down in Northwest Arkansas. When my dad retired, he and my mom built their dream house in a retirement community and moved down there in 1989. It’s right on a golf course. You can look out their back porch and out onto the 18th fairway. They would drive their golf cart from their garage, down their back yard, across the 18th fairway and right onto the 1st tee – a real dream for golfers (as they were). My dad passed away in 2000 and I’ve made a point of visiting my mom at least once a year since then (as have my sister and her husband and my oldest daughter and her husband have too).
Why is this relevant? Well, shortly after they moved down there, they got interested in computers and bought one – which they used for email, Internet browsing and not much else. There wasn’t much in the way of access other than a modem and so this is what they used – and this is what my mom uses to this day. It is so stinkin’ slow that I want to SCREAM!!! It takes FOREVER to do anything and putting up the two posts I did while I was down there took so long that I just didn’t want to do anymore. But I’m home now – I kissed my Comcast cable modem when I walked in the door.
They have DSL in NW Arkansas now and I tried talking my mom into getting it. Lots faster and the price is the same as what she is paying for her modem! But she doesn’t want to do it – I’m going to enlist the help of the rest of my family members to get her to change her mind – they all use the computer when they’re visiting her too…
So tomorrow, I’ll be back to posting with my usual frequency – and sorry, Ben, that I haven’t put together that list of Utah Universities yet – that is first on my to-do list and I’ll have that done for you in the next couple of days.
I received this email from Brian Turner, fearless leader of the KC Space Pirates:
“Well sometime mistakes are noteworthy enough to admit.
I made a mistake in that I started mixing budget and engineering numbers. I did this a few months back when the budget and the engineering were thoroughly mixed with each other in reality. I took the budget power output numbers and fed them into the engineering worksheet. This caused a fudge factor for motor efficiency to get doubled. I have been working with these numbers for the past few months.
The upside is now that I have corrected the problem it appears that not only do we have enough power. We have enough to be competitive for first place.
The UPS man is stopping by almost daily and the collections of unidentifiable parts in the garage are starting to come together. Will still need to keep an eye on fund raising as the hotels and gas are a couple of thousand. With that in mind I am announcing the following:
Sale on unsold advertising space. 30% off of ad space less than $1500 and 50% off on the big ones. Plus I am going to offer a commission to other teams to cross market space on each others climbers. That will help advertisers be sure to get their message across. Check our web site for a details.”
In this months US Airways magazine, Kristin Ohlson has written a fine article / overview of the Space Elevator.
She quotes a number of “leading lights” in the field (Dr. Brad Edwards, Ben Shelef, Michael Laine, Ken Davidian, etc.) as well as some “lesser lights” (including yours truly).
It’s a good article – well worth your time to read.
(Sorry for no graphics in this post – I’m on vacation and don’t have my usual web toolkit with me)
Here are a couple of videos I just found on YouTube – maybe this guy has plans for the 2008 Space Elevator Games? I love his T-shirt…[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DDGZC6A_gU[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=subhHPdl74A[/youtube]
(Photo by Wylie Maercklein – click on the link to view a full-size version and to get a bit of background on the picture)
In the latest installment of the LaserMotive blog, we meet Steve Beland, an engineer working on airplanes by day and someone who “helps LaserMotive with systems engineering and control electronics” by night.
Tom relates how me met Steve (yet another LiftPort connection) and talks about how Steve got involved with the whole project. Read the blog post here.
As many of you know, the Space Elevator Games will be held this year at the Davis County Fairgrounds, just North of Salt Lake City, Utah. Google Earth provides an excellent overview (pun intended) of the location. If you key in the correct coordinates (40 degrees, 58 minutes, 35.09 seconds North and 111 degrees, 54 minutes, 33.42 seconds West), you’ll zoom right into it. I love Google Earth. It’s so much fun to use, it works so well, it’s so smooth and, to tell the truth, it’s a bit creepy (zooming into your house). To the right of this paragraph is a thumbnail of what you will see in Google Earth – click on it for a full size version.
