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A Tether project proposed by Shizuoka University<\/a> in Japan has been chosen by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to “…test space elevator technologies.”<\/p>\nFrom the article<\/a>:<\/p>\n HAMAMATSU, Japan — Shizuoka University’s idea has been selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for a project aimed at releasing an artificial satellite from the International Space Station, all with the aim of testing space elevator technologies.<\/p>\n A team led by Yoshiki Yamagiwa, a professor at the university’s graduate school of engineering, proposed using for the experiment two, 10cm cube-shaped satellites tied with a synthetic fiber…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There’s not much more to the article<\/a> and a quick check around the internet shows no other english-language articles about this.\u00a0 They do write that this experiment will be in fiscal 2016, so that means anytime from April 1st, 2016 on…<\/p>\n Reader Darren Coste sent me this story (in Japanese) a few days ago, but when I ran it through the Google translator, it was difficult to understand.<\/p>\n Of course this is very cool, but I am not 100% sure that this experiment is really to test “space elevator technologies”.\u00a0 Readers may recall the 5-year Spaceward\/NASA partnership, the “Space Elevator Games”<\/a>.\u00a0 Even though they were called the space elevator games, NASA was not interested in ‘space elevators’ nor did they create the prize money fund for ‘space elevators’.\u00a0 Rather they were interested in furthering power-beaming and strong tether technology and Spaceward’s Ben Shelef leveraged that into the Space Elevator Games.\u00a0 Similarly, this may be “just” a tether test, not a space elevator technology test.<\/p>\n Regardless if it is ‘really’ a space elevator experiment or not, testing tethers in space is absolutely essential to further our understanding of this crucial technology.\u00a0 The article does not say what type of material\u00a0 the ‘synthetic fiber’ is – it would be \u00dcber-cool if it was carbon nanotubes.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/media\/2009SEC\/2009SEC_Day2_042.jpg\")
<\/a>And, there is a decent possibility that the tether WILL be made of carbon nanotubes.\u00a0 Long-time readers may remember that Shizuoka University brought a carbon nanotube tether to the Strong Tether competition in 2009<\/a>.\u00a0 It didn’t perform well, but the fact that it was there was important (the picture thumbnail, left, is the tether that Shizuoka entered in the competition – click on it to see a full-size version<\/em>).<\/p>\n