Per Aspera Ad Astra: From Peru to Space

Well, it has been little more than month since Liftport’s main source of funding, an office building in Bremerton, WA, was taken over by the bank. Since then there have been several meetings among Liftport collaborators on ways to generate new streams of revenue. Unfortunately I had to decline my participation on all of the plans. My translation business is booming and I am about to assume a new position as Account Delivery Manager for Hewlett-Packard. That means I have only a few weeks to transfer all my responsibilities to the team of translators, and after that work like hell for 6 months to get used to my new job.

This also means I will leave my volunteer position as Latin America Research Coordinator. As you have read through the posts, I have invested a considerable amount of resources in this, and I don’t regret it. I learned a lot and contributed my two cents on the further development of the space industry. During this three years my main accomplishments have been:

– Public survey on the Space Elevator;
– Helped dozens of Latin American students with sources and information about the Space Elevator and the Space Industry;
– Lead the translation team;
– Finish my thesis on the space launch industry;
– Public Relations: article in Etiqueta Negra Magazine, chapter in the book God is Peruvian, radio interview at 1160, plus promoted the project in dozens of space-related web sites in Spanish.

Alas, now I have to invest all my available time in my new post at HP, so there is no other choice. It has not been an easy decision, tough, but there is a limit to the amount of work any man can do.

Still, I wish to thank Michael for the opportunity and the best of luck to all my friends at Liftport.

Well, just finished reading Cristian’s essay. Pretty impressive piece of work; he has managed to resume, in 130+ pages, the life of Verne, his books, and the history of how humankind went from the Earth to the Moon.

On the other hand, the meeting with Daniel went great. We talked a lot about Peru & Space. It is interesting but there are like 10 Peruvians around the world working for space related projects. Hey! We even have our own astronaut, Carlos Noriega!

Plus, we use tons of space technology for our main industries: mining, fisheries, forestry & agriculture. And let’s not forget about those taxis that wander through our city with the sign that reads: “Warning. This car is protected against robbery by a satellite. This service is provided by company X.”

Once Daniel has gathered all the information, we will meet with Alvaro (the movie director). I estimate that it will be in February or March, but I must confess that I am pretty eager about it.

And what about the economic analysis of the Space Elevator? A very nice headache, thanks. But a very interesting one. I hope that in a month I will have a first draft. However, here are some interesting numbers that I have been considering as part of the analysis:

HP
Employees: 150,000+
Annual Revenue: US$90+ billion
R&D money: U$3.6 billion

Boeing
Employees: 150,000+
Annual Revenue: US$55+ billion
R&D money: U$3 billion

BTW, it was quite a relief to know that no one was hurt in the explosion of Sea Launch’s Zenit. A pity though. I hope that they can find the error soon.

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

Yesterday there was a reunion at my house that lasted until 6.00am. Although I was not part of it (hey! I work Fridays), I only slept three hours due to the noise.

And no, it wasn’t my sister’s reunion, but my parents! I don’t know how my Dad woke up at 7.30am and went to work. Anyhow, Carlos Tello has finished the first draft of his essay about Verne and Space Science. He has it sent to Alvaro (the movie director) and me so we can proofread it. Hence, I have a lot of work to do this weekend.

On other news, I found this article in Space.com:

http://www.space.com/3002-ad-astra-spaceflight-hands.html

Interesting, isn’t it? Especially since, according to the Space Foundation Space Report, the aerospace index had a better ROI than S&P. Help us and yourself! The Space Elevator needs a growing space industry.

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

Oh shoot, I forgot to mention two things:

– In December I was Main Arbiter for the First Lego League here in Peru. One of the challenges that the teams had to affront was to collaborate in the operation of a Space Elevator.

– I am giving technical advisory to Carlos Tello, who is writing an essay about Jules Verne called ‘Apolo XI: From Verne to the Moon’. He is going to participate in an Essay Contest at one of the biggest universities here in Peru.

You know, that’s the problem of leaving behind your twenties. Once you are thirty-plus, you tend to forget things, hehehe…

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

Sorry people for not being able to post things in the blog; there were some IT issues that, thankfully, have been resolved.

There has been a LOT going on:

-The first movie in which a Space Elevator will appear (and its a Peruvian movie!!!). It has already won a prize in Argentina and it is going after a prize in Europe.
-Another book from Daniel Titinger in which he is going to mention the Space Elevator
-The first hurdle for publishing my thesis has been overcome; two to go now.
-The UN OOSA invited me to Spain in order to give a talk about the SE and 3rd world nations. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend due to personal reasons.
-I have embarked in the quest of creating an economic analysis of the SE. Horrendously complex but it is time to do it.
-I am applying for a scholarship at the ISU for the SSP & MSM program.
-A local TV channel wants to go to Seattle to make a report about Liftport & the SE. Hopefully, they will be able to go when we are making our newest test.

Phew, I think that is it, for now. I will give further details in the following days.

Take care everyone.

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

Ok, I should have posted this a long time ago (and a lot more since many things have happened lately). But I will explain that in it’s due moment, so let’s go back to the post.

