One of my favorite Sci-Fi authors is Jerry Pournelle.  I like the stuff he writes on his own but when he and Larry Niven collaborate, they create some of the best Sci-Fi ever written (IMHO, of course).  Chief examples are Footfall, Oath of Fealty, Inferno and, of course, The Mote in God’s Eye.

Dr. Pournelle also maintains his own website, Chaos Manor, and a few days ago, a writer wrote to him about using Prize Money to advance technology.  This is what the writer had to say, along with Dr. Pournelle’s response;

Competition and prizes win big,

Jerry,

I know you are a big fan of prizes to advance technologies. Dig this:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htarm/20090818.aspx

“For several decades, the U.S. Department of Defense has been trying to build a robotic vehicle. But in early 2004, the Department of Defense decided to try something different, and give enterprising civilian organizations a chance to show what they could do. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) held the DARPA Grand Challenge. Put simply, the first robotic vehicle (moving completely under software control, with no human intervention) that could complete a 240 kilometer course, would get a million dollars for its designers. No one even came close. But a second Challenge, held in late 2005, yielded several finishers, and the first one picked up the million dollar prize for navigating a 212 kilometers cross country course in just under seven hours. All vehicles operated under software control, as true robots. The third “Challenge” race was held in late 2007, and had a two million dollar prize for the first vehicle to complete a 60 kilometer course through an urban environment (an abandoned air force base) in under six hours.”

After several iterations of this competition:

“Earlier this month, two T2 vehicles equipped with sensors and control equipment, successfully passed realistic tests. One of the test subjects, controlled from a Stryker wheeled armored vehicle, successfully approached a village (equipped with mannequins set up as pedestrians along the streets), did a perimeter sweep at speeds of up to fifty kilometers an hour, then patrolled the streets, avoiding the pedestrians, and finally departed the area.”

“The DARPA Challenge races have been a bonanza in terms of advancing the state of the art for robotic vehicles. For less than $10 million in prize money and expenses, the Department of Defense has created new technology that would have otherwise cost more than $100 million, and taken a lot longer to perfect.”

It would never work in space, of course. We have to use the NASA monopoly. Of course..

Ed

(Dr. Pournelle’s response); I have never understood why prizes are not popular. They cost almost nothing — perhaps a million a year total to fund a commission that determines if a prize should be awarded — and you know the total to be paid. A ten billion prize for a Lunar Colony Prize (keep 31 Americans alive and well on the Moon for 3 years and one day) would either get us a Moon Base or it would cost nothing. A reusable space ship prize of 5 billion (send the same ship to orbit 13 times in one year) would again get us a space ship or would cost nothing. We spent more than half that on the X-33 fiasco.

I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment, although I think the writer is unfamiliar with the NASA-run Centennial Challenge program.  Look at what has been accomplished so far with the Centennial Challenges, specifically the Space Elevator Games.  From a standing start in 2005, we now have multiple systems capable of directing and tracking 8kw lasers so that they can beam power to a remote climber which will ascend/descend a kilometer long cable.  The representative from the Laser Clearing House who came to inspect and OK the competitor’s equipment commented that the teams had systems which were better than some she had seen in our own military.

So far, these competitions have cost NASA very little (just the costs of administering the competitions).  Even when NASA does have to pay its $2 million prize in the Climber / Power-Beaming competition, they’ll still have received a tremendous bargain.  If they want this technology, they can purchase it (they have 3 options), rather than have to develop it on its own…

(Thanks to the tip for this story from Space For Commerce)

I have a number of feeds in my RSS reader.  Periodically I go through and clear out a bunch that are no longer of interest to me.  One that I’ve never cleared out and always enjoyed reading is Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log.  Alan always finds the most interesting bit of information to pass along.  If you don’t subscribe to his blog, you’re missing a treat…

Alan has also been an avid follower of the efforts to develop a Space Elevator and has been to most of the competitions and most of the US conferences, including this year’s US Space Elevator Conference.

Here is his take on this year’s conference and the Space Elevator in general.  The picture with the tether that the Japanese team brought to this year’s Strong Tether competition shows that tether draped over yours truly’s fat fingers…

Alan refers to Ben Shelef’s Space Elevator Feasibility Condition paper and I’m glad he does.  As I’ve opined here before, I think this is the most significant paper that has come out of the space elevator community in quite some time.  It’s most important point states that unless some sort of unforeseen breakthrough can happen in the development of carbon nanotubes, we’re going to have to live with a tether that is no stronger than ~50 MYuris.  A tether / Space Elevator is still possible with this strength, but it gives us less leeway than we thought we had in the past.

I hope Ben is wrong about this (so does he), but if a ~50 MYuri tether is all we’re going to get, then we should start designing towards that.  This will be the subject of a future post.

It’s ‘fire season’ in California / western US and that has bad consequences besides the obvious.  For the Climber / Power-Beaming competition of the Space Elevator Games, we need a helicopter to hold up the racetrack.  All of the helicopters are now being used to fight these fires so none are available for our testing.

Damn.

So, we’re weather-dependent again…  If it gets really rainy where the fires are burning, then, hopefully, the helicopter we want will free up.  Until then, we’re all waiting as fast as we can…

A couple of the teams have posted updates.

Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates, sent me this email a few days ago:

This Fortune Small Business Magazine has a nice article about the competition. I have not been able to figure out if it is in the print edition just yet.  It is online at http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/13/smallbusiness/space_elevator.smb/index.htm?postversion=2009081407

As for the competition date. The testing with the new helicopter looks to get slated for the end of fire season. Apparently most helicopters of the size we need are reserved for that work this time of year.  So we are looking at an end of Sept. date at the soonest.

I have been using the extra time for getting caught up on work and family time. Doing things I used to take for granted like mowing my own lawn and changing light bulbs. We have also been working a bit on improving the reliability of the climber system.

Brian Turner
Captain
KC Space Pirates

And, on the LaserMotive Blog, Tom Nugent has updated us with this;

As you probably know by now, the Power Beaming competition was delayed again due to problems with helicopter operations. It seems that the earliest the competition can now happen is late September or October. We’re staying in close contact with Spaceward to keep up with developments, and taking advantage of the extra time to tweak our system. We’re also taking it easy – everybody had been working long, hard hours leading up to the competition, and now we need to rest and reacquaint ourselves with our families while we have some time to breathe…

There’s more – check out Tom’s blog post for the full story…

Finally, USST did post their summary of how the testing went at Dryden, too.  They’ve got some good pictures and it is well worth checking out.

(Picture of California fire status (the ‘Lockheed fire’) from here – click on it for a larger version)

Well, the 2009 Tether Competition, one of the two Space Elevator Games, is over and it was a) very educational and b) a lot of fun.

Only 1 team competed, an entrant from Shizuoka, Japan.  They brought a carbon nanotube tether with them to a) compete against the ‘House Tether’ (the first hurdle) and, if they succeeded, to then try and beat the 5 M-Yuri mark which would make them eligible to win the NASA-donated prizes.

Alas, they did not succeed in beating the House Tether, so they did not qualify to try for the prize money.  But they did a very important thing; they showed up and they showed up with a carbon nanotube tether.

I don’t have the exact numbers of when/where their tether broke.  Ben Shelef (CEO of the Spaceward Foundation – the group that organizers the Space Elevator Games)  had developed a table of this for a 2 meter, 2 gram tether.   The Japanese brought a tether which was both longer and lighter than required.  This put them at a serious disadvantage.  When Ben calculates the exact ‘strength numbers’, I’m sure he’ll put them on the official website of the Space Elevator Games, www.spaceelevatorgames.org.

The tether the Japanese brought was very different from other tethers we’ve seen, it looked like VCR tape – other tethers (especially competition tethers) look like thin ropes.