Ben Shelef, CEO of both Spaceward and Elevator 2010, recently visited the Venue. He took several pictures, which you can view as a Microsoft word file (here) or .pdf (here). One of the pictures is reproduced in this post – click on it for a larger version.
Less than seven weeks and counting – I can hardly wait!!
Just seven weeks from today; Friday, October 19th, the finals of the 2007 Space Elevator Games begin. In the 2006 games, USST, Lite-Won, M Climber and Turbo Crawler made it all the way to the top (while the KC Space Pirates nearly got there) but only the USST run seriously challenged for the Prize Money. This year, hopefully, we’re going to have multiple teams that meet the Prize money qualifications.
Seven more weeks…
One of the first-time entrants in this year’s Space Elevator Games is the McGill Space Elevator Elevator team, from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Now I have a special affinity for that town; my wife was born and raised in the Montreal area, most of her relatives live in and around Montreal and she and I were married in Montreal. Suffice it to say that I have spent a fair amount of time there.
So I was pleased to receive an email yesterday from Cyrus, one of the team members of the McGill Space Elevator Team, informing me that they are in the process of updating their web site and sending me a couple of photos from their teams appearance at Discover McGill, a campuswide orientation for all first-year students at McGill.
This team has been pretty quiet about what type of entry they’re going to have in this years competition and I’ll be contacting them (and all of the other teams) soon to set up some interviews. In the meantime, enjoy the photos (click on them for a larger version).
(Update 29AUG07 – I inadvertently posted the same picture twice – this is now fixed – sorry)
In this week’s “Meet the Team” blog posting from LaserMotive, we meet David Shoemaker. David’s “credits” include a stint in the Navy, getting involved with LiftPort (where he met Tom Nugent), working at Microsoft and working on coin-op Arcade Games. A techno-geek for sure :-).
Read the whole post here.
On Sunday, Ben Shelef, CEO of The Spaceward Foundation, was interviewed by The Space Show’s Dr. David Livingston. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ben or Spaceward, this is the organization that puts on the Space Elevator Games each year and will be doing so again in October of this year. From The Space Show website:
Ben Shelef, co-founder of Spaceward Foundation, was the guest for this show. Spaceward is sponsoring the 2007 climber and space elevator games in Salt Lake City this year, Oct. 19-21, 2007. Check it out at the Spaceward Foundation website. Not only did Ben tell us about the climber contest and also the tether contest, he noted that for winners there is a million dollars to give away courtesy our favorite NASA! Its $500K for the winner of each contest but Ben explains this and the rules so read up on it, plus the other events to be held at this competition. After discussing the coming Salt Lake City competition, the facilities, hotel, etc, Ben got lots of good space elevator questions. We talked about a lunar elevator and an elevator for Mars. We even discussed the Martian moons and an elevator. You will not want to miss this discussion as its most informative. As for the competition, there are more than 20 teams from the US, Canada and Japan. Listen to how Ben describes their technology. Its certainly going to be exciting this year. If you have questions for Ben Shelef about the upcoming Salt Lake City competition, the space elevator, the Spaceward Foundation, please email him at Ben [AT] spaceward.org or as always, you can forward your comments and questions to him through me at drspace [AT] thespaceshow.com. And check the Spaceward website for more information and announcements about the coming games and the results.
It’s a long an interesting interview and highly recommended for anyone who wants to know more about The Space Elevator Games, possible uses of a Space Elevator and other interesting topics. Visit The Space Show website or click here to listen to the interview (note that it’s in .mp3 format and will take some time to download before you’ll begin to hear it).
The USST website is sporting a new, updated look – quite spiffy IMHO. They’ve also been updating their “News” section and we learn from it several interesting things. Their August 14th update states:
Members of USST have photos taken to be published in “NASA 50”, a publication celebrating the 50th anniversary of NASA.