Finally, I finished the comment analysis on all the Spanish speaking sites that I could find in the Internet. Eliminating repeated sites (there are hundreds of them), I analyzed 117 sites where the Space Elevator was commented by people.

From these 117 sites, I obtained 337 comments. These comments were divided into four categories:

Positive
Negative
Questions
Non-related

Positive comments are those in which we are encouraged to continue our work, or where people are impressed of what we are doing. Negative comments, well, it explains by itself.

Questions, are those comments in which people want to find more. Their position is neutral, so they couldn’t be assigned to the first two categories. Finally, non-related comments are those commentaries that are not related, in any way, to the Space Elevator. For example ‘Hi Judy, long time without seeing you’.

Now the results:

Non-related comments 34%
Negative 33%
Positive 25%
Questions 8%

The negative comments where divided into the following categories:

Make fun out of it 29%
Impossible to build 28%
Inadequate use of money 10%
Think about the poor! 7%
They want to make a lot of money! 6%
Stupid idea 5%
They are a bunch of scammers 4%
Terrorism fear 3%
Heretics 3%
They stole the idea 2%
Funny to see it destroyed 2%
Other solutions for reaching space 2%

The positive comments where divided into the following:

Interesting 65%
It must done for the sake of humanity 25%
Great work 10%

Finally, the questions:

What kind of surface/space anchor does it use? 16%
What if something/someone broke it? 16%
Capacity of the CNT ribbon 12%
Where can I find more information? 12%
How is it maintained 8%
What about the damage caused by the atmosphere 8%
Cable dimentions 4%
Influence of celestial objects 4%
What about tsunamis? 4%
Does the technology exist for building it? 4%
What about air traffic? 4%
What about space debris? 4%
What is it’s benefit? 4%

Since I don’t want to make this a huge post, I will only make three comments:

– 3 % of the people who made negative comments think that we should burn in hell.
– There is a lot of people in favor of it…but not enough. We’ve got a lot of work to do.
– One of the “big winners” in the question category continues to be the ‘what if an airplane or someone breaks it?’

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

The book presentation was simply amazing. Daniel gave a great speech about the purpose of his book and thanked Liftport for our help. He even asked me to raise my hand so the audience could identify me. There was a real Peruvian working on this! Afterward I went to the booth to ask Daniel to sign my copy, but for my surprise people were asking me to sign their copies too! Funny, I think it will be the first and only time I autograph someone else book.

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

A month ago I was at the offices of the Public Ministry doing an ergonomics paper for my Master degree. While they were showing me the installations, we came to the “fridge”, the room where all the servers are stored. They told me that they had many types of problems with several brands, but, in the case of HP, the local post-sales service was great. As a former HP employee, it made me proud, because I knew the HP authorized provider who offered the service and the people who sold that solution to the State.

I have 10 years of sales experience and I believe that, if you have a good product, selling is easy. You only need to have a good relation with your clients and everything will go great. So, I simply don’t get it when I ask a provider for a service and they simply do not do things right or on time. How do they stay in business?

Alas, it seems that it doesn’t limit to my family business. From what I read below, HQ is having similar problems up there.

Anyway, leaving my usual rant behind, I must announce that this 24^thof July, at 7pm, Daniel Titinger will present his book at the Convention Center of the Jockey Plaza. The name of the book is “God Is Peruvian”.

If case you don’t know what I am talking about, Daniel Titinger is a Peruvian reporter who made the trip all the way to Seattle to make an article on Liftport for the magazine “Etiqueta Negra”. Afterwards, he expanded the article and added it to this new book. We want to congratulate Daniel from here and thank him for all of the support he has given to us. Great work Daniel!

And yes, we will be there.

Great! WordPress has been updated. I like this new format a lot more.

Well, it resulted that I didn’t have to destroy our web page to learn CRM. Seth came to rescue us and now we only have to send him the text (indicating, of course, where does it go).

By now we have translated 8 sections of the web page, I hope that by when JL comes from Orlando from vacations, we will have most of the web page in Spanish (the basic sections, at least. We will never be able to have the forum and blogs translated).

Updating myself on the Space Show (I am in the 2003 programs yet), I’ve found a couple of very interesting editions of the show that will help me on my thesis. I will comment them on later posts.

*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.

Every once in a while I comment about the negative comments I receive regarding the Space Elevator. Specially from those people who think that we are a horrible bunch of individuals who are wasting money in loony projects instead of using them for more noble causes. E.g., giving it to the poor.

It has taken me almost four years to learn how to answer them. It isn’t easy but I am darn proud of what I have learned. But that doesn’t mean that my learning process has stopped. As a matter of fact, I have found something more to do.

Ribbon deployed. Source: Liftport Group.

Almost every week I check 10 sites through Google, searching for Space Elevator news in Spanish and responding the posted comments. It wasn’t until today that I thought of something. What if I do an analysis of what is bothering people? How many negative and positive comments exist, and which are the most common questions?

Oh, I know much of that info but as once I learned in HP while improving customer satisfaction, there may be more than meets the eye.

I’ll maintain you updated on the advances of this small study.

* This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.