The nanotubes in their tether were not spun together, they were held together strictly and solely by Van Der Waals force.  The reason they did this was their belief that spinning the nanotube strands ultimately weakens them.  I’m not qualified to speak to that, but time will tell if their approach is superior or not.  They are going to try and use covalent bonding forces (it’s been a long time since High School chemistry) to strengthen their nanotube product.

I’ve included some more pictures in this post – pictures are always interesting 🙂

The topmost picture is a side view of the Japanese tether – as you can see, it looks like a tape from an old VCR Cassette.

The second picture is of this tether after it has been mounted on the “Torture Tether Rack”.

The third picture shows the Rack with the Japanese tether and the “House tether” mounted, side by side.  On the left is the House tether and on right is the Japanese tether.  As you can see, the Japanese tether is quite a bit longer.

The fourth picture shows the Japanese tether after it broke -you can see the end of it laying against the bottom of the Rack.

The last picture is of the Japanese team (Yoku Inoue is in the middle) being congratulated by Andy Petro (on the right), the head of the NASA IPP (Innovative Partner Program).  Andy thanked the team for coming and gave them both NASA Pins to commemorate the event.

I’m sure the Japanese will be back next year, and this time with a year’s experience under their figurative belt – they will be much, much, better…

(Click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture)

In less than an hour, we should see the Strong Tether competition.  As I wrote yesterday, only one team has showed up, a Japanese team from Shizuoka University.  They’re giving a presentation as I write this post.

I’ve got some pre-competition pictures which I wanted to share with you.  The first one is of Yoku Inoue (on the left) of Shizuoka University and Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation, host of the Space Elevator Games.  In between them is the scale which will be used to weigh the tethers (note the Microsoft cup in the scale as an homage to our sponsors (thank you again Microsoft!).  Behind Yoku and Ben is the “Tether Torture Rack”.

The second picture is of Andy Petro, the head of NASA’s Centennial Program (these are the people putting up the 2 million US Dollar prize money) and Ben examining the “House Tether” – this is what the carbon nanotube tether brought by the Japanese team must compete against.

The third and final picture is of the raw materials that the “House Tether” is made of.  On the left is a spool of Zylon thread while on the right is a can of 3M Super 77 adhesive.  To make this tether, Ben just wraps several strands of the Zylon around a couple of posts.  Once the tether is of the proper weight (3 grams), Ben sprays the looped strands with the adhesive. The adhesive is used to help keep the tether unraveling, but the main source of strength (outside of the strength of the material of course), is the friction holding the strands together.  The adhesive insures that the friction will happen.  When the tether begins to fail, you can hear the ‘ping’ as the individual strands making up the tether begin to separate.  Once enough of them have separated, the tether then suffers a catastrophic failure; i.e. it snaps.

I won’t be able to blog during the competition (coming up in the next half hour) – it’s just too difficult.  However, I will be Tweeting…

Log on to www.twitter.com/segames to stay up-to-date.  After the competition is offer, I will put up a blog post giving details of the results and some more photos.

(As always, click on the picture thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture)

Yes, the RC car in this video really is being powered by the TRUMPF laser, the same one which will power both the Space Pirates and USST Climbers in the upcoming Climber / Power-Beaming competition (LaserMotive, the third contestant, is using a laser provided by DILAS).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb0cy-CMVWg[/youtube]

And, over at the official site of the Space Elevator Games, Ben Shelef has posted the definitive take on “What Went Wrong” during the latest round of testing.

Correcting the problem and moving forward (in Ben’s own words):

“We have engaged a new helicopter operator and are in the process of determining if they can do the job – we need to be more thorough on this aspect this time around. We are also pursuing other alternatives in order to make the next flight happen as soon as possible.  (But no sooner!)”

Note that this problem affected only the cable assembly testing, not the laser testing (which went splendidly).

And also note that this problem does not affect the other half of the Space Elevator Games, the Strong Tether competition, which will happen next week at the Space Elevator Conference (note that you must be a paid attendee of the conference in order to watch this competition – yet another reason to come to the conference!).

Stay tuned to this blog or the official site of the Space Elevator Games for all the latest news.

Over at the official website of the Space Elevator Games, Spaceward CEO Ben Shelef has recently posted some updates on events that occurred during the most recent week of testing at the NASA-Dryden facility.

These were posts that Ben started while the action was happening, but because his time get getting hijacked by mundane stuff such as getting things to work, he was unable to post them until very recently.  While some of these postings then are, in a sense, out-of-date, all are very interesting in that they show what the teams were doing (or not doing, as the case may be) during the testing week.

Check out his posts on the USST (here and here), the University of Alberta and the National Space Society (NSS) teams.

Please note that only 3 teams. USST, KCSP and LaserMotive, have qualified at this point to compete for the NASA-sponsored prize money.  I do not believe that any other teams will be added to this mix in the future as the qualification window for the Climber / Power-Beaming competition is now closed.

Over at the official website of the Space Elevator Games, the CrazyEddieBlogger (aka Spaceward CEO Ben Shelef), reviews the status of where we are at.

Simply put; “…the helicopter flight was not successful in maintaining constant tension or position, which resulted in a safety device dropping the line.”

This is being addressed and as soon as an agreed-upon plan has been put together to solve the helicopter flight issues and a new schedule created, we’ll let everyone know.

In the meantime, stay tuned to this blog for the latest updates and all the space-elevator related news…

Last week, I posted a story about how a component of the ‘cable assembly’ system pulled apart and aborted a portion of the testing for the Climber / Power-Beaming competition of the Space Elevator Games.  This issue has caused a delay in the scheduling of this Competition.  We at Spaceward (I say “we” because, in addition to maintaining this blog, I’m also a volunteer with Spaceward) are working with the people at NASA-Dryden to address this issue.

It’s difficult to say how long this delay will be, but it’s safe to say that the competition is postponed until at least September, perhaps October.  Stay tuned to this blog or the official website of the Space Elevator Games for more information.

The other competition in the Space Elevator Games, the Strong Tether Challenge, is going to be held as planned, on Friday, August 14th, at the upcoming Space Elevator Conference.

One of the tests run today was a test of the helicopter / cable / winch system.  Everything between the winch and the helicopter is referred to as the ‘cable assembly’.  This includes not only the steel cable which the climbers will ascend and descend, it also includes things such as hooks, shackles, load cells, etc.  If any of these components fail and causes a breakage or separation of the assembly, it is referred to as a ‘cable separation event’.

During the testing today of the helicopter / cable / winch system, a “cable separation” event occurred.  One of the components in the cable assembly is a frangible link and it was included to protect the helicopter in case a specified load on the cable assembly was exceeded.  That link separated today during testing.  Either the link failed to hold to the required load or else the load exceeded the link’s rating.  There might be a third possibility, but I can’t think of what it might be offhand.

The picture thumbnail shows the link.  This link is in the assembly with other components above and below it.  The plug, shown in front of and to the left of the link, pulled out of the link – it should only do this when its rating is exceeded.  As I wrote earlier, either the load did exceed the rating or else the link failed and separated prematurely.

Obviously, there will be testing and analysis to done to determine why this all happened, just as happened after the pulley failure in the previous test round.  Stay tuned to this blog or the official website of the Space Elevator Games to keep up-to-date.

Incidentally the redesigned pulley performed flawlessly and this looks like a solved problem.

One other thing which should be noted is that a ‘cable separation event’ was one of many contingencies which had been previously thought of and a procedure designed for.  The NASA person in charge of this operation immediately called this procedure into effect and executed it.  Procedures are useful only when they are followed and this one was followed promptly and correctly.

Laser testing continues to go well and will conclude tomorrow (Friday).  The TRUMPF laser continues to perform nominally and the remaining teams are taking full advantage of it.

(Click on the picture thumbnail for a larger version of the picture)

This is more like it!  When USST showed up for the first round of testing, there were only four of them.  I was quite disappointed, expecting their usual army.  For this round of testing, however, they are here in force, 13 in all.

