With the recent effort surrounding the Space Elevator Games and the EuroSpaceward Conference, I’ve neglected some\u00a0Space Elevator related items which have been piling up in my RSS Reader.\u00a0\u00a0And so…<\/p>\n
![](\"\/media\/CNNChileLogo.jpg\")
A YouTube clip from a CNN-Chile newscast states that NASA wants to build a Space Elevator (at least that’s what it says when I plug in the caption into Yahoo Babel Fish).\u00a0 Also, I clearly hear the announcer say “Microsoft” during her report.\u00a0 I don’t know if she’s talking about the recent Space Elevator conference at the Microsoft Center or somehow she thinks that Microsoft is going to build a Space Elevator.<\/p>\n
(See update at the bottom of this blog post)…<\/em><\/p>\n [youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=K7w9NEg1_Oc[\/youtube]<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n [youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vlDQ3q_OT1Q[\/youtube]<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n I think it’s “Alien” that’s coming out of the Space Elevator, but I’m not sure… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n I’ve yet to view the new Star Trek adventure, the one with the Space Elevator in it, but thanks to this Spanish language publication<\/a> talking about Space Elevators in general and the recent Space Elevator Games in particular, now at least I have a ‘screen-shot’ of what it looked like in the movie.\u00a0 I rented it today from redbox and will watch it tonight (I know, I’m so far behind).<\/p>\n All for now…<\/p>\n (Dec 14, 2009 Update – In the Comments, reader J.D. Muriel provides a translation of the Chilean broadcast.\u00a0 It’s odd (‘surprising’ in J.D.’s terminology) to say the least…\u00a0 Microsoft is not sponsoring a Space Elevator, but the Space Elevator conference.\u00a0 And, as far as I’m aware of, there is no “Japanese-Russian alliance” that is working on this project.\u00a0 I think they read this article<\/a> and misinterpreted it.\u00a0 Now don’t get me wrong – I’d love it if the Japanese and Russians decided to do this.\u00a0 I’ve heard rumors that the Japanese are supposedly working on some sort of ‘secret’ carbon nanotube initiative and the Russians have as much (maybe more) experience working in space as does US-NASA.\u00a0 But I just don’t think it’s happening.\u00a0 Please prove me wrong \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n Thanks J.D. Muriel!)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the recent effort surrounding the Space Elevator Games and the EuroSpaceward Conference, I’ve neglected some\u00a0Space Elevator related items which have been piling up in my RSS Reader.\u00a0\u00a0And so… A YouTube clip from a CNN-Chile newscast states that NASA wants to build a Space Elevator (at least that’s what it says when I plug in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-announcements","category-pictures-drawings-animations-music-humor-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"\/media\/ScienceChannelLogo.jpg\")
And in this clip (from the Science Channel no less), it says that “NASA is holding a contest to see who can come up with the best plans for building a “space elevator”.\u00a0 I wish that were true.\u00a0 The Space Elevator Games piggyback upon NASA’s desire for power-beaming and strong-tethers – they have no avowed interest in building a Space Elevator (though the NASA people who I talked to at Dryden during the recent Space Elevator Games thought it was a cool idea).\u00a0 The clip also says that the trip to the top will take “3 months”.\u00a0 I don’t know where they got that figure.\u00a0 Even a ride to the end of the tether (100,000 km) would, at 200 mph (320 km\/hour) take about 13 days.\u00a0 Add some time in for slowing down during start-up and at the end and maybe a stop\/transit at the GEO space station and you still have well less than 1 month to the top.\u00a0 And, the story says that passengers could be “struck by meteroids”…\u00a0 Oh my.\u00a0 They finalize the clip by repeating the lame joke about “Elevator music”.\u00a0 Oh well, at least it IS the Science Channel…<\/p>\n![](\"\/media\/AndyCarolan.gif\")
And then we have a new Space Elevator cartoon<\/a> – this one from the strange mind of Andy Carolan.\u00a0 Having LaserMotive win that $900K at the recent Space Elevator Games has given the whole effort a new burst of publicity…<\/p>\n