That’s mega-cool. Also, their August 22nd entry states:
USST has been unofficially notified by the FAA that they will be approved to operate their laser power source at the Elevator 2010 competition in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Check out their News section for all USST updates. We also have other confirmation that they will be using a laser to power their Climber this year. From their website’s Home Page:
For this year’s Elevator: 2010 Competition, the USST is making use of a high-powered laser and we are currently conducting thorough design and testing in order to provide the next generation of beamed power at this years competition.
That makes at least two laser powered entries this year; LaserMotive being the other one. And, we have the Andromeda Connection’s “Solar Laser” entry, too. I have no doubt that returning competitors KC Space Pirates, UBC-Snowstar and University of Michigan’s MClimber will all up their game. Add that to the other first-time entrants and this year’s competition is shaping up to be the most intense yet. If you haven’t made your plans to be there yet, I’d urge you to do so. This is an event not to be missed.
As many of you may know, the American midwest has been hit pretty hard by storms over the past several days. Where I live (western suburbs of Chicago) was no exception. We lost power for nearly three days, along with our phone and internet service. Everything is now back up and I’ll be posting again later today – thanks for your patience…
In this posting on the LaserMotive blog, we learn about Carsten Erickson, another LaserMotive team member. Racing seems to be in the guy’s blood, participating in “Go-Kart, Hydro, Vintage Sports Car for his entire life”. He’s also the owner of a software company, which makes him ultra-mega-cool IMHO…
In today’s edition of the Edmonton Journal, Keith Gerein writes about the University of Alberta’s entry into this year’s Space Elevator Games. Money quote from team member Chris Ryziuk in discussing their limited budget:
“We can’t buy our way to victory, but a good design goes a long way.”
This is the first article I’ve seen on this team – good to know that they’re active. They won’t reveal their Climber’s power source so I guess we’ll just have to wait. You can check out their team website here.
(Photo credit: John Lucas from the Journal. Click on it or view the article for a larger version)
If you are a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal online, you can view today’s article on the Space Elevator by Lee Gomes. I’m not a subscriber, so won’t be able to view it. But I’m bummed – I spent a lot of time on the phone with Lee while he was preparing this article – wish I could read it Oh well.
If anyone is a subscriber, please let me know how the article was 🙂
Update August 27th – This article is now freely available here – thanks to Brian Dunbar at LiftPort for pointing this out.
In order to operate their Climber/Power Beaming entries, many of the contestants in this year’s contest must have permission from the FAA.
Bryan Laubscher is the Safety Officer for this event and has issued the following memorandum to all teams;
“1) Solar Teams – Do not have to file anything with the FAA
2) Spotlight Teams – Must file the form below. Richard (FAA advisor) does not anticipate any issues. However, my recommendation to assure passage are:
A) Have a team member designated to look for aircraft and be ready to shut off spotlights.
B) Make the point that the beams are terminated (by the climber). His concern is that distraction or dazzle to an aircraft.
C) Have all your power and divergence information in the form submitted and include the distance at which each beam’s irradiance (Watts / cm squared) drops below the sun’s irradiance.
D) Get this done ASAP.
E) Bring a copy of your form and your approval letter with you to the games as a part of your safety package.3) Laser Teams – Must file the form below. My recommendation to assure passage are:
A) Have a team member designated to look for aircraft and be ready to shut off the lasers.
B) Explain your system for automatic beam shutoff if the beam strays.
C) Have a person designated at the power switch to shut off the lasers in the case of an unanticpated problems.
D) Make the point that the beams are terminated (by the climber). His concern is eye damage to people on an aircraft.
E) Have all your power and divergence information in the form submitted and include the distance at which each beam’s irradiance (Watts / cm squared) drops below Maximum Permissible Exposure.
F) Get this done ASAP.
E) Bring a copy of your form and your approval letter with you to the games as a part of your safety package.On the FAA website search for:
Form 7140-1 and for information Advisory Circular AC70-1
This form needs to be filled out by the teams indicated above.”
