This past Friday, Kate Knibbs over at Gizmodo posted a story about “The Quest to build an elevator to space”.

Kate covers most of the basics but one thought she posted kind of leaves me scratching my head.  “Wayward flocks of geese…could smash into it“.  I’m not sure why anyone would be concerned about this.  A tether strong enough to support a space elevator would not be concerned with a goose flying into it.  A plane, yes, a goose, no.  Think about a goose flying into a half or three-quarter inch steel cable.  The goose would be killed or severely injured.  A carbon nanotube tether (or whatever is used) will be much, MUCH stronger than a steel cable and won’t be concerned with bird strikes.

Note that this is not the same as bird strikes on commercial or military airplanes.  First of all, the force is much greater when a goose hits a plane in flight – the plane is flying several hundred miles per hour.  And second, the materials used to build a plane are not anywhere near as strong as what a space elevator tether would need to be.

Space debris IS an issue; this stuff is traveling thousands of miles per hour and will thus have a lot of energy, enough to damage or even sever the tether (if it is not designed correctly).  Ensuring that space elevator can survive space debris hits (because it WILL get hit) will be one of the “must” design criteria (the International Space Elevator Consortium did an in-depth study on this topic and published a report on it).

Finally, I have to mention one of the comments on the story – I found it very amusing.  People who regularly read this blog know that I am no fan of space-elevator disaster scenarios, but this is just too good to ignore.

Whoever came up with this, I salute you!

And I’m late on this, but now finally starting to catch up on my postings…

Noted science writer (and Keynote speaker at the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference) Leonard David put up a story at space.com about the space elevator.  He attended all three days of the conference and used what he learned there as a basis for his thoughts about the space elevator.  Money quote from the article:

“The next steps for the development of space-elevator infrastructures are focused around the creation and funding of a Space Elevator Institute,” [Dr. Peter ]Swan said. The institute would fund research projects addressing critical issues.

The development of prototype experiments, including tether material design for tensile strength, would be funded by the Space Elevator Institute, he added.”

It’s a very good article about the conference and space elevator technology.

Another Space Elevator Documentary is being produced and needs support for its Kickstarter campaign.  Producer Alexis Santos of Bad Character productions, supplied me with this information about the effort:

I’m working on a feature-length documentary about a space elevator (yes, the one that was Kickstarted). It’s called Shoot The Moon, and it’ll follow Michael Laine and the LiftPort team as they tackle their biggest experiment yet: sending a robot up 30,000 feet on a tether.

It’s never been done before, and when they do it, it’ll be the tallest free-standing human structure in existence — not to mention the highest a robot has ever gone without the help of rockets or an airplane. The chance of failure is real. The robot could come crashing down 5.68 miles to Earth and crush a 14-year dream, the space elevator idea… and our crew. If it’s a success, we could well be watching a revolution in commercial space.

We’ve just launched a Kickstarter campaign to complete the film, complete with miniature model-based effects.

Funding for this project closes Thursday morning, October 23rd.

I have blogged earlier about Sky Line, the new Space Elevator Documentary being produced by Going Up! Films and have asked all of you to support their Kickstarter campaign (and I do so again – this is a very worthwhile project and something that needs to be done).

Earlier this week, indieWIRE had chosen this project as its “Project of the Day” and now it has a chance to win the “Project of the Week” award.  This would be a very good thing for this Documentary campaign, bringing it increased visibility and assistance in their digital distribution.

But to win, they need you to vote for it.  Please visit the voting site and cast your vote for Sky Line.  Voting ends Monday morning – thank you!

The online Washington Post today posted a piece about the Space Elevator by Dominic Basulto.  It’s a good, generally accurate overview of the Space Elevator and was brought about by Dominic’s learning about the Diamond Nanothreads, the new “wonder material’ being much discussed these days.

Dominic contacted me while writing the story, asking my opinion on whether or not Space Elevator’s were feasible, given today’s technology.  I answered that the materials are just not there yet, though work in the lab shows much promise, and he accurately quoted me in his story.

Nice to see the Space Elevator make the Washington Post.  One item of note; he linked to a story about a Russian Space Elevator (I blogged about this way back when) and in that article, they fail to mention Yuri Artsutanov, the true father of the modern-day concept of the Space Elevator.  The man just gets no respect, even in the Russian press.  When he attended the ISEC Space Elevator Conference in 2010 (and what a treat it was to meet him), he told me (via his translator) that he and his family were essentially “persona non grata” in the old Soviet Union and that seems to have carried over to Russia.  They should treat him better and acknowledge his contributions – he’s a national treasure for that country.

