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

Details soon...

 
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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!


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LATEST NEWS

All Systems Dog!

PERMALINK Filed under: Timeline — CrazyEddieBlogger on June 9, 2009, 9:05 pm

AllSystemsDogToday (Tuesday) the games execution and safety plan passed the FSRB – Flight Safety Review Board – the final authority on whether we can proceed to execute test week this coming Monday.

The plan was briefed by John Kelly (Director of Exploration at Dryden), Trent Theriault (The ops director for this project) and yours truly, to an audience that included all the divisions heads and representatives of the organizations affected by the games – a full round table.

Now one of the things that annoy me the most is when I make an obvious mistake while giving a hard-prepared presentation, and the error goes completely unnoticed – meaning I could have said almost anything and why did I even bother to put effort into it…

Not a chance of that happening with this group!

Which is good, of course – It’s like testing a safety net before walking the high wire. We had a few ”midnight typing” mistakes in our write-ups, and there was no letting any of them slide. The board also found points that we completely missed - for example – what if during laser tracking we cross the sun – will this affect the tracking systems?  Can the laser damage the parachute bag? If the helicopter has to make an emergency landing, do all the roving parties have a designated place to go to?

Good stuff.  We have a sizeable list of items to correct, but nothing we can’t handle by the weekend. And the final “once around the table” was all thumbs up.

The next step is to detail the schedule for the week – juggling 6 teams, 2 laser sources, 3 locations, 1 helicopter, 1 tether setup, and all personnel so that no resource has to be in two different places at the same time. Next week can be a smooth ride or it can be torture – it all depends on the quality of the planning.

The bad news is that this is my weakest skill (ask anyone). The good news is that I’m at Dryden and have John and Trent.  In their scale this does even register as complicated. Here’s to a smooth ride next week.


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