And on a related note, LaserMotive has announced on their blog that they have already received permission from the FAA to operate their laser-powered climber. You can read about here. Congratulations LaserMotive!
That was my question when I read the previous posting from the Andromeda Connection. A Laser is coherent light, sunlight is not. I did a quick Google on the term and found a few sites that discussed “Solar Lasers” (including selling them to heat swimming pools). It still didn’t sound right to me and, with today’s posting at the Andromeda Connection’s website, the mystery is cleared up.
From the post:
“On the other hand, even though the MOLPSoL doesn’t use a single frequency of light as defined by a true laser, it can be tuned to a relatively narrow bandwidth. A collimated beam of white light cannot maintain convergence due to the different frequencies of light interfering with each other thereby causing divergence in the beam (in English: the photons, or light particles, traveling at different speeds collide with each other and cause the beam to spread). However, a well tunned MOLPSoL, using a fairly narrow bandwidth, can maintain convergence for fairly long distances.”
This is, in essence, a similiar technique to what the KC Space Pirates did last year. The Space Pirates used a large number of mirrors to focus sunlight onto a collector on the climber itself. The climber then further focused this light onto the photovoltaic cells onboard. However, if I’m reading between the lines correctly here, the Andromeda Connection technique will be to do the “final focusing” at the ground and beam the convergent output to the climber.
Read the whole post here…
No posts today as 1) today is my birthday and 2) my youngest daughter leaves tomorrow to start her college career at the University of Minnesota. She plans on being a veterinarian, something I’m very happy to see her do.
I’ll be back tomorrow…
The latest posting from the KC Space Pirates blog says that they have reached another fundraising goal and have “recovered from the location change” (to the less sunny Utah location).
Check out all their news at their blog.
The Andromeda Connection has updated their blog (they entitle it “Progress Report”). The latest news reads, in part;
“It seems the solar laser will be easier and cheaper to build anyway, and the odds of cloud cover during the 3 day event are acceptable. It was therefore decided that a MOLPSoL solar laser would replace the spot lights, providing 6 suns of light energy instead of the original 2 suns expected from the spot lights.”
The man has confidence, no doubt about it. On his “Why AnConn” page, he states;
“True, there is a lot of competition in this event. Some of this year’s competitors have big names. Some have proven their muster in past events. But given what I have seen from past events, the research I’ve done and my ideas for overcoming the problems mentioned below, there is no doubt in my mind that this year’s competition is in the bag.”
Due to his change in Climber power supply, he also now has some items for sale;
“I have 6 – 2500W/220V long throw spot lights for sale. Asking $1200.00 each, plus shipping. Any takers?”
Their website also has a number of photos and videos on it – definitely worth checking out. The thumbnail shown on this post is from their gallery and is of the two halves of their drive system. Click on it for a larger view.
The latest posting on the LaserMotive blog discusses ongoing problems they’ve had with their climber’s motor controller. These types of problems are typical engineering ones; I’ve seen many like it during my time of gainful employment. It’s what the engineering process is all about, and it’s why it will take real engineering skills to build something that has a chance in winning the climber/power-beaming competition (this year, or any year).
One engineering “skill” is employing testing, testing and testing some more. I remember when I was working at a company called InFlight Phone Corporation. Our product was phone and entertainment systems for commercial and private aircraft (my job was managing all of the software development). We were having a problem with the phone cord mechanism on many of our commercial plane installations – it kept failing. Our new corporate owner, MCI, brought in a “SWAT” team of people to help us make our product more robust. Some of their people were competent, some were not. One of the not-so-good ones got involved with the problem of the handset cord failures. He looked at our current solution and soon came up with a new one, one he was sure would solve the problem. He was so sure that he said it didn’t need testing – just get it out to the planes ASAP. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and, over his objections, we brought in an ME to do some real analysis and testing on it. The ME rigged up a mechanism that repeatedly pulled the cord in and out of its holder, simultaneously dragging it over a plastic arm, simulating the type of motion it would be subjected to on a plane. Within 12 hours, the new, “improved” design failed.