And they’ve come in style – look at the picture of that truck!  Yes it’s a rental, but it’s easily the coolest vehicle I’ve seen so far in this competition.  The truck is a Chevy (with a Santini paint job) and is a monster.  They are using it to pull the motor home they have with them – I think it could pull a lot more.  I asked them if they would wash it for me so I could get a good picture of it, but they declined.  Spoilsports…

When I visited their work area yesterday, their climber was mostly assembled – you can see it here.  However, you’ll note that they have nothing on there to hold payload (at least I didn’t recognize anything that could be used as such).  When I asked what they were going to use (last year they had some tubes mounted to their climber), I just got some smiles and an offhand comment about “we’ll have something”.  I’m sure they will.

And, it looks like from this picture that they’ve been putting in some long hours (as everyone involved with the Games has)…

(Click on the first or last picture thumbnail to see a larger version of the picture)

NASA has now got their live TV coverage from the lake-bed working.  It was actually working about an hour ago, but I logged on in an attempt to clean up a screen title and screwed things up.  Fortunately the NASA guys are pretty sharp and fixed it.  Sorry guys…

The direct link to see us is http://www.ustream.tv/channel/space-elevator

You can also go to http://www.ustream.tv/segames and then click on “Go to Show Page”.

You must have the Flash Player installed to make it work.

Enjoy! (and thanks NASA!)

Below is a screen shot of the uStream feed from a few minutes ago…

I spent 8 years living and working in Saudi Arabia.  As anyone who lives in the desert will tell you, the sunrises are spectacularly beautiful.  This picture is of sunrise over Edwards Air Force base this morning…

In the sunrise picture, you’ll note a garbage can in the foreground labeled “FOD” – I’ve included a close-up picture of this also.  FOD is an acronym for one of two things; the “FO” stands for “Foreign Object” while the “D” can stand for ‘debris’ or ‘damage’.  If you find an object on the desert floor out on the lakebed, you pick it up and put it in a FOD can (or throw it away or something – just get it off of the lakebed).  Airplanes land there and the last thing they need is any “Foreign Object Debris” to cause grief.  If a plane is damaged by some such object, than it is said to have been “FODDED” – “Foreign Object Damage”.

Great care is taken here to prevent FOD.  When vehicles come off of the lakebed and cross the runways to get back to the hanger (or wherever they’re going), they are required to do a FOD check before they cross the runway.  You stop the car and go around and check all the tires for rocks and other debris.

FOD is a big deal here and rightly so.  Anyone who doubts that a small piece of metal or other debris could be harmful to an aircraft only need remember Concorde Flight 4590 – a flight that crashed due to picking up a piece of metal on takeoff.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qid2s89OfZU[/youtube]

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Tomorrow should be a fun day.  If all goes well, we’ll see our first climbs on the helicopter-hoisted cable.  The climbers will be powered by batteries, not lasers, but this should still be cool nonetheless.

Also, if all goes well, we’ll be live-streaming this out to everyone to see.  You have two options to view this.  You can go to www.ustream.tv/segames – that should take you to the live, streaming website.  Also, you can go to the official site of the Space Elevator Games, www.spaceelevatorgames.org, and click on the Live Coverage tab at the top.  This should take you to a page where you will see both the streaming video and a Twitter Feed to let you know what’s going on.

Stay tuned!

Our base of operations here at Dryden is Hanger 4823.  It’s an adjunct to a machine shop, a very cool, professional and accomodating machine shop I might add.  They’ve already turned out several parts for us on a moments notice.

When we here for Round 1 of testing, conditions were a bit more primitive then they are today.  There are bathrooms and water was available but Internet access was almost impossible unless you were lucky enough to have Verizon wireless data service (like I do).  For the testing this week, they have set up several tables; each with power and wired Internet access.  Lots of bottled water and Gatorade.  It’s all very civilized…

One of the new things added for this round is a Televison monitor.  We’ve seen CNN and the Weather Channel on it and today, they switched to Base Camera 8.  This monitors activity out on the lakebed.  We are now able to monitor the activities out at the lakebed testing location.  The picture isn’t all that clear (long distance, heat waves diffusing up from the desert floor and I think they are just retransmitting something they sent to uStream – add that all up and you lose some detail), but it’s very cool nonetheless.

And, a little while ago, I had a visit from the Geeky squad (aka the KCSP team).  They have purchased these ‘cool’ hats, complete with white LEDs.  Geekiness lives…

(I want one)

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The surprise entry in these Games, at least IMHO, is the team from the Universityof Alberta (UASERT).  This is partly my fault; there are team chats every Sunday which I used to attend.  However I haven’t recently, but the UASERT has.

They and their equipment arrived yesterday and they are now in the Hanger with the rest of us, assembling their entry.  I’ve taken a couple of photos and included them in this post.

The first two pictures are of the bottom side of their solar array, one shot looking downward on the array while the other shot is looking edge-on to the array.

The third picture is of the steel box which holds their optics.  Hmmm, steel, painted black, sitting out in the Mojave desert sun for several hours.  I hope they brought asbestos gloves…

They’re still assembling their system and hope to get out to the lakebed tomorrow for laser testing.

One other note about this team; if you visit their website, you can read both their blog (which is very interesting and gives the reader a good view of the team’s activities as it scrambled to get ready for this competition) and a number of photos.  Good stuff…

(Click on any picture thumbnail to see a larger version)

As noted on the official website of the Space Elevator Games, we’re now down to four teams; the Kansas City Space Pirates, LaserMotive, USST and the University of Alberta.  KCSP, LaserMotive and USST have all met all hurdles and are in.  The Alberta team has to convince both Spaceward and NASA that they are ready to go…

Have I said how cool this place is?  So much advanced research going on here – it’s been one of the issues in getting the Games working here – coordinating the Games schedules with everything else going on at this location.

I was writing a blog post today when another sonic boom occurred – there have been enough of these that they don’t make me jump anymore.  But I still go outside after I hear one and hope that I can see something cool.  Today I most definitely did.  The picture isn’t great, as the contrail was already starting to dissipate by the time I got my camera, but darned if, at the bottom of the photo, that doesn’t look a 90 degree turn in mid-air…

And not only is this place, cool, it’s hot.  Take a look at the screen shot I captured today of the Weather Channel.  Of course it is the middle of July and we are in the Mojave desert…

(Click on the picture thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture)

USST is now here in force – they brought a whole army with them this time – I’m going to see if I can get a group shot of them sometime (part of them are out on the lakebed right now doing laser testing).

When they arrived late for the first round of testing, no one was very worried that they wouldn’t eventually be ready.  They did get a lot done in the short time they were onsite and were provisionally cleared to compete.  And, we all know that they are a force to reckoned with in these Games, having had the best performing climbers in the 3 previous Games.  They are also the only team with a successful laser climb to the top of the competition tether under their belt – and they did it multiple times in a row.

Still, its nice to see them here, all loaded for bear as the are.  I’ve included several pictures of their partially assembled climber in this post (they are putting it together as I blog).

The topmost picture is of the top of their solar cell array while the second picture is of the bottom of the array.  I picked it up – it’s not nearly as heavy as it looks.

This third picture is my favorite – it’s the case they use to transport part of their climber in.  It looks suspiciously like the case I use for my Mossberg 535…

The last picture is of the treadmill that they use for some of their testing.  You can see the climbing mechanism of their climber on the right.

One more USST note; they’ve changed their website – the new location is now http://www.usst.usask.ca/.  Because I hadn’t noticed this, I haven’t seen their latest updates including a very good summary of their last testing go-round.  It’s really worth a read and lets you know the efforts and issues that these teams have to deal with.

More later…

Interrupting my series of “Miscellaneous updates”, I’d like to show you a picture of the new pulley built by NASA.  This will replace the one which failed in the last testing round and will, hopefully, prove to be more than capable of handling the load.

The next round of testing starts, in earnest, next Tuesday.  Some of us are in California already while others (including myself) will shortly be on the way.

