Space Elevator Games, Past and Future

The Space Elevator Blog has a post with a number of videos, including two from past Space Elevator Games. It also has another post with a number of videos, also from the Space Miners. All told, it's quite a lot of video records.

Meanwhile, both the Space Elevator Reference and the Space Elevator Blog present the latest newsletter from the Spaceward Foundation. There's a positive look back on the 2007 games, which I think is warrented (unless perhaps you're one of the teams that wanted to win that money in 2007). There's also a look ahead to the 2008 games, which, as I've noted in other posts, are tremendously ambitious. Of course, it's for a tremendous amount of money ...

I've noted some of the changes before ... for the Beam Power Challenge, they include a total of $2M in prizes at stake, and a 1 km climb, presumably requiring laser power. Here's an excerpt to show how they're thinking:

The racetrack we’re planning, based on a pyramid-tethered balloon, will be the tallest such pyramid ever flown. We’re working with industry experts to set this up, and will keep you updated. This is very exciting for us, since this architecture is extendable to 10 km as well

The update notes that some teams are already planning to go for it in 2008, and registration is open. I'm not sure which teams will be in the running, but The Kansas City Space Pirates are going for the win in 2008, and are switching to laser power. However, they need to do some fundraising for laser testing. Meanwhile, the McGill Space Elevator Team notes that

The team is working hard to create a laser beaming system for the 2008 competition.