Once again, all together now;
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Space Elevator Blog!
Happy birthday to you!
Yes, I know it’s April Fools day, but again this is no joke – two years ago today, I started this blog. It’s been another exciting year. On our first anniversary I posted a summary of what we did and saw in that first year and I’m keeping the tradition going this year.
Highlights for our second year include;
- Attending The Spaceward Foundation’s 3rd Annual Space Elevator Games where, once again, I was honored to be the “Official Blogger”. These Games were even more enjoyable than the first one I attended because a) I knew many of the people there and it was fun to renew acquaintances, b) I was able to witness multiple laser-powered climbs and c) I got to see (and touch) a carbon nanotube tether. I believe that these represent the future of Space Elevator technology and being able to witness them in action was, literally, awesome. Finally, of course, there was Marc Boucher’s discovery of aliens at the Games, an event I chronicled here.
- Having pictures and videos I took of the Space Elevator Games appear in multiple venues including (and to my mind, the coolest), a German TV-show.
- Watching the traffic at this site continue to grow. In its first year, this site attracted about 28,000 page hits. For this second year, we attracted nearly 68,000 page hits – a more than 200% increase in traffic. On the peak day during our first year, we had about 4,000 hits. For this year, our peak day was just under 6,000 hits (5,991). Both peaks, of course, were during the Space Elevator Games. Overall blog hits during the most heavily trafficked 7 day period this year numbered 24,239, well more than double than the 10,308 during the same period in the first year. For the Games, I put up 77 posts, detailing all of the action and doing some ‘human-interest’ stories as well. And, with my new Sony HandyCam, I was able to take and post videos as well as still-shots of the Games. I’ve continued to put up posts on a pretty regular basis; this post will be the 391st made in the past 12 months and I think that has helped readership to grow also.
- Having this site being the semi-official reference point for NASA during the Space Elevator Games. The previous NASA rep to these games, Ken Davidian, told me that he had told NASA personnel to visit this site to follow the action in the Games (Thanks Ken!).
- Getting the “Translation Project” underway, a project I’ve started to translate the phrase “Space Elevator” into as many languages as I can; this to help to internationalize the appeal of a Space Elevator.
- Other ‘Uppers’ included the MAST tether experiment, finding the first Space Elevator song I’ve really liked, the release of a new Space Elevator book, the creation of the Japan Space Elevator Association, Europe’s first Space Elevator Workshop, some tremendous advances in carbon nanotube technology (here, here and here) and TRUMPF partnering with Spaceward for this year’s Space Elevator Games.
‘Downers’ included the apparent demise of Liftport, the demise of NIAC, the passing of Arthur C. Clarke and the first post I’ve put up that I’ve regretted.
So what’s coming up this year? Several things including attending the upcoming Space Elevator Conference in July (where I will once again be presenting my take on who will build the first, earth-based Space Elevator), attending the fourth annual Space Elevator Games in September as the “Official Blogger” (and where I hope to see some prize money awarded in both the Climber / Power-Beaming event and the Tether event) and attending either (or perhaps both?) the Second Space Elevator Workshop in Europe and Japan’s first Space Elevator Conference.
Stay tuned!
and the first post I’ve put up that I’ve regretted.
Allow me again to say that I’m sorry I did not word my post better.
Happy anniversary!
Not your fault Brian – I added 2 and 2 and came up with something other than 4.
Thanks for the congrats 🙂
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