Shuichi Ohno, Chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) sent me an email about their first test of the Balloon-Tether system that they will be using in their upcoming Space Elevator competition (JSETEC):
Last Monday, our first balloon-tether system experiment took place in Chiba, near Tokyo. We used a 4.5m diameter helium balloon, 50mm seat-belt tether, battery and a climber. The Climber successfully climbed tether up to 40m high. We have received authority to hold the competition.
Next test is with many additional pieces of equipment ( ie. gravity tether tensioner, 3point anchor, more climbers…) and will be held in May.
Ohno-san sent these pictures for us, too. Click on any of them to view a larger version.
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Congratulations to Ohno-san and the Japan Space Elevator Assocation! Omedetou Gozaimasu! |
I would suggest that they get rid of the ribbon shape. 😉 Did they say how fast their climber went?
No Brian, that’s all of the details they sent me. I’ll send Ohno-san an email and ask him. Remember, this was just a first test to see if the configuration would work.
Thank you very much, Ted.
It was utmost in the climber’s going up and down.
But we are now prepearing to attach small logger box on climber. It will load GPS/altimeter/speed sensor/ammeter…
And possible our opinion for speed is >300km/h.
You can see that speed of Shinkansen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIDZXj3nO60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuSrLvCVoVk