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Finally starting to rev up towards an exciting 2010 sequel, power beaming and tether

Details soon...

 
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THE SPACE ELEVATOR BLOG
For the obvious reasons, I invariably get too busy to blog exactly when things get interesting...

For the latest word, and for a wider perspective on all things Space Elevator, you can alway turn to Ted Semon's most excellent Space Elevator Blog - www.SpaceElevatorBlog.com

OUR SPONSORS

The TRUMPF Group is one of the world's leaders in the field of production technology - machine tools, material processing, high power lasers, electronics and in medical technology.

TRUMPF took a natural interest in the Power Beaming challenge, and they are providing their 8 kWatt top-of-the-line laser system for use by teams KCSP, USST, U Michigan, and NSS.

Find out all about TRUMPF's laser systems at www.trumpf-laser.com

Mackey International is an aviation consulting firm specializing in aviation safety, risk management, accident investigation, air carrier certification and safety/compliance audits.

With Mackey's experience and expertise, Spaceward was able to put together an operations plan that satisfied the requirements of NASA's aviation safety review - not an easy feat given that a rotorcraft-tether configuration such as ours has never been flown before.

Find out all about Mackey International's capabilities at www.keithmackey.com

Bitter WHAT?! Exactly. This is what Nic DeGrazia, Creative Director of Bitter Jester Creative, told me about their company's name. Nobody ever forgets it.

The same is true about BJC's work. Winners of Telly and Hermes awards, their work brings out the human element in every story.

BJC are continuing their 2-year project of documenting the games, now in its third year. Find out all about them at www.BitterJester.com

Dynon Avionics designs, manufactures and distributes a growing line of affordable glass cockpit avionics. Operated by aviation enthusiasts, Dynon utilizes the very latest state-of-the-art technologies to create modern avionics products with an emphasis on lowering prices and enhancing reliability.

For the games, we had to assemble a special helicopter station-keeping system that will allow the pilots to position the helicopter accurately even when flying at 4300' AGL. Dynon components were our first choice, and are doing the job beautifully.

Find out more at www.dynonavionics.com

Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

Find out more at www.LockheedMartin.com

Since its inception in 1962, OMEGA has grown from manufacturing a single product line of thermocouples to an established global leader in the technical marketplace, offering more than 100,000 state-of-the-art products for measurement and control of temperature, humidity, pressure, strain, force, flow, level, pH and conductivity. OMEGA also provides customers with a complete line of data acquisition, electric heating and custom engineered products.

Omega has been sponsoring the games with various equipment such as large format displays and load cells since 2006.

Find out more at www.omega.com

SPIE is an international membership society, serving scientists and engineers in industry, academia, and government, as well as companies producing leading-edge products. SPIE constituents work in a wide variety of fields that utilize some aspect of optics and photonics, which is the science and application of light. More specifically, optics is a branch of physics that examines the behavior and properties of light and the interaction of light with matter. Photonics is the science and technology of generating, controlling, and detecting photons, which are particles of light.

Find out more at www.spie.org

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WE CAN REALLY USE YOUR HELP

While NASA sponsors the $4M prize purse, Spaceward does not receive any of it - we fund our operations from donations and sponsorships from people like you.

Our sponsors and donors are people who believe in the infinite promise (and cool factor) of the Space Elevator, and would like to be associated with it and help in its development.

You can see the media impact we've had to date here, and with our NASA TV coverage this year (available on DirecTV #238) and our livecast we will reach millions of people with our (and your) message.

To see the impact we've had on technology education, our best advertisements are our student teams, who started out as curious high-schoolers and undergrads, and by now have built cutting-edge photonics systems worthy of NASA itself!


$¥
Total raised so far: $625 - THANK YOU!
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LATEST NEWS

2009 Wrap Up

PERMALINK Filed under: Timeline — CrazyEddieBlogger on December 6, 2009, 9:02 pm

It has taken 2 years to put together this round of the games – the most we’ve ever tried before was 100 m, with far weaker lasers, and we weren’t even spectacularly successful at that….  (well we sure pulled it off at the end, but it definitely wasn’t easy)

Luckily for us, whatever it was that possessed all of us to think back in 2007 that we can set up a 1-km tall racetrack (the first of its kind, ever) and race laser-powered kWatt scale vehicles up its length, it certainly was contagious. Over the course of the next 24 months, we were able to infect many other people with our dream and had them join our quest…  And so last month, the enlarged gang converged on NASA Dryden to hold the games – which were a spectacular success.

The video clip tries to capture the scope of the project, and is dedicated to everyone who helped make it happen.

(In my mind, Carmina Burana was always linked to light and motion. It was composed by Carl Orff in 1936, and I think it just rocks.)

There is still a large amount of video footage to be processed, but at this point it’s time to focus on the next round of the games. Bitter Jester Creative are now in the process of sorting through the full video archive from the games, and we’ll hear more from them, I am sure, sometime next year.

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