Daily Archives: October 20, 2006

Day 1 – (Part 8) !

One new development; Centaurus Aerospace has arrived – better late than never.  They have both a Climber entry (microwave powered) and a tether entry.

The qualifying tether (30′) is currently located at the fairgrounds – a place where the teams have set up shop.  The plan for tomorrow is to move the qualifying tether to the competition site – fairly near to where the competition will be held.  This will give the four teams that have not yet qualified (Punkworks, SpaceMiners, Starclimber and Centaurus Aerospace) one last chance to do so.  If any do qualify, they’ll be scheduled onto the 200 foot tether – time permitting of course.

Time will be especially tight on the competition tether and I won’t be at all surprised if the time limits placed on each try become pretty draconian tomorrow – many teams want a chance at the tether and so the time allotted for each team will be short.  Competition will be starting as early as possible in order to minimize the wind effects (which kick up later in the day).

Speaking of tethers, the tether strength competition will be held tomorrow in the afternoon.

More tomorrow…

25OCT2006 – I’ve been informed by the SpaceMiners team that I had been misstating their team name, calling it Space Miners instead of the proper SpaceMiners (one word, not two).  It is now fixed in this and previous posts – my apologies to Vince and his team.

Day 1 – (Part 7) !

Competition, such as it was, has ended for the day.  The only team to actually make an attempt was the University of Michigan’s MClimber which, as I had written in an earlier post, made it all the way to the top.  The wind was just too strong for TurboCrawler and the KC Space Pirates to make their attempts.

I know many of the teams are back at the fairground “camp” doing more work on their equipment in an attempt to get ready for tomorrow, so I’m off to visit them and will post on what I find in a few hours.

I do want to mention, however, that The Space Elevator Reference also has been blogging on this event and has some pictures that I don’t have.  You can check out that site here.

Day 1 – (Part 6) !

The next team to make an attempt was the German Turbo Crawler.  This is the biggest climber in the competition, a full 26 kilos (1 kilo over the allowance – some negotiation and winning formula recalculation was necessary to allow them qualify).  But they, too, fell victim to the winds here.  Below are some photos showing what happened – as always, click on the thumbnails to view a larger version of the picture.

The tether twisting, twisting, twisting.  It got so bad at times that the tether actually wrapped around the line next to it.

 

 

 

 

German team struggling to get their Climber in a position to launch.

 

 

 

Another view…

 

 

 

Professor Dr. Detlef H. Meche explaining to one of the news crew that today’s test had to be cancelled due to high winds.  He made the point that their particular climber needs to have a stable tether for the first 5 meters – after that they can deal with the wind.

 

 

 

One other point of note; TurboCrawler uses 30,000 watts of light to drive their Climber.  They brought an 18,000 watt spotlight from Germany with them and rented a 12,000 watt spotlight here (from Hollywood, no less).

Day 1 (Part 5) – Partial success !

MClimber became the first team to attempt a run today, and they succeeded in making it all the way to the top of the 200 foot-tall tether.  It took them 6 minutes and 40 seconds to complete the run, and the rules state that you have to do it in one minute or less.  So, the success is partial – they got to the top, but not in the required time (and thus are not eligible for the prize with this run).  But it’s incredible that they made it all.  The tether was twisting tremendously and the solar array was continuously in and out of the best optical position.  They are now going over their “lessons learned” and I expect them to make another attempt tomorrow.

Congratulations to the University of Michigan’s team; Julie Bellerose, Andrew Lyjak, Joel Schweitzer and Kwan Chong Tan – the first team, ever, to make it to the top of a 200 foot tether ! (As always, click on the thumbnails for a larger version of the picture).

MClimber on the tether – last minute adjustments being made.

 

 

 

On the way up…

 

 

 

You can see the Climber oscillating on the ribbon, round and round and up and down (on each side).

 

 

The successful team; from left-to-right, Joel Schweitzer, Julie Bellerose, Kwan Chong Tan and Andrew Lyjak.

 

 

 

Next up (we hope) are the Kansas City Space Pirates…

(Note: My thanks to Dustin Sensiba, from Cruces.US News for the first three pictures – due to a technical glitch, I wasn’t able to take any of this run.  Thanks, Dustin).

Day 1 (Part 4) !

Well, more stories from yesterday.