The picture, above, is from the 2010 Conference.  Yuri is sitting with Roger Gilbertson, the person responsible for tracking down Yuri’s original article and having it translated into English.  At the conference, Yuri pointed out a few mistakes in the translation and worked with Roger to get them fixed.  The entire story of how Roger was able to get this article translated is fascinating and is chronicled in Volume 1 of CLIMB, the Space Elevator Journal.

Incidentally, Roger is now working for SpaceX, in charge of Public Relations I believe.  You can click on the picture thumbnail to see a full-size version of the picture.

I must admit, I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, the trilogy was EXCELLENT.  Exciting, thought-provoking, outstanding science-fiction.  On the other hand, the destruction to the Planet Mars following the sabotage of the Martian Space Elevator was gloriously, elaborately, excruciatingly described.

Current thinking dictates that a “real” space elevator would not be built like the one that Robinson described in Red Mars but I fear that is going to get lost in the shuffle.  I can already imagine the reaction once this production goes live; “See, we must never build a space elevator because it’s too dangerous – look what could happen!”

On the other hand, there is the old saw about “There is no such thing as bad publicity”.  Yeah, right.  Maybe we can seize it as a “teaching moment”? 🙁

Still, I’m looking forward to it – I hope they do justice to the book and it doesn’t turn out to be one of these “loosely based upon…” productions.

And, if you haven’t read the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, you’re missing a treat.  It really is wonderful reading, well deserving the many awards it received.

While this topic is not directly related to a space-elevator, I thought you would find it as interesting as I did.  And, with the recent news that NASA has chosen Boeing and SpaceX to ferry astronauts to/from the Space Station, it’s pretty timely.

Krista Coleman sent me a link to an infographic, a portion reproduced below, detailing some of the spinoffs that have been created due to NASA’s efforts over the past several decades.  Some I already knew, some were surprises to me.

Who knew that we could blame NASA for selfies!

To see the entire infographic, click here.

Thanks Krista!

In the Fall, 2014 issue of the National Space Society’s Ad Astra magazine, there is a four page article on the Space Elevator.

Unlocking the potential of space elevators is a four page article, written by Peter Swan (president of ISEC) and Cathy Swan, that referenced and summarized the recent IAA study on Space Elevators.  The whole article (which you can read here) is very good, but for me, the “money quote” was:

“The mission [for space business] for success is simple: Reduce the price for access to GEO to $500/kg while changing the model to: daily, routine, smooth-riding, less dangerous, environmentally sound, open size/mass criteria and mission enabling.”

Indeed…

One of the items which popped up in my FeedDemon Reader a while ago was a Blog post from a group called Sustainable Nano. They are: “The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology is an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to carry out research that will enable the development of sustainable, societally beneficial nanotechnologies. We are a group of well-connected but geographically diffuse scientists—at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Hamers & Pedersen groups), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Klaper group), the University of Minnesota (Haynes group), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Murphy group), Northwestern University (Geiger group), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Orr).” It’s a neat website with plenty of interesting posts – I do like poking around in it.

Anyway to the post in question: “Space Elevator: A Lasting Dream for a Sky-reaching Tree“. The post describes the basics of the space elevator and how a product like carbon nanotubes, one of their group’s focus, could make it all possible. Pretty standard stuff, but the graphics are worth commenting on…

The first graphic shows how a space elevator is “held up” by using the comparison to holding a stick with a rope attached to it and, the other end of the rope attached to some sort of counterweight. Spin the rope about your head (or, in the post’s example, spin your entire body) and, if you’re going fast enough, the rope will stick out straight from you towards the counterweight simulating the appearance of a space elevator. This is a common enough analogy, but does have its flaws. A space elevator is held up by balancing the forces of gravity and centrifugal force but this analogy is only demonstrating the centrifugal force portion. You (or the stick) have taken the place of gravity by holding the “earth-end” of the tether and keeping the counterweight from flying away. But I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate it and it does have the advantage of quickly being able to demonstrate the basic idea. In the graphic though, it shows Geostationary orbit (GEO) much closer to the counterweight than to the earth and the center of mass of the system at GEO (that’s where the arrows in the graphic seem to be pointing to). Using the standard Edwards/Westling model, the elevator tether is 100,000 km long while GEO is approximately 35,700 km above the surface, i.e. much closer to earth than to the counterweight at the end of the tether. Regarding the location of the center of mass of the system, it needs to be above GEO.  I, myself, used to erroneously think that the center of mass would be at GEO and have visited this topic before. Dr. Blaise Gassend wrote up a simple explanation of why the center of mass has to be ABOVE geosynchronous (geostationary – GEO) orbit.