Testing, testing, testing – an absolute key ingredient to success…
Longtime readers know that I am very interested in how Solar Power Satellites (SPS) might become a viable option for providing clean energy from space. According to the calculations I’ve done, it doesn’t seem like a realistic possibility. The sheer scale of the problem (i.e., how much electricity humanity consumes) means that SPS won’t be more than a minor player on the scene until the efficiencies of Solar-2-Electric conversion get better by at least an order of magnitude (or more).
But I still try and follow developments in this field, hoping for some new breakthrough (or hoping that I’ve misplaced a decimal point somewhere). In a recent issue of Marc Boucher’s SpaceRef Daily, he points out a presentation which was given at the George C. Marshall Institute titled “Energy from Space: Examining the Potential of Space to Provide Energy for Earth“. Although I didn’t attend this, the slides from the two presentations are on the Marshall Institute website (and are available here and here).
Space Elevator fans might take note of slide number 13 from Dr. Hoffert’s presentation. He uses a comparison from Ivan Bekey’s Advanced Space System Concepts and Technologies showing an earth-based Space Elevator operating “40-50 years out” and it’s launch cost as $2/kg (vs. $20,000/kg using a Shuttle today). He also makes the case that SPS could eventually be cheaper than earth based Solar power because of the increased efficiencies.
Neither presentation, unfortunately, deflates the argument I made earlier; that because of the sheer size of the problem, SPS will not be a major contributor to earth’s power usage unless and until efficiencies get a whole let better.
Interesting presentations nonetheless…
Taking up the challenge offered by LaserMotive, the KC Space Pirates have updated their web site with a blog. Their latest posting is titled “Its a great day to be a Space Pirate”.
Dan Leafblad from the Space Pirates has this to say about the blog:
“Hi, We have been working hard testing and preparing for the competition but also accepted LaserMotive’s challenge to start a blog, something we have been planning on for months but just now got around to doing. we hope to update it regularly, i dont know how often it will be but we hope to keep it updated.”
Their website is very interesting and is one of the better Team sites out there. Take a look…
No, this has nothing to do with a Space Elevator, and, it looks (from the date) like it’s been on YouTube for a while. But I just stumbled across it and thought it was cool. I’ll admit it – I’m a big StarTrek fan (all versions) and so stuff like this appeals to me…[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfx8Nc6VKnI[/youtube]
In this blog posting from LaserMotive, they discuss Laser Safety, proper regulations and proper signage. We also see one of their signs (with the relevant, power-bit, edited out)…
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I’ve seen this video before and can swear that I had posted it prior to now, but I’ll be darned if I can find it. Either I never got around to posting it or have misfiled under the wrong category.
In any event, here it is – an AP story about the Space Elevator. I don’t know the date, but it was some time ago – it still has Dr. Edwards associated with ISR…[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moN6jEw12KA[/youtube]
The latest posting on the LaserMotive blog begins a new feature; “Meet the Team”. Today we are introduced to Steve Burrows, the first person to join the LaserMotive Team.
This is a fine idea, one I hope that other Space Elevator competitors will emulate. Thanks, Tom…
In the latest post from the LaserMotive blog, Tom Nugent says that they’re going to increase their already (relatively) prolific blogging and challenges the other competitors in this year’s Space Elevator Games to do likewise.
Tom points out the diminishing risks of doing so; it IS getting late in the game to be changing an entry and so teams would be risking little, if anything, by letting us know what is going on with them (hint, hint)…
I know USST is in the process of updating their website, and the KC Space Pirates, Snowstar, RAMCO I and E-T-C have been updating us semi-irregularly, but from the others, essentially nada. Several of the teams don’t even have websites. Of course we can’t read too much into that as one of the teams without a website, LiteWon (now the Technology Tycoons?), came in with the second fastest time last year and should only improve this year.