This coming week should be a lot of fun.  Stay tuned to this blog or the official website of the Space Elevator Games or Twitter to keep up to date.

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Lots of Space Elevator items have been posted on the web in the past several weeks, items I’ve neglected to mention as I’ve been concentrating on the upcoming Space Elevator Games and Space Elevator Conference, so today and tomorrow I’ll be doing some ‘summary posting’ of some of these items:

First, of course, is a Status update from the Games themselves, posted on the official website of the Games…

A new “Space Elevator” (of sorts) has made it to the movies.  There is a new movie coming out “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” which, incidentally, some Hollywood blogs are all upset about because they say it is a ripoff of the Harry Potter movies.  In a trailer for the movie, Percy is shown entering an elevator at the Empire State Building, but the elevator car blasts through the top of the building and all the way to Mount Olympus.  We don’t actually see the “Space Elevator” of course…

The idea of an inflatable space elevator has been making the rounds lately.  There were several postings about this, one of the more complete ones is here (with some comments on it here).  While I haven’t given it a lot of thought, it sounds a bit dicey to me.  It will be only 20 kilometers high and supposedly be kept vertical by the use of “stabilizers and gyroscopes” and will withstand the force of hurricanes by “leaning into them”.  Supposedly you could also save some rocket fuel by lifting the components up to the top of the tower and then launching them from that point.  However, no numbers are given as to how much could be lifted, how often, etc.  I wish them success…

Another type of Space Elevator recently proposed was the “Rotating Space Elevator” a method to use centrifigal force to power climbers ascending the structure.  This sounds cool, of course, as it’s essentially free power, but I don’t think it’s practical – I don’t think that enough force is generated to lift anything useful.  But I will admit I’ve only glanced at this article in a cursory manner and perhaps I’ve missed something.  So many Space Elevator concepts, so little time…

During the first round of testing at Dryden, there was a “Press Day” where NASA had local columnists and camera crews come out and visit.  I made a presentation to them and then they visited the workshop where teams had set up plus the testing operations out on the lakebed.  One of the stories is here, complete with a couple of pictures of  the NSS and University of Michigan team climbers.

All for now – more miscellany tomorrow…

I’m told that at the NASA-Dryden facility, testing begins today on the newly engineered pulley which will be used during the upcoming Space Elevator Games Climber / Power-Beaming competition.

Readers may recall (from my blog and also from the official website of the Games) that the pulley used during the first round of testing failed after much of the testing had been completed.  This pulley failure caused the steel cable raceway to shear.  It was the only technical failure of the day, however, as everything else seemed to hold up very well.

This is preliminary testing of the pulley only as testing with the helicopter and winch will not occur until next week.  I’m sure however, NASA will test this pulley every way they can and so we all are confident that the pulley will perform as needed during the second round of testing next week and at the Games.

This is what testing is for; find those components of the system that fail during normal operations (or beyond) and redesign and/or strengthen them.

Over at the Space Elevator Games Blog, Ben Shelef writes about testing in general.  It’s a very good summary of what testing is all about and the limitations with it.

I’ll be out at Dryden next week for the testing and will be blogging and Tweeting onsite.

(Click on either picture thumbnail to see a larger version of the picture)

In my last post, I showed some of the aircraft (real and mockups) that are scattered about the Edwards Air Force Base and NASA Dryden Research Facility.  But they also have spacecraft they’re working on too – after all, this is NASA.  Here are a few more photos and brief explanations:

This is the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), used by NASA astronauts to practice landing the Apollo Lunar Module on the moon.  This is one of the actual vehicles used, not a mockup.

This is a sign posted by the LLRV, explaining its significance. Its just so cool to be able to walk right up to something like this.

At Dryden, they’re testing the new Orion spacecraft in various abort parameters. This is the life-size mockup they’re using – with yours truly standing in front and obstructing the view.

This is the top of the Orion mockup – and is where the parachutes (and other things) are stored. These are the parachutes which are deployed to help soft-land the module.

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(Again, click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture)

Have I said how cool this place is?  Just outside the main checkpoint at the Northern entrance sits a B-52.  This is a real B-52, flown by NASA and now retired.  It was used to lift several prototype aircraft into the air for launch including the X-15 and the X-43a’scram-jet’.  The unofficial history of this aircraft can be found here.

Once you get through the parking lot and enter the NASA Dryden facility, you park your car in the centrally located parking lot.  Surrounding this lot is a series of aircraft (some real, some mock-ups).  The coolest plane, by far, is the SR71 Blackbird, but they are all awesome, especially since you can walk right up to them.  Here are a few pictures I took…

This is the B-52 of which I wrote.  It’s hard to imagine how big this aircraft is until you are standing right next to it.  In front of the aircraft is a parking lot.  You can get out of your car and walk right up to the aircraft.

As most of you know, if the Shuttle is not able to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, its backup landing site is right where we’re holding the Games, on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base.  If the Shuttle has to land here, it is mounted on a specially modified Boeing 747, pictured here, for the trip back to Kennedy.

When they put the Shuttle on the 747, a special shroud, pictured, is attached to it to help its airworthiness.  This appears to be made out of wood, not metal, something which surprised me quite a bit.

A nose-on view of the SR-71. This really is the sexiest aircraft ever built (IMHO).

A side view of the same SR-71.

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Incidentally, there is a Shuttle launch scheduled for July 11th. Lets hope nothing is delayed and they can land fine in Florida – otherwise it might affect the Games.

(You can click on any of these picture thumbnails for a larger version)

Yes the technology is way cool – we’re going to watch Climbers powered by class-4 lasers ascend  a kilometer long steel cable, at 5 meters/second no less, held aloft by a helicopter.  All of this will happen at the NASA Dryden Research Center located at Edwards Air Force base – and then there is the small matter of the $2Million prize purse too…  Who could view all of this and not be awed by the work and technology that has gone into making this happen?

It takes people to make this all happen and documenting the work, the planning, the disappointments and frustrations, the success stories and all the other human effects and emotions incumbent in these Games is the job of the Chicago video production company Bitter Jester Creative, Inc.

I’ve blogged about these guys before, but think it’s time to mention them again.  At the Games Official Website, Ben has a fine post about the people and the project at Bitter Jester.

They’re such perfectionists – I remember at the last Games they spent so much time setting up the ‘perfect shot’ for the Space Elevator Toy that the Japanese team (E-T-C) brought with them – and it will probably only get a few seconds in the final production (if it’s there at all).  They take this same attitude towards everything they’ve been doing.

I can’t wait to see the final project – it should be most cool.  The trailer, below, they did for the Games this year is some of the best advertising we have for it – and they treated it almost as a throwaway.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO1EV6A76ZE[/youtube]

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They’re working on several other very cool and inspiring projects too – check out their website and look for them at the Games – they’re everywhere!

In the previous Climber / Power-Beaming competition portion of the Space Elevator Games, the ‘raceway’ tether was held aloft by a crane.  Each year this tether distance became higher, culminating in a 400 foot tether in the most recent competition.

For this year’s competition, the raceway is a full kilometer long –  and a crane just isn’t going to cut it.  Several ideas were looked at including using a balloon, holding it up inside a (very tall) building, holding it up along side a (very tall) building, but in the end, the idea of using a helicopter to hold the raceway aloft turned out to be the best option.

Though this solved the problem of how do you hold up such a long tether, it presented another problem – namely how does the helicopter pilot keep the aircraft in a relatively stable position?  At such a height and in such a featureless location, this caused some concern.

At the official website of the Space Elevator Games, Ben Shelef tells us how this problem was addressed.   The solution is very ingenious…

(The first picture thumbnail is of the crane used in the 2007 competition.  The second picture thumbnail is of the helicopter which is going to be used in this year’s Games.   Click on either thumbnail for a larger version fo the picture)

At the 2007 Space Elevator Games, team LaserMotive made it’s first appearance.  Many of us who closely followed the runup to the competition had high hopes for this team’s performance.  They seemed to have all their bases covered, their climber was laser-powered (one of only two teams to be so), and enjoyed the assistance of a true laser expert, Dr. Jordin Kare.

