I’ve just finished watching the NOVA Science Now show featuring, among other topics, the Space Elevator.  It was nice to see a science show that had the technical facts straight (I didn’t catch any errors – if anyone did, please correct me).  They also did a good job, in the few minutes they alloted to it, of covering the Climber competition at this year’s Space Elevator Games.  Again, they had their facts right; the University of Michigan’s Climber was first to the top, Lite-Won and TurboCrawler also made it to the top, and the USST team made it to the top in nearly prize-awarding time.

It would have been nice, however, if they had mentioned how much prize money was at stake, especially now since NASA has increased the prize money significantly – I think that would have been quite newsworthy.  Also worth mentioning, I think, would have been the Tether competition and the fact that the Space Elevator Games are an annual competition – with the third one coming up this year.

Brian Turner and the Kansas City Space Pirates must be happy with the show as they were prominently mentioned in it – there is no doubt that the “Death Ray” they attempted to ride to the top was quite unique.

As soon as the show is available online, I’ll post a link to it.  Also, on January 16th, we’re supposed to be able to see answers from Dr. Brad Edwards to questions posted to him/NOVA.  I’ll link to that when available, too.

All in all, good, free, publicity from a recognized source – and one can’t complain about that.