So, do we have any takers for this blogging challenge?
I received this news today from Clayton Ruszkowski, captain of the USST Space Design Team:
“…we are putting our 1kW laser stack, highly reflective mirror and solar cells (GaAs) up for sale to the other teams. They will be posted on our new and updated website next week…if anyone is interested to contact me via my email address; usst [AT] usask.ca…”
Clayton has emailed me some pictures of the stuff for sale (here and here – both are 1mb files). So, either USST has given up or has upgraded. I would lay a large amount of cash on the latter. They are also sporting the spiffy new logo shown on this post (click on it for a high-res version).
Finally, Clayton and I have also entered into “serious discussions” on what type of Canadian beer may be brought to yours truly… 🙂 You know, I wonder if I could talk the German, Japanese and Spanish teams into bringing along a six-pack or two…
In this year’s Space Elevator Games, no fewer than five teams from Canada have entered the Climber/Power Beaming competition. Returning from last year are teams from the University of Saskatchewan (USST) and from the University of British Columbia (Snowstar). New Canadian entries this year include the McGill Space Elevator Team (from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec), the Queens Space Elevator Team (from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario) and the University of Alberta Space Elevator Racing Team (from the University of Alberta in Edmonton).
USST has to be considered the early favorite for this competition. They finished first in the competitions in 2005 and 2006 and missed out on the prize money last year by just two seconds.
I’m personally very glad that we have so many entries from north of the border. My wife is a Canadian citizen so fully half of my extended family are Canucks. In addition, this land of Moose, Hockey, and Mounted Police brews a plethora of fine beer. Now, I’m an American and I love my country (and my beer), but it is my personal opinion that most American beers are not up to world standards. So, I would take it as a very great personal 
favor if each of the teams would bring yours truly a six-pack of their favorite brew. If you do, I promise to reimburse you in American or Canadian dollars and to post a very favorable story about your team 🙂
CBC news, a Canadian news organization which did a fine job of covering the games last year, has posted a story about this year’s Canadian invasion of the games.
One of the entrants in last year’s Space Elevator Games was LiteWon, a team made up of High School students from Westmont High School located in Campbell, CA. Their climber, certainly the least complicated one there, came up with the second best time to the top (a little over two minutes), losing out only to USST. This year, they are returning for another crack at the prize.
A story ran in the November 1st, 2006 issue of the Campbell Reporter, one I hadn’t seen until Ben Shelef emailed it to me a few days ago. It really is well done and the photographs are wonderful. The author, Alicia Upano, did a marvelous job. My favorite fact from the story was that their climber was powered by a motor from a model airplane.
If you want to see the story photos in all their glory, click on this link to view the pdf of the story. Though this pdf file is large (2 MB), it is well, worth the time it will take to download on your machine (IMHO).
(Photo credit: Jacqueline Ramseyer – click on it for a larger version. There are also several other excellent photos in the story)
Salt Lake City, the home of this year’s Space Elevator Games, is at latitude 40 degrees 47 minutes north while Las Cruces, home of last year’s Games is at latitude 32 degrees 31 minutes north. The difference is only a little more than 8 degrees, but that, according to Brian Turner of the Kansas City Space Pirates, spells out about a 15% power loss for their climber. Brian also says that Salt Lake City is cloudy about 45% of the time vs. 20% for Las Cruces. Added up, this spells some additional hurdles for the Space Pirates climber, and any other team relying on Solar Power.
The Space Pirates are also experiencing other difficulties. From an email he recently sent out (and reprinted with permission);
“Solar cell attrition is looking to be a potential problem. We are using Space Grade rejects. The testing has been mixed with both good and bad results. It appears that we will break more than I had anticipated because they are quite fragile. It also seems at this point that some of the Space Grade rejects are also Space Pirate rejects. Currently it looks like we may have to scrap 30% of what we buy or use them at reduced output.”