Unfortunately, however, they were badly bitten by not being totally prepared in time for the competition.  It’s easy to point fingers afterwards and say that they could have done a better job, but they, like everyone else, are doing this in their spare time.  They have other things, like day jobs and family, that they have to balance with their Space Elevator passions. In retrospect, it was amazing that they had all of this equipment working at the Games – they were basically setting up a lab at the launch point every time it was their turn to make an attempt.

This time around, however, promises to be different. With a year’s experience under their belt, they are definitely loaded for bear.  On the official website of the Space Elevator Games, Ben Shelef has put up a series of posts about LaserMotive’s qualification.  To sum up, it appears that this team is READY…

In Ben’s first post about team LaserMotive, he talks about how this team is using a laser supplied by DILAS.  They are in the minority here, with only the McGill team joining them in using this system.  The other four competitors are all using laser power supplied by TRUMPF.  Because of this, there was only some reflectivity testing done onsite during the recent tests at Dryden – the main testing needed to be done at the LaserMotive facility.

In the second post about LaserMotive’s qualification testing (which was done onsite at the LaserMotive facility), Ben writes in more detail about LaserMotive’s power source.  Money quote: “The system uses two parallel beams, which originate in the two cube like devices at the back, are folded over several times as they bounce between the mirrors, and eventually exits through the top hatch after having bounced from the large bottom mirror. For testing, a last mirror is introduced at the top, diverting the beam so it comes out horizontally out the back of the trailer.”

In the third post, Ben writes about how LaserMotive has their laser doing double-duty; powering a climber and cooking hot dogs.  What, no beer?

And in the fourth and final post (so far) about this team, Ben writes about the Climber “Melt Test”.  In previous Games, the main issue was “Shake, rattle and roll” – worrying about how the climber would handle the wind and the subsequent twisting and oscillating of the tether.  That is not so much a worry this year as the climbers are not climbing a tether, but rather a steel ‘rope’ (cable).  There’s not much cross section for the wind to grab hold of.  The teams (and Ben) ARE worried about if the climber can take the laser at full power for the length of the climb (plus some margin).  Ben doesn’t give us the actual numbers, but you’ll note that he had no complaints.

Check out these posts that Ben has put up – they’re most informative and fun to read.  He has several pictures included, some taken by him and a couple taken by yours truly.  You might also want to read a couple of previous posts (here and here) that I had put up about DILAS.

I think it’s time for me to start a pool for this competition – I’ll be on the phone to Las Vegas shortly…

(You can view larger versions of the pictures by clicking on the picture thumbnails.  These pictures show NASA personnel doing their own testing of the LaserMotive climber)

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…

Over at the official site of the Space Elevator Games, Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation (host of the Games, along with NASA), gives us the new dates for the second round of testing and the games:

Jul 16-23 – Testing, Round 2

Aug 3-7 – The Games

Check out Ben’s post for the logic behind all of this.

Over at the official website of the Space Elevator Games, blogger (and head of the Spaceward Foundation, host of the Games, and author of The Space Elevator Feasibility Condition) Ben Shelef has been detailing the testing results from last week.

He has the results of the LaserMotive tests here and the results of the Kansas City Space Pirates tests here and here.

If you haven’t been following Ben’s website, you really should be.  It is THE definitive source for information about the Space Elevator Games.  Put it into your RSS reader – you won’t regret it…

I received this long and detailed email from Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates.  It does a better job than I could have of summarizing the testing results from last week.  Both of the pictures in this post were also provided by Brian.

The last week of testing was quite the ride. We are currently the only team to pass all of the pre-competition qualifying tests. We passed both safety and performance tests. It is eerily similar to the last competition where we were the clear leaders early and fell short at the last minute. We must be extra careful not to lose our focus.

We were the only team to show up on Monday. Most of the rest of the teams trickled in over the next few days. There was no required arrival time because the first day was just for planning and unpack.  Tuesday was for helicopter testing. But due to a rain scare, that was pushed back to Wed. Apparently rain on a dry lake bed is a bad thing and can trap vehicles in mud that takes days to dry.

We spent a lot of time waiting. Because Edwards is an airforce base and Nasa Dryden Flight research center works on top secret stuff we had to have an escort everywhere we went once we entered the flight- line complex. This included if we wanted to get something to eat at the employee food court just a few blocks from the hanger that was Spaceward’s base of operations. Because everyone was heading in a hundred directions there was a shortage of escorts. We also had to get badges and passes, and watch safety videos. We did get to meet some really nice people as they were escorting us. Freddy and Elizabeth were great fun and very helpful. I can’t remember the other escort’s names as we were pretty busy when they were on escort duty out on the lakebed. The escorts all have regular duties. For example Elizabeth is a lawyer in the tech. transfer office.

We also learned about FOD (foreign object debris) This is basically rocks in the tire treads or kicked up into the gaps on the vehicles while they are out driving on the lakebed. This FOD can damage jet engines and create flying object safety hazards if allowed to track up onto the concrete flight-line area. Edwards is home to aircraft costing in the billions with a B. So they treat the flight-line as something like the houses where you take of your shoes off before walking on the carpet. So we have to get out and pick all of the rocks out out of the tires whenever we come in off of the lake bed.

All of this overhead took about a day of the total time we were out there. While I was waiting around I was analyzing (That’s what I do with every spare moment of my life.) all of this overhead and decided that none of it was unreasonable. If Spaceward had chosen a different place we could have avoided most but not all of this kind of overhead.  However the safety requirements for an 8 Kilowatt laser turned loose are difficult to satisfy at any venue. And the added requirements for a helicopter with a 1.3 km long cable hanging from it are also a pretty tall bar.

Safety procedures and meetings took most of another day worth of time.  I was expecting this overhead so was not that bothered by it. And perhaps a day or so waiting on Spaceward and the other teams. That left us with about 2 days that we spent working on our stuff. And that was time well spent, making up for all of the time spent waiting for everything else and the 4.5 days of total driving from Kansas City to Dryden and back.

We rented an RV in Vegas that was immensely helpful on the lakebed, in the campground and finally as the kitchen.

The Muroc dry lake bed is a thing to behold. Miles of flat dried mud with no people and almost no animals. It is the kind of place where you go to test dangerous stuff. It is also so stereotypically desert that many films and TV shows are done here. I believe that the Mythbusters episode where they were shooting bullets straight up is an example. I should also mention that it is dusty, windy and hot. There is clearly more dust than sand and it gets everywhere. Challenging all of our dust control measures and coating all of our optics with a fine layer that has to be cleaned every time before we fire the laser through our system.

The heat is not bad in the morning or on cloudy days. But Thurs. and Fri. were brutal past midday. You almost lost a hand to having to hold a water bottle all the time.

As you may have heard by now, on Wednesday the cable broke while the helicopter was lifting it up into position. This was caused by the pulley on the bottom failing from the combination of high speed and high load. Either one of which would probably have been fine by itself. After the cable broke there was some confusion as to what the procedures were. That shut down operations for the day. We went to a debrief meeting that I had low expectations of. Quite the opposite happened. All of the background players were there and the Spaceward operation was reviewed for both procedural and systemic issues. A plan for making the plan was forewarded and all the concerned parties explained their point of view in a professional manner. I learned about issues that I did not know about and all of the concerns that I thought were being ignored were clearly spoken. It was something of a how-to lesson for me on complex operations.

During the time before the cable broke we actually learned a fair amount. The cable was well behaved. A dramatic change from the past 2 competitions where the flat ribbon we were climbing became an ill- behaved and fierce enemy to success. The winds were in my estimation higher than in the previous competitions. This also means that we may have overbuilt portions of our optics system. Better overbuilt than underbuilt.

