Elon Musk and SpaceX launched a satellite on their commercial rocket, yay ( Read more... )

"A GIANT inflatable tower could carry people to the edge of space without the need for a rocket, and could be completed much sooner than a cable-based space elevator, its proponents claim ( Read more... )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVM31dvngmE

Thanks to Emily for finding the link.

We've increased speed considerably over these early small-scale tests, but there's still a long way to go before the competition (now tentatively scheduled for Feb-March 2009)

I woke up at 3 am Friday to fly to Detroit to meet the Trumpf laser guys and run some tests. It turns out that in 2008, an 8 kilowatt* diode-pumped infrared laser is about the size of a compact car, with a 25-foot garden hose coming out of one end. The "garden hose" is a shielded fiber optic cable that carries the actual light beam coming out, ( Read more... )

Brian Turner, leader of the Kansas City Space Pirates, is going to be on Late Night with Conan O'Brian Friday night, talking about the space elevator competition ( Read more... )

http://www.popsci.com/node/19965

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/

With a full size space elevator laser, bounced off a climber-mounted mirror, half the Earth is in your line of sight:) No need to send a plane.

I spent last night and this morning weaving 3/16" steel wire rope into a 12' loop for a cable treadmill.* The easy way would have been to just get a length of cable and bolt it into a loop with connectors. But the loop has to flow smoothly around multiple pulleys, so any kind of rigid section or projecting bump is no good ( Read more... )

( calclulations )

This looks pretty good. Depending on how this weekend's trip goes, I might give it a try. Dr. Bolonkin is known for unusual space elevator/space tower research, and the other featured speakers sound cool too ( Read more... )

I got a call today from Brian Turner who leads the Kansas City Space Pirates; great guys who gave me a lot of help with Starclimber Cinderella in 2006 ( Read more... )