Brian also has this to say about his competitors:
“None of the other teams seem to be confident enough in their progress to release any details. That usually means that they are having similar problems to us. If any of the laser teams were really doing well I would expect to hear something. The teams that are copying my mirror idea are up against the same things we are. And as for the Microwave teams…. Well, I am just not a believer.”
I’m not sure if the other teams not releasing information is symptomatic of problems or not. He certainly could be right, but I expect at least a few other teams to come to the competition with polished, ready Climbers and they are only keeping mum now out of fear of tipping their hand early. Come October, we’ll find out…
The Space Pirates are also sporting a new logo. Click on it to see a larger version.
49 years ago today, President Dwight David Eisenhower signed The National Aeronautics and Space Act (Pub.L. 85-568) to create The National Aeronautics and Space Agency, more commonly known as NASA. NASA was created to respond to the challenge of Sputnik.
Though this agency is often criticized, it’s monumental achievements cannot be overlooked. In addition to winning the race to the moon via its Mercury and Apollo programs, NASA has sent probes all over the solar system and into true outer space. Today, NASA’s Rovers wander the surface of Mars, looking for the building blocks of life. NASA built and launched Skylab and is now working on the International Space Station. It has launched numerous satellites that have performed 
spectacularly, perhaps best symbolized by the Hubble Telescope. It has built the Shuttle, the world’s only, true, spaceship; capable of launching into space (with a 20 ton payload) and returning. And for we Space Elevator afficiandos, let’s not forget that NASA provided the money for Dr. Edwards research which led to 
the Space Elevator concept we are all working for, not to mention the prize money for the Space Elevator Games. The list of accomplishments goes on and on.
Yes there have been mistakes and failures and people have criticized NASA (perhaps justly, perhaps not) for supposedly taking wrong paths with the ISS and the Shuttle. But NASA is an organization which actually accomplishes great and magnificent things. We take so much of what they do now for granted and we really shouldn’t. Space is hard.
There is little doubt that NASA is going through perhaps their most difficult time now. From constantly changing priorities, to personnel issues that have become soap-opera fodder, to trying to deal with the nascent commercialization of space, it sometimes seems now like they are in a lose-lose situation. But I think we have to step back and take a look at the larger picture and just marvel at what they have actually accomplished and what they continue to do.
Next year is NASA’s fiftieth anniversary and I hope that day is marked by our country with great joy and celebration.
Happy Birthday NASA! Long may you continue to ad astra per aspera.
When I first read this article, my thoughts were “Wow! Has the ribbon problem finally been solved?” The specific line that made me think this was;
“Now, a research team from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has assembled particles of graphene oxide, a form of graphite and a cousin of diamonds, into very thin sheets that ARE EVEN STRONGER THAN THOSE OF THE [CARBON] NANOTUBES.” (emphasis mine)
But wait, how can this be? I thought carbon nanotubes were theoretically the strongest material possible.
Then the article said;
“Laboratory tests showed that the grapheme paper was as strong as that made from carbon nanotubes…”
Wait. First its “even stronger”, then its “as strong as”. ??? I guess they’re picking and choosing what kind of carbon nanotubes to compare it with (and then changing that on the fly).
The accompanying abstract gave some real numbers to look at; the strength of this new graphene oxide paper is given as 32 GPa. Very strong indeed, nearly 8 times as strong as steel, but, alas, not strong enough for an earth-based Space Elevator (130 GPa needed for a factor of two safety margin – Edwards).
Still, a very impressive accomplishment indeed. If/once the water solubility issue is solved, this stuff will be used in all sorts of applications. They could even make mail envelopes out of it; lets see the post office try and mangle those…
(Photo credit: Northwestern University. Click on it or visit the articles to view a larger version)
Update July 29th – I’ve heard from a couple of people that not all GPa’s are the same, and that this stuff isn’t that strong at all. Please note Tom Nugent’s comment on this post…
There have been a couple of posts recently (here and here) on the LaserMotive blog, both concerning the mirror that they’re going to be using in the upcoming Space Elevator Games.