We did not get to run our climber on the cable. That was to be the next step. So we will have to move forward without the benefit of the data that would have been gathered had we gotten to do this test.

Now on to the laser testing.

The surprise that we had planned for the testing was the RC truck. We have our climber solar panel mounted on it and it powers the thing. We had what is probably the world’s first laser powered truck. It worked well until we lost the telemetry signal and had to move on so that we could get in our stress test before the next team needed to take a turn with the laser.I am told that the video from this was awesome and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I hope to have a version edited and posted to youtube for you guys to see soon.

Many of the laser tests were just confirming that we did what the rule book said. All of the back and forth about this stuff over the last 2 or so years came down to a procedure that was as workable as I could ask for. The most feared test for me was the climber and optics stress test. We had to exceed the duration and power level that we wanted to use in the competition to make sure that we did not have any failures that could pose a safety problem. Of course our system was designed to be cutting edge and I can’t say that I have a good feel for where that edge falls off at. If we were going to fail a test this would be the one. The test went so well that I stopped it at the maximum desirable time as opposed to the point where the temps were hitting the safety limits. The big trouble that we had last time we were in front of the laser also seemed to be cured by the custom lens from our newest sponsor Asphericon.

As for our competitors:

Lasermotive is looking excellent. They are clearly operating even better than at the last competition and have reaffirmed their position in my estimate as being one of the top three. USST got delayed at customs and was only able to get 2 hours on the laser the last day of testing. From what I saw they are operating at a level consistent with previous years but I did not really see enough to be swayed one way or the other in thinking that they round out the top three with Lasermotive and us.

I did not see or hear anything from McGill or Alberta. It seems unlikely that they have full systems hiding somewhere so I have to be pessimistic that they will arrive in competitive form in 3 weeks.

NSS and M-climber came to laser testing with systems that failed to pass the required tests. There was however limited time for them to do so. I still think that they have more than 3 weeks work to do in the next three weeks.

Our testing this week grew a long list of items that need attention, so we will be very busy putting the finishing touches on our system over the next three weeks.

This is the longest newsletter I have ever written. But then this was clearly one of the most exciting weeks in KC Space Pirates history.

Brian Turner
Captain
KC Space Pirates

Thanks Brian.  We have many more pictures and videos from the Testing that we will be posting here or at the official site of the 2009 Space Elevator Games.  Stay tuned!

First a quick status update.  Wednesday’s problem with the steel cable snapping was caused by a pulley failure.  Once this pulley failed, it sheared the cable.  This failure halted operations for the day so that all the relevant parties could get together and decide what happened and how to fix it.  The pulley was rated for the load, but evidentally the very high spin rate of the pulley, with the load it was carrying, caused it to fail.  A much more beefed up pulley should take care of this issue.  Other than that, Wednesday’s testing of the raceway setup went very well.  Over at www.spaceelevatorgames.org, the official site of the Games, there are more details about this.

Today, Thursday, we began laser testing with the laser provided by TRUMPF.  This also went very well.  The Kansas City Space Pirates team were the guinea pigs in this testing.  It took time to work out exactly what should be tested, how it should be tested, what the procedures should be for ‘laser protocol’, etc.  The end result was that the laser system performed flawlessly and the Space Pirates system performed at a very high level too.   The Space Pirates passed all of their tests save one, a stress test which will have their system handle the full-power (8 KW) laser feed from TRUMPF and do so for a length of time simulating how long they would need it to send their climber up the kilometer long cable.  This will be done first-thing tomorrow morning.  Once that is completed, the other teams here, ready to go, will also do their laser testing.  Team LaserMotive also underwent laser testing and passed a less-stringent test (they did not have their full-power laser system onsite), so it was a good day all around…

The first picture (above) is of an all-hands meeting held before testing began on Wednesday.  Everyone who was involved in any way was required to attend this meeting.  As you can see, it is quite a crowd.

The second picture (above) is of the helicopter we used.  It is an S-58 and is supplied by Aris Helicopters. 

The third picture (also above) is of the winch which holds the steel cable that the Climbers will be ascending/descending.  This cable will be anchored on one end (the ground end) by the winch and on the other end (the up-in-the-air end) by the helicopter.  The winch is the more active partner of the two; paying out and reeling in the cable as necessary.

And, the last two pictures are of the local area.  The first is of a Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia).  These trees grow in the desert here and are starkly beautiful.  They can be seen all along the highway here in the Mojave desert.

And finally, this last picture is a small portion of the enormous number of windmills in this area (the Tehachapi area).  I am told that here in Tehachapi is where wind farms were started in the US.  They’re amazing to see, both in their size and the sheer numbers of them around – there have to be several hundreds of them.

As always, click on any of the picture thumbnails for a larger version of the picture.

More tomorrow…

If you’ve been following our Tweets (www.twitter.com/SEGames) you’ll know that we had a problem today with the pulley and the cable.  I was not at the lake-bed operations today (I was watching it on ustream along with many others) and I am not party to the after-mission meeting where this is all being discussed.  So, take what I’m writing here with a grain of salt.  I’ll try and differentiate between what I know and what I think I know.

I know that the cable broke.  Everyone has confirmed this – I have seen pictures of it (and am waiting to get them from Danny Leafblad of the KCSpace Pirates so I can put them on this blog).  I also know that the pulley that the cable was threaded through (the steel cable goes from the winch through the pulley and to the helicopter) broke.  I have seen pictures of this, too.

What appears to have happened (and remember, this is subject to update based on the after-mission analysis going on now) is that the pulley broke first.  It cause the cable to bend or catch on something.  This weakened the cable so that it broke.  No other links in the tether chain broke, and some were designed to break at forces well below the level necessary to break a ‘healthy’ cable.  Because these links did not break, I’m forced to conclude that when the pulley broke, it caused the cable to break.

Now, why did the pulley break?  Perhaps they know by now (and I certainly will update you when I do).  It’s inconceivable to me that both Ben Shelef (the organizer of these Games and the engineer who designed this system) and the NASA review team would have overlooked the issue of the pulley rating.  I’m guessing that somehow the cable was able to jump off of the pulley wheel and somehow lodge itself between the pulley wheel and its mounting bracket.  Either that or the pulley itself was defective.  Let me emphasize that this last paragraph is speculation on my part and when I know the answer, I’ll let you know.

I’ve also heard (second-hand) that there is no chance of the helicopter flying tomorrow because of some scheduling conflict, so further testing of this sort may need to be put off until just before the Games.  Again, I’m not sure, but will let you know.

On the bright side, overall the system seemed to perform very well; the helicopter and winch we’re able to work together to reel-out and reel-in the cable satisfactorily.  The winch operator, tether handler and helicopter personnel all were able to practice working together under real (not simulated) conditions.  The NASA TV team was able to get some practice in filming helicopter and winch activities and, if you tuned into their Ustream live broadcast, you were able to see it.  The target at the top of the tether functioned properly.  I am unaware at this time of any other significant problems that happened during the operation.

Also on the bright side, the TRUMPF people say that there laser is all set up and operating at full-capacity with no issues.  This means that both the Kansas City Space Pirates and LaserMotive should be able to laser-qualify their climbers (checking for reflections, etc.) tomorrow.

So, that’s the status.  I’ll update you as soon as I have more/better information.

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)

What’s wrong with this picture indeed…

This picture was taken early this afternoon, looking out the hanger/warehouse/workshop where we’ve headquartered and are putting together all our stuff.  Outside this building is the Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert.  This is June.  It is supposed to be bright and sunny.  Instead it’s overcast and there is a forecast of rain.

Unfortunately, it has cancelled any chance we had of doing a test flight tomorrow.  This means that this testflight will happen, at the earliest, on Wednesday.  This also means that an already tight schedule has gotten even tighter.

I’m VERY GLAD that the NASA people here are truly a ‘can do’ crowd.  They want to make this happen and are pulling out all the stops to do so.  So, being late will be a problem, not a potential disaster.

