Space Elevator Conference Underway

Today was the first day of the 2008 Space Elevator Conference in Redmond, Washington at the Microsoft Conference Centre.

I spoke with Brad Edwards briefly today who informed me there was a good crowd assembled this morning, most likely at least 60 people for the first few talks. There seems to be a lot of interest from Japan right now according to Brad.

Ted Semon over at the Space Elevator Blog has been covering the conference in person and you can keep up to date with events during the day through our Twitter Channel.

As well there seems to be some good media reports out today. They include;

Local coverage from Kiro TV, Elevator To Space More Than Just An Idea, and Alan Boyle of Cosmic Log fame, Will the Space Elevator Rise?, and from the SeattlePI, There’s no stairway to heavens? Take the elevator, and this story from Network World, Going up: Slow progress on ‘space elevator’.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend any of the conference due to a very important family commitment. However I am working with several people including Brad Edwards on the upcoming re-launch of the new Space Elevator Reference, so stay tuned.

I look forward to hearing what progress has been made by the various groups through my contacts.

One last note, a couple of days The Independent newspaper out of the U.K. had a great writeup on the new novel coming out from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, The Last Theorem. It was finished by eminent author Frederik Pohl and includes a space elevator. One last plug for the space elevator from Sir Arthur.