In the latest post, they include a cool photograph, showing a reflection of someone from the coated side of their mirror, and discussing why they’re not concerned that their mirror doesn’t reflect visible light very well.
I must say, of all the Space Elevator Team websites, only a few are updated frequently. I understand that it takes extra work to keep a blog updated (well I know) and a lot of teams just don’t have the extra bandwidth to do this. Also, I’m sure that some teams are worried about giving too much away to the competition. With a half-million bucks at state, it’s hard to fault that logic. But I hope that the other teams will start posting some updates on their blogs soon, otherwise I’m going to have to subject them to one of my infamous interviews 🙂
(Click on the picture thumbnail, or check out the LaserMotive post, for a larger version)
The press release, announcing the date and venue of this year’s Space Elevator Games is all over the media and blogosphere now, and I’m not going to attempt to link to all of the related posts.
I will make an exception for Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log, however. His column is a regular read of mine; I always enjoy what he has to say. Here is his take on the upcoming festivities…
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Spaceward Foundation announced today the venue and timing for its annual Space Elevator games.
The event will be held at the Davis County Event Center just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. The qualifying rounds will start on October 15, and the event will be open to the public between October 19 and October 21.
The Space Elevator competitions, marking their third year running, will feature more than 20 teams from around the country and the world, vying for $1,000,000 in cash prizes provided by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program.
“The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development is thrilled to have the Spaceward Games in Utah this year,” said Gary Harter, Managing Director of Business Creation there. Barbara Riddle, director of the Davis area conventions shared his enthusiasm.
This year will feature a new technology competition — “Light Racers” — that allows kids and young adults to take part in a realistic lunar exploration scenario and win cash prizes for their performance. The competition is open to school, family, and grown-up teams. The Light Racers also serve as a science education platform for teaching basic science and math topics.
Meekk Shelef, president of the Spaceward Foundation: “We are thrilled to have added an educational component where kids can take part in the competition. Reaching out to the scientists and engineers of the future is the most important thing we can do.”
The Space Elevator games concentrate on two far-reaching technology concepts that will enable NASA to enhance its space program — power beaming for wireless power transfer, and Nano-materials such as Carbon Nanotubes for strong structures.
Ken Davidian, program manager for Centennial Challenges: “I am excited and impressed with the evolution and level of technical maturity demonstrated by the teams in both the Tether and Beam Power Challenges. Over the past 24 months, individual teams started from scratch, have grown continually, have coalesced into communities, and are on the verge of accomplishing substantial achievements worthy of a Centennial Challenges prize.”
Dr. Bradley C Edwards, the leading Space Elevator researcher and science advisor to the games: “The Space Elevator games, with their emphasis on strong tethers and power beaming, represent the road to building the Space Elevator. We hope their cumulative effect on the engineering community will enable further effort in this direction.”
“From what we have seen of the teams so far, we are looking forward to an exciting race to the finish this year,” said Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation. “Third year’s a charm — we expect to be able to award the prize purse this year.”
The Space Elevator is a revolutionary Earth-to-Space transportation system proposed in 1960 by Yuri Artsutanov and enhanced in 2000 by Dr. Bradley Edwards, then at Los Alamos National Labs. The system is comprised of a stationary cable rotating in unison with the Earth, with one end anchored to the surface of the planet and the other end in space. Electric cars then travel up and down the cable, carrying cargo and people.
For more information on the competitions, visit: http://www.spaceward.org/, email ted [AT] spaceward.org, or call (630) 240-4797.
Press resources are located at http://www.spaceward.org/press/PR-2007-001.html.
The Spaceward Foundation is a public-funds non-profit organization dedicated to furthering space science and technology in the public mindshare and in educational curriculums. We believe that expanding mankind’s habitat is essential to its survival, and that the most effective way to induce long- term change is through education.
CONTACT: Ted Semon of Spaceward Foundation, +1-630-240-4797,
Web site: http://www.spaceward.org/