Rain in the Mojave in June?

(click on the picture thumbnail for a larger version)

Here are some more pictures from today’s work…

This first picture is of a reusable breakaway link, a safety device attaching the kilometer-long steel cable that the climbers will be ascending/descending to the helicopter.  It has a rated release point of 3,500 pounds.  This means that in the unlikely event where the helicopter is pulling on the cable with that much force (or more), then the link will separate and the helicopter will be free of the tether.

Of course, if that happens, the cable and anything that might be on it (like a Climber) is going to fall.  All of the teams and the NASA and Spaceward personnel will be inside trailers, protected from falling debris.  However, the person operating the winch (which pays out and retracts the steel cable) is out in the open.  And that’s the subject of this next picture.  An overhead shelter is being built for the winch operator.  This picture is of the ceiling for that shelter.  The combination of chain-link fence, 2×4′ and plywood should keep the operator safe.

And this last picture is of the KC Space Pirates crew, enjoying a bit of lunch.  They’re hard workers – I guess they’ve earned it 🙂

Tomorrow or Wednesday should see the arrival of at least 2 more of the teams.  Also, the filming crew from the Chicago video production company Bitter Jester Creative, Inc. will be arriving tonight.  This group has been filming the competition and the participants and the organizers for the past few years.  While certainly interested in he technical coolness of these games, they are focusing on the human element.  I think their final product is going to be fascinating…

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

We’re now here at Dryden, on the base, in the workshop, beginning to put the physical structures in place for this year’s Space Elevator Games (the planning structures were started long ago).  Today is a day for building stuff (‘swinging a hammer’) and, if all goes according to plan, we hope to do our first actual flight test at noon tomorrow.  That’s extraordinarily ambitious, but we’re going to give it a go as they say.

Here are a couple of early pictures from today.  The first shows the KC Space Pirates trailer (the Space Pirates are currently the only team on site – though others are supposed to show up this week too) while the second shows some Spaceward Volunteers and NASA shop personnel getting their hands dirty.

More here later and also on the official website of the Games, www.spaceelevatorgames.org.

If you want to follow things minute-by-minute, I’m also using Twitter – follow me as “SEGames”…

(Click on the picture thumbnails for a larger version)

My other project is finished and I’m now transitioning to “Space Elevator Week”.  I’ll get a few hours of sleep tonight before I’m off to LAX tomorrow.  Then I’ll pick up a car and head on out to Mojave to meet up with Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation (hosts of the Space Elevator Games) and various Climber / Power-Beaming team members.

This coming week is critical and unprecedented; because of the sophistication of the Games this year, Ben has been able to set up a ‘test week’ to iron out the inevitable kinks; both in the Games themselves and in the reporting/publicizing of them.

We’ll have a helicopter, we’ll have a winch, we’ll have a steel cable, we’ll have climbers, we’ll have lasers and we’ll have bodies – This coming week is intended to put it all together so that when the actual Games happen (the week of July 13th), all of the teams will have the maximum opportunity to put together a winning climb.

This is the year to make it happen.  We’ve been so close before, now it’s time to get it done…

I’ll be blogging a lot during the coming week, but I hope to be Twittering even more.  They have excellent Verizon coverage at the base and, as I’m a Verizon user, I should be able to Twitter away on my Palm Treo.  So, if you want to stay up to date with all of the events as they happen, follow me on Twitter (see my Twitter updates on the sidebar of this blog – follow me as “SEGames”, not as ‘tedsemon’).

And while there will be updates here, too, on my blog, the official site of the Games is www.spaceelevatorgames.org.

This should be exciting!

On the USST website, a “Message from the President” was recently posted.  An excerpt:

“We have the basics of the logistics figured out but once we get a final date and a bit more information we can finalize the plans. It will be nice for the team to work towards a date instead of just working all the time without a real end in sight.”

As the date of the competition IS now established, I’m sure the USST team is now very busy ‘finalizing their plans’.  This team has to be considered as one of the favorites, considering their ‘best-in-show’ performances in all of the previous Climber / Power-Beaming competitions.  The video below is their best performance from the 2007 Games held near Salt Lake City in Utah.  They needed to be to the top in< 50 seconds but arrived in ~54 seconds – very close indeed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFx_mWCpa9o[/youtube]

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As we’ll be almost certainly running the competition during the day, we won’t have any of these cool night shots this time around…

And here is the text of the official Spaceward Press Release about the upcoming Space Elevator Games:

2009 Space Elevator Games to take place on July 14 at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California’s Mojave Desert

June 1, 2009 (Mountain View, CA) NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, and the Spaceward Foundation are announcing that the 2009 Power-Beaming Challenge, part of Spaceward’s Space Elevator Games, will be held at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at the Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert on July 14, 2009.

“We are very pleased that we can host this year’s Climber / Power-Beaming competition at our facility” said John Kelly, Deputy Mission Director for Exploration at the Dryden Flight Research Center. “Dryden has a rich history of research into the technologies of tomorrow, reaching back to the first supersonic flights and then later to the Apollo lunar missions. The Space Elevator can revolutionize our ability to travel to space, and it is only natural that testing of the concept will take place at our facilities.”

The Space Elevator is a revolutionary space transportation system based on a tether that extends from the surface of the Earth upwards to a counterweight located well beyond geosynchronous orbit and kept taut due to the rotation of the Earth. Electric vehicles, called climbers, ascend the ribbon using solar power and power transferred from the ground using a laser beam.

“Centennial Challenges explores high-risk, high-payoff ideas using technology prize competitions to encourage and reward innovation”, said Andrew Petro, manager of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. “We’re happy to see that the Power Beaming challenge has matured to its current level, and anticipate technology innovations in power beaming that may be useful for NASA’s exploration missions and in other applications”.

This is the fourth year for the Space Elevator Games and each year the competition has grown more sophisticated.  The first competition required teams to ascend a 50 meter tether at an average speed of 1 meters/second.  The climbers were powered by spotlights provided by Spaceward.  This year, to be eligible for the $2,000,000 prize, the competitors will be required to race their laser-powered vehicles up the 1 kilometer vertical steel cable at an average speed of 5 meters/second.

“We are thrilled to be working with the people at NASA HQ and Dryden” said Ben Shelef, Founder of the Spaceward Foundation, host of the Space Elevator games. “NASA is a symbol of mankind’s quest to explore space and Dryden is the symbol of beyond-cutting-edge technology development. The people and atmosphere here are everything the ‘Right Stuff’ was all about.  This year’s challenges will feature several teams from the US and Canada competing for $2,000,000 of prize money, and it promises to be a spectacular race.  Most of the teams competing this year are veterans of past competitions and they are now the experts in this field.”

The Space Elevator will make access to space easy, safe, scalable and affordable. The quality of the ride is comparable to a train ride, and since the Space Elevator does not carry fuel, it is inherently safe. Space Elevators can be made to lift 10, 100 or even 1,000 tons at a time.

The Space Elevator was first proposed by Yuri Artsutanov, a Russian engineer. The scientific principles underlying it are well understood and the fundamental materials and technologies required for its construction are within reach. The Space Elevator games concentrate on two of the most important ones —Nano-materials such as Carbon Nanotubes for strong structures, and power beaming for wireless power transfer.

The Spaceward Foundation is a public-funds non-profit organization dedicated to furthering space science and technology in education and in the public mindshare. Spaceward Foundation intends to bring together leaders from the academic, commercial and educational worlds and create a series of challenges, exhibits, and educational activities that will re-invigorate the nation’s interest in space.

NASA’s Centennial Challenges promotes technical innovation through a novel program of prize competitions. It is designed to tap the nation’s ingenuity to make revolutionary advances in technology of value to NASA and the nation. NASA’s Innovative Partnerships Program Office manages the prize program.

