“We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10.” — Neil Armstrong

Hot enough for ya?

It is a never-ending quest to thank the folks that I’ve come to take for granted, yet without whom the games would never be happening.

One of the games’ earliest supporters is Ted Semon, the man behind the Space Elevator Blog. The SE Blog is larger than the games – Ted has taken it in many directions, covering anything and everything SE related, from conferences to rock songs, art, politics and technology. Keeping up almost a post per day for more than 4 years, Ted became the de-facto voice of the Space Elevator community.

Blogging may seem at first blush as a low-stress type of occupation, but as I struggle to keep up with my blogging of the games, I can tell you one thing without a doubt – blogging is a GRIND. Long after the games and this blog are over and done with, I have no doubt the SE Blog will keep on documenting all that is happening in the world of the Space Elevator.

Ted’s other endeavors include helping out both cat and teens in distress (separately, of course), which makes it awfully hard to give him grief when he’s overwhelmed with the stuff he takes on.

If you look back to the definition of Crazy Eddie, I think it is obvious that Ted is Crazy Eddie material.

Nicolas DeGrazia, embedded journalist

The Ubiquitous Camera (R)

Where's Waldo?

I wanted to take the time to thank Nic DeGrazia, who along with his business partner Dan Kullman of Bitter Jester Creative have been documenting the games over the last couple of years.

BJC are an accomplished yet innovative Chicago-based production company (see http://www.BitterJester.com) and are here because they see the games as exciting, mission driven, and interesting from a human standpoint. Their talents include film making, stills, comedy, and live performance. When the games are over, I’d love to spend time looking into their various accomplishments, but right now, I’m just happy to have them on board.

In addition to being everywhere, and all of the time (you couldn’t take a step backwards during stress test week without bumping into the camera) BJC has sent “DIY” cameras to the teams, who have been using them to capture “first person perspective” of their activities in their respective labs.

Having seen BJC’s previous work, I can’t wait to see how it all comes together. BJC is creating a multi-part documentary on the games, following the teams through their roller-coaster ride that led to this point, and through the cliff-hanger that is sure to come in August.

In our case, the equipment is what Spaceward brought in – a helicopter, a cable, lasers, and climbers. The “brackets” is what it takes to hold it together to run the operation – anything from coordinating activities with airfield management, creating a communications plan, safety plan, contingency plan, testing facilities, (insert 20 more brackets here) and finally, actually, yes – the brackets that connect the pulleys to the anchor plates.

You have to understand that at the FSRB meeting, Trent’s job description was “I am the ultimate responsible person on this operation”. Ever try to say these words on something even as simple as an office party? Try it sometimes. These are not easy words to pronounce. It takes special character to do this job.

The original standard-goverment-issue Chairman Green Leather Chair, btw, is a separate story – perhaps best told by Trent himself. (I’ll ask him to tell). The messy desk is just a sign of productivity. (or so I often tell people – I can’t match the desk, but I can marginally beat the desktop mess).

Brackets or not – the games are in good hands.

Keith on the road to Progress

About 6 months ago, as we were drafting the helicopter-tether flight plans, it became obvious that we needed some expert advice.  So, I Google “Aviation Helicopter Safety Consultant Florida” (we were thinking about holding the games at Kenndy Space Center back then), and up comes this web site – http://www.keithMackey.com

Quite a heavy hitter, this guy is - was a 747 captain with Pan-Am, a safety officer, accident investigator, owned a helicopter company specializing in long-line operations, does FAA certification for helicopter operations (which I later learned is referred to as Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) part 133). 

Should I call?  Obviously all my plans so far are quite amateurish looking.  Took me a couple of days to work myself up for it.. Took a deep breath, and dialed.  His wife, Renda, picked up. Obviously a home number. Keith is in the back working on an aircraft.  Great – what a way to start a cold call – get a guy out from the middle of a job, his mind is obviously somewhere else, this is going to be an uphill battle, that’s for sure.

“Hi – Keith? yes hi, my name is Ben Shelef, I’m calling from the Spaceward Foundation” 

“The what?”

“Spaceward – S-P-A-C-E-W-A-R-D.  We’re an educational non-profit that’s organizing a technology challenge in partnership with NASA…   I needed some advice on helicopter long-line operations – do you have a couple of minutes”?

Surprisingly enough – “yes, sure – go ahead”.

ok – so here comes the hard part – “have you ever heard of the Space Elevator project”…

This is where I usually get the “ahuh, yes, sure.  well – listen – I’m a bit busy this year, but you know, best of luck to you…” and I can see the other party doing the universal “kook” sign as they fumble their eyes and hang up.