Matt Abrams from the Starclimber team suffered some mechanical problems yesterday while attempting a qualification run.  While talking to him yesterday, he told me that there were some problems with the ribbon gripping mechanism and the gears driving it.  I haven’t talked to him today yet, but yesterday he still held out some hope of being able to get it fixed and then trying to qualify again.  Good luck Matt!

Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture.

Matt Abrams working on his climber.

 

 

 

The Starclimber photocell array.

 

 

 

 

Day 1 (Part 3)

Status update; The teams are running into some wind issues.  It’s breezy (sometimes more than breezy) out here on the tarmac (the Space Elevator Games are being held in conjunction with XPrize Cup and the venue is the Las Cruces International Airport).  Those teams that went for ultra lightweight have built, in essence, some very big, expensive kites.  There’s an additional wire that the teams can tether to, but of course it takes equipment to do so.  This has slowed down Snowstar and they are temporarily grounded.  USST was up next, but there were some lighting issues to deal with.  Now the University of Michigan’s MClimber is scheduled to be first to actually make an attempt to climb the competition tether.  I’ll keep you posted…

Day 1 (Part 2) !

While I’m waiting for the first climb, let me share some of the photos and stories I gathered yesterday. Click on the thumbnails for a larger version.

From left-to-right, Ben Bakhshi (all-around Elevator2010 intern), Michael Fischer (team leader) and Adam Fischer (Michael’s son).  They are working on Beamer1, the Climber.

 

 

The damaged lens – what a shame!

 

 

 

The Climber itself.  I LOVE the Coffee can!  As Michael says, “Whatever works”…

 

 

 

Day 1 (Part 1) !

Well, today is the day.  Things are behind, but moving along.  UBC-Snowstar is now on the tether and should be attempting it’s first climb shortly.  I understand this is being simultaneously webcast, so you should be able to go to http://www.xprizecup.org/ and see it live, if you want, you can view it there, too…

One of the things I learned while getting my press credentials from the XPrize people (who have been fantastic, by the way) was that the original crane which was to be used for the tether competition weighed 30 tons!  This was too heavy and would have damaged the tarmac, so they had to find an alternative crane.  It’s always something, isn’t it? 🙂

1 Day and Counting (Part 4) !

As of right now, there are still only six teams that have qualified to compete in the 2006 Space Elevator Games Climber Competition.  They are the Kansas City Space Pirates, TurboCrawler, LiteWon, UBC-Snowstar, MClimber (from University of Michigan) and USST.  That’s a pretty broad mix.  The KC Space Pirates are a family affair, TurboCrawler is from a German University, LiteWon is from an American High School, UBC-Snowstar and USST are from Canadian Universities and Climber 1 is from an American University.  No company sponsored qualifiers, though.

As for the other six entrants, here is their status;

Recens – From Spain.  I have my information second-hand, but from what I understand, their Climber was lost (not delivered to the wrong address, but LOST) by UPS, somewhere in Kentucky.  Even if it shows up tomorrow, there is almost no chance they can compete.  If the information about their missing equipment is true, they were well and truly screwed – what a shame.

SpaceMiners – They burned out 4 cells on their photocell array on a qualification attempt and are still hopeful of qualifying tomorrow.

StarClimber – They suffered a mechanical problem while on the ribbon, trying to qualify.  While Matt is working on fixing it, he’s not hopeful.  It doesn’t look good for them, but they’re not totally dead yet.

Punkworks – They still think they have a shot at it.  They were doing some ribbon testing tonight and hope to qualify tommorrow.

Beamer (the Fischer team) – Another tragedy.  When their Climber was being weighed in, it somehow got disconnected from the scale and crashed to the ground.  The lens fractured and may not be usable.

Centaurus Aerospace – As far as I know, no one’s heard from them – I guess they’re no shows.

So that’s where we are.  At least six teams will be competing and there’s a chance that up to 3 more may make it (though I’d give odds on only 1 or 2 of them).

Below are some more pictures from today.  Click on the thumbnails for a larger version.

Dr. Bradley Edwards arrives.  Here he is with Spaceward CEO Ben Shelef – both getting their hands dirty.

 

 

 

Ben Shelef directing an all-hands meeting tonight, going over the logistics for competing tomorrow.  Evidently, there has been some sort of snafu in getting credentials issued and it promises to be a merry mess getting in, in the morning !

 

Meet Marty – Marty is our version of the “Cable Guy” – he’s the one who, today anyway, runs the crane handling the qualifying tether.  Here he is, sitting in the crane’s cab.