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News media wishing to obtain credentials to cover the Power Beaming Challenge must submit a request for accreditation to the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center public affairs office by the following deadlines:

•    Foreign nationals and U.S. citizens representing foreign-based media June 05
•    U.S. citizens and aliens with permanent residency status representing domestic media July 07

Media representatives seeking credentials must work for a legitimate, verifiable newsgathering organization. Accreditation requests may be e-mailed to DrydenPAO@nasa.gov for media representatives who have been accredited by NASA Dryden within the past year.

Otherwise, requests on company letterhead may be e-mailed to the above address or faxed to (661) 276-3566. Requests must include a phone number and business e-mail address for follow-up contact. No substitutions of non-credentialed media representatives will be permitted.

U.S. citizens must furnish: full name, date of birth, place of birth, media organization, the last six digits of social security number and driver’s license number, including issuing state.

In addition, foreign nationals must furnish: current citizenship, visa or passport number, country of issue and expiration date. Foreign nationals representing domestic or foreign media with permanent residency status must provide their alien registration number and expiration date.

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Spaceward contact:  Ted Semon (630) 240-4797

NASA Centennial Challenges contact: Andy Petro (202) 358-0310

Dryden Flight Research Center contact: Alan Brown (661) 276-2665

For more information about the Spaceward Foundation, please visit: www.spaceward.org

For more information about the Space Elevator Games, please visit: www.spaceelevatorgames.org

For more information about the Centennial Challenges, please visit: www.centennialchallenges.nasa.gov

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A pdf version of this press release is available here.

Finally!  The Space Elevator Games are ON!  The Climber / Power-Beaming competition will be held at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center located at the Edwards Air Force Base in southern California.

The date of this competition will be July 14, 15 and 16 (of this year!)

Because of the logistics involved, mainly the use of high-powered lasers and the competition’s location at a secure facility, it will not be open to the public.  At http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org, which is the official site of this competition (or on this blog, of course) you will be able to follow all of the events as they are happening.  The competition will be televised, live, on NASA TV.  There will be webcasts and interviews.  There’s going to be all sorts of cool stuff going on.

Yes, it’s been a long time coming, but the wait will be worth it.  It appears that we have six serious competitors – all with laser-powered climbers and all ready to rock.

An ‘official press release’ will be sent out early next week.  Stay tuned to this blog or the official Space Elevator Games website for more details.

Really, really and truly, really and truly and most honestly…

An announcement (positive, joyous, happy, good, etc.) is coming up real-soon-now about the upcoming Space Elevator Games.  Some of the holdup has been from this agency which, well, has had a couple of other things (here and here) to deal with…

On the LaserMotive blog today, there was a post about a new team sponsor, 4D Optical.  From the blog post:

The guys from 4D Optical have a deep background in optical engineering, including some great expertise in long-distance beam alignment. They’ve been doing a great job helping us out with our optical alignment procedures as well as providing some extremely useful hardware, all of which has enabled us to redirect (as it were) our energy towards other high-priority tasks.

Read the blog post for all of the details.

And really, really and truly, really and truly and absolutely, there is an announcement coming up very soon now about this year’s Space Elevator Games.  Really there is, really…

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

And the winner is “The Black Diamond”. That will be the name given to our new ship/trailer. The most suggested name was “Black Pearl”  followed by “Queen Ann’s revenge”. We also had other fun suggestions like “The Really Really Mean Minnow” and “Red Eye Roger”. It was all fun and we also collected good names for the climber. Additionally we named the laser beam director the “ARGH” for Automated Robotic Glow Hurler. Oddly, they want a name for the laser on safety forms and such and just calling it the TRUMPF Trudisk 8000 does not differentiate it from the other teams. I am curious to see it the officials can bring themselves to calling it that. Or if they just keep calling it the Space Pirates beam director.

The upside in the competition date getting delayed repeatedly is that all the testing that we said we would do we are actually getting around to. And that is a good thing as we keep finding and fixing numerous problems. In the winter we often got pinned inside by the cold and could not test. Now, it’s the rain. But I would rather be wet then cold and there is something naturally optimistic about the springtime.  But we still have gotten in enough testing to make me comfortable that we will be ready in time for the competition. At this point all of the long lead time items that we worried about getting done in time are no longer a problem. And we have gone through a few cycles of test, fail, fix. There are still items that could use improvement, but then, I think that is always the case.

I have tired of taking pictures and video that we can’t share with anyone yet. And I know that after the competition most of those pictures and video will be somewhat out of date. I will release some of it once we have a firm date for the competition.

The t-shirts are designed and available. I owe a few to some of you on this list, so now is good time to remind me. You can buy them directly from http://www.printfection.com/kcspacepirates

We have raised more funds to the point where even with the delays, we are not in danger of running completely dry before the competition.  The testing itself is eating up money and looks like it will be even worse before the competition. Looks like we can get time on the helicopter for something north of $3000 or $1 per second. With costs like that, you know you are playing with the big boys.

With spring coming to a close, we will also have to work in the heat of summer. Glad we got that A/C on the new trailer.

See you laser… I mean later.

Brian Turner
Captain
KC Space Pirates

Thanks for the update Brian.  I voted for the “The Really, Really Mean Minnow” and I’m glad to know that it was at least considered… ?

And, really and truly, there will be an announcement about the date of the Space Elevator Games coming out ‘Real Soon Now’.  No, really, truly, really, I mean it, really…

I received this update from Bert Murray, team captain of the NSS Space Elevator Team;

Hi Ted,

This week the NSS Space Elevator Team finish up our laser absorber tests. The the heat from the absorber will be used to heat helium that in turns drives a Stirling Engine. Attach is a photo of a sample absorber heated with the laser. BTW our Test chamber is a modified army surplus ammunition case.

Cheers,
Bert

So, they are using a Stirling Engine to power their Climber.  The last team that tried that was in 2006, I think, the Fischer28 team.  Let’s hope that NSS fares better…

(Click on the thumbnail of the Absorber for a larger version of the picture)

Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates, sent me this link to a recent article about his appearance in front of an eighth-grade science class.  It’s clear that Brian is recruiting the next generation of engineers so that his team can enjoy continued Games dominance in the American midwest… ?

Brian sent me this explanation of his visit: “Bonner Springs is a suburb of Kansas City with a population of about 7,000. A Middle School teacher asked me to come speak to the kids. He also asked the local paper to come and see what was going on.”

Certainly his sponsors have to be very happy with the picture accompanying the story.

(Click on the picture thumbnail of Brian to see a larger version of the picture or else visit the story)

I received the following note from Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates team which will be competing in the upcoming Space Elevator Games.  Check out his new wheels!

We have a new ship. One of the requirements for logistics this year is a self contained system. I had put off getting a new trailer until I knew what the requirements and budget would be. I was also just trying to delay the expense. This is a used trailer but has most all the features that we were looking for. Heated, cooled, window, dual axel and v-nose. After we started putting in all of the stuff I was thinking that perhaps a bigger one would have been better. But if needed we can still take the old 20 footer in addition.

And it looks like the competition date has slipped again. We are now in that in between stage where the April date is obviously unreachable but a new date has not been set. More on that later.

Now we just need to put a real big hole in the roof of this trailer for the laser to come out. I am considering naming the trailer so feel free to send me any suggestions. Right now it goes by the ominous name of “the trailer” The old trailer is probably suffering from an inferiority complex.

Most everything else is going well. We did add Asphericon ( http://www.asphericon.net/cms/all/1/0 ) as a major new sponsor and I am quite happy about that. We will now have a complete optics system second to none.

Brian Turner
Team Captain

In the last competition, only the team from USST had a trailer like this, complete with its self-contained laser system.  This year, everyone will.

This is going to be so cool…

(Click on the picture thumbnails for an enlarged view)

Update – Brian wants a name for his new ‘Pirate ship’.  Perhaps he should visit this website and use one of its suggestions.  Personally I like “The really, really mean minnow”… 🙂