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In this clip, Ben Shelef (head of Spaceward Foundation and the organizer of the NASA-Sponsored "Space Elevator Games") explains just what, exactly, the space elevator is and how it would work.
A second sample edit from our trip to the 2007 Spaceward Games. This piece first uses (with permission) a popular computer animation to show the "grand" vision of what the Space Elevator might one day become. It then takes a look at the current realities by showing footage of one of the many participating teams as they attempt to compete in the Spaceward Games. This clip is just a snippet of the many complexities involved in the competition and serves as an introduction to both the visionary future and hard realities of this fast-paced and sometimes hazardous challenge.
Twenty-five teams from around the world, ten days of competition, and a single challenge: to build and test the technologies that might one day power a Space Elevator. Using our footage from the 2007 Spaceward Games as the backbone of this project, we are in-production of an in-depth feature-length documentary examining the people behind this fascinating and non-traditional project - one that challenges you to think against the norm. This particular clip introduces some of the participants involved in the Spaceward Games and encompasses just a handful of people we have interviewed. Less a cohesive narrative and more a slice of the various personalities we will follow throughout our documentary, this piece is the first step in telling this incredible story.
A scene from BJC's Space Elevator Documentary; this clip shows part of the construction of a crane assembly that held the 100m vertical race track that year. The "race track" was a long blue tether made from an industrial machine belt. The robotic climbers were then mounted to the tether before having their power beamed to them for the climb.
In this ROUGH EDIT scene from BJC's Space Elevator Documentary, the team of the University of British Columbia (UBC) prepares their climber before attempting their qualification run to compete in the 2007 Space Elevator Games and a chance to win $500,000. After preparing polishing their extremely fragile solar cells and putting the finishing touches on their climber - a project that represents literally thousands of dollars and thousands of work hours - they mount their climber to the tether and attempt to qualify...