For the obvious reasons, I invariably get too busy to blog exactly when things get interesting...
Next to “Why don’t you just use a balloon”, this has got to be the question that gives me the most heartburn.
Actually, let me correct that – the first question is a valid question, to which I have a valid answer – it’s the use of the “just” in front of the question that is the cause of agitation, since it implies a certain level of ease and simplicity, and hence an implied “why are you making this so complicated…” – but I digress.
Am I sure this is going to work? Of course not. Nobody is less surprised than I am when things that I build don’t work right off the bat. And by the same token, nobody is more surprised than I am when they do… Really.
First, there are mistakes. In a perfect world, most are avoidable, but that does not mean they are indeed avoided. Second, there are unknowns. Some aspects of the system are too difficult to model or calculate, and so have to be tested out. Then there’s the human element, and finally there’s just luck. (In 2007 we got rained out, almost snowed out, in Salt Lake City…)
Our first test flight in June failed due to an engineering mistake. This was compounded somewhat by a human element issue that led us to believe that a different aspect of the system, which was being tested, actually worked well.
In our second test flight, we found out the hard way that this second aspect is actually not working well at all, and as a result had to fall back, regroup, and demonstrate we’ve solved all the issues.
We made major changes, which I’ve covered in previous posts, and went to perform test flights in Olympia, Washington. We’ve flown the 1 km vertical racetrack eight times now (8 successes out of 8 tries), and are pretty confident we’ve got it down. Yet we haven’t done it at Dryden, and perhaps we were only 8-times lucky… I hope not!
The teams are also confident. Their task is more difficult than Spaceward’s. Just like with our vertical racetrack, they went through several design iterations in order to get their power beaming systems ready, and almost by definition, each iteration except possibly the last one ended in “failure”, or in other words – in figuring out something new.
Collectively, they have tested their systems horizontally, vertically, on test-stands and on treadmills. They beamed power to a kilometer, and extracted more than they need to win the 5 m/s prize money. They tracked model cars, people, bicycles, cars, ultra-lights, and even canoes. They simulated real runs. They think they’ve got it down. Yet none of them has climbed 1 km vertically.
So there. One week to go, and there are plenty of reasons to be confident. But are the teams already spending their prize money? I hope not.
Stay tuned!