Instead, in short, followed a 10 minute intense conversation by the end of which Keith is up to speed and totally engaged.  I’ve never seen anyone pick up the concept so quickly…  We had a meeting coming up at KSC to discuss our plans, and Keith could clear the time to attend – turned out he lived relatively nearby.

His ability to pull together technical, operational, safety, and human element considerations into a path forward is essential to having gotten so far.

Definitely an honor member of the Crazy Eddie club.

Holger Schlueter - Laserman!

Holger first called me about 2 weeks after the 2007 Space Elevator games.

At the time, I was deliberating on how to take the games forward.  After the games, I asked the teams where they’d like to go next, and how far they think they can beam to, and the answer I got was “1 km”.  This was a 10-fold increase in the beaming range, and I was not sure if it wasn’t too much.

Holger, as it turned out, just saw the video of USST’s power beaming performance in 2007, and got very interested in the Space Elevator concept. He called in to discuss a technical detail of the Space Elevator, and only introduced himself by name. As the conversation wore on, he dropped in that he was in a position to help with laser fire-power, so while still on the phone, I Googled his name (not an easy feat for a pathological uni-tasker such as myself) and realized I’m speaking with the VP lasers of TRUMPF – a very large industrial laser company, probably the biggest one.

Ok then – so I asked him if TRUMPF can support a 1-km power beaming challenge, and Holger said something along the lines of “you’re thinking about 1 km?  you’re absolutely nuts!  Of course we can do it!”

Holger should know – he has done some pretty impossible things at TRUMPF.  I got a chance to see the TRUMPF laser factory near Hartford, CT. Talk about Sci-Fi coming to life…  Many amazing machines in this world do not give a clue as to just how amazing they are.  Computers come to mind – they don’t look very powerful.  Neither do jet engines hanging off of jetliners.  But high-power lasers are a different matter.  Whether we’re talking CO2 lasers or solid-state disk lasers, one peek at the inner-workings just screams at you “Advanced Align Technology from the Future”.  So yeah, Holger’s playground.

In my engineering background, optics is a gaping hole. A shame really – I missed out on a lot.

Anyway, Holger then introduced Dave Marcotte, TRUMPF operation’s man, and we were on our way!

Categorically speaking, without Holger and TRUMPF’s support, the games would not have made it beyond the 100 m range.

Holger is definite Crazy Eddie material.

Awareness of the Space Elevator was not high back then (nor is that high today, for that matter) and most of my cold-calls where pretty discouraging.  “Hello – my name is Ben Shelef, I’m with the Spaceward foundation, I have an interesting project built around a searchlight… Have you ever heard of the Space Elevator project?…  Well imagine a long cable…” and 9 times out of 10 I can just picture the guy at the other end of the line fumbling his eyes and making the universal “kook” gesture to his office mate…

But this time it went different… “have you ever heard of the Space Elevator project?”  – “sure, know all about it” – “sorry, I thought for a moment you said ’sure, I know all about it’..” – “sure, I know all about it – what do you need?”  and 5 minutes later we had a 10 kWatt searchlight.  A small step for [a] man, not exactly a giant leap for anything, but we were on our way to the 2005 games nevertheless.

Paul, btw, is VP lighting products at Strong-Ballantyne of Omaha, who make searchlights of all sizes and colors, for applications ranging from theater work to lighting up the Shuttle on its launch pad.

Meet Crazy Eddie

What, actually - not who.

Crazy Eddie is a cultural concept in the Motie civilization – an individual that thinks he can fix the main problem of the Motie race, which is repeated internal war and social collapse.

The Moties and Crazy Eddie are part of a book called “The Mote in God’s Eye”, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, which describes one of the most believable alian civilizations in Sci-Fi.  Crazy Eddie is the iconic term that the Moties translators gave to their concept of someone who believes in a futile attempt to avert an unavoidable catastrophe.    [Amazon]

Crazy Eddie is generic in the same way that Don Quixote or Robin Hood are generic – one can “act like a Crazy Eddie”, or “go Crazy Eddie”. A Crazy Eddie would be trying to build a Space Elevator – The Crazy Eddie Rope.

According to Motie culture, while Crazy Eddies sometimes successfully follow through with their plans, they inevitably fail to save the Motive race from another collapse.

Crazy Eddies are of course nothing more than fiction.

(Side note -   The book was first published in March 1, 1991.  That same year, the “Crazy Eddie” consumer electronics store forever made its mark on American culture with its insaaaane commercials. Was Eddie Antar a Larry Niven fan?  Many have wondered.  Regrettably, a movie based on the life of Eddy Anter is apparently in the works, but no word yet on a movie version of The Mote.)