At the Elevator2010 team page, one can see that nineteen teams have filed to compete in this year’s Space Elevator Games.   Most fascinating, to me anyway, are the entries from Iran, the Ukraine and Japan as this is the first year teams from these countries intend to compete.  There are also three teams from Germany who have filed; the rest are from Canada and the USA.

Seventeen of the teams have filed for the Climber competition with the other two filing intent to participate in the Tether competition.

All of this filing is, of course, before the February 1st deadline – the date when money is due.  When that date arrives, we’ll probably start losing some of these teams; separating the “ascenders from the pretenders” as it were…

Nevertheless, even if some of these teams drop out, I think it is encouraging to see how widely the idea of a Space Elevator and the interest in the Space Elevator Games has spread – it is truly becoming international.  My only disappointment is that we’ve seen nothing yet from “down under” – where are the teams from Perth who want to eventually build one of these in their ocean front property?