The second graphic, the one referring to the almost-certainly necessary taper of the elevator tether is one that I’ve seen in similar format several times before. I’ve wanted to address it before, but just haven’t – I’ve been too lazy to try and draw my own version of the “correct” ratios for a tethered taper (I’m just familiar enough with Photoshop to be dangerous…). You’ll note that the blog post shows the tether increasing from a point at the earths surface to something much wider at GEO and then reducing back to a point at the counterweight. Ignoring the location of GEO (the same as in the first graphic), the idea of the tether widening from the earth to GEO and then narrowing from GEO to the counterweight is correct. But the ratio is wrong:

Creating my own model took me a lot longer than I had first thought – I redid it a half-dozen times before I had something I thought was worthwhile. Of course it’s not to scale either, but the ratio of the taper width at the earth’s surface (13.52) to its width at GEO (35.44) to its width at the counterweight (23.88) is correct. Also, given the shown length of the tether, the location of GEO is correct. The graphic is greatly “squooshed” of course, being much shorter than a real tether in this scale (by several orders of magnitude). But the difference between the length and the width of the tether demands this type of alteration.

One other thought; I think when most people look at drawings of tether taper, they assume that it’s the width of the tether which must alter. That’s not necessarily the case. It can also be the thickness and that, I think, would have advantages. If the width of the tether was constant (once you’re above the atmosphere – in the atmosphere it may well be a cable), then you don’t have to design a climber which can accommodate varying widths; much easier, I think to design a climber for a tether with a varying thickness. But then again, maybe it will be something like a Hoytether.

Anyway, enough. Where did I get my numbers? They came from the most excellent spreadsheet developed by long time friend of the space elevator Maurice Franklin and which you can find by clicking on its page link at the top of blog (The SE Analysis Spreadsheet). I’ve blogged about this before, and I’d like to encourage readers to play around with it – when you do, you really begin to get a feel for the physical constraints that engineers and scientists have to deal with in the real world. I used his Edwards/Westling Baseline model with no changes.

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by the people at NeomamStudios, telling me about a graphic they had put together showing the total cost of living on the Moon.  This was part of the 45th Moon Landing Anniversary Celebration and is, I think, of interest to people who support the idea of a Space Elevator.

If you are like me, and believe that the major (or at least “a” major) use of the Space Elevator is to help us colonize the solar system and, to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, get some of our eggs out of earth’s “basket”, then numbers like this are what we need to make our case.  It will be very, very, very, very expensive to create and support a lunar colony using traditional rocket technology, there’s just no getting around it.  A space elevator is the only feasible way to do something like this.

I could have reproduced the entire graphic here, but it’s quite large and I’d rather link to one which is already out there.  I went to the Neomam web site and the graphic is there, so I’ve linked to it and reproduced just a portion of it here.  And, lo and behold, when I went to their website, I found they had also created a graphic showing numbers for the living costs on Mars.  I’ve also reproduced a portion of that graphic here and clicking on either one of them will take you to the Neoman website where you can see the full graphics.

Fun facts from the graphics:

• On Mars, it would cost $37,244 to watch Psy’s Gangnam Style in HD on YouTube.
• On the Moon, downloading “Fly me to the Moon” would cost about 12.8 cents.

CNBC’s John Schoen wrote an article about the Space Elevator, releasing it just before the recent Space Elevator Conference and I am just getting ’round now to linking to it…

In addition to writing about Space Elevators, John also discusses flying cars and freight drones. ISEC‘s Peter Swan is quoted in the story.

There are also, unfortunately, the usual inane comments about space elevators in the article’s Comments section.  I tried to correct a couple of the worst, but it’s like trying to drain a lake with a spoon 🙁

An idea that has been occasionally discussed is to use the space elevator to launch radioactive waste to the sun, a permanent waste disposal plan if there ever was one…

The magazine Popular Science had an article about this in 2010.   It’s been a subject of blog discussions/debates (like this one on PhysicsForum and this one on the ScienceForum).  It was even a topic during the “Shotgun Science” section of the 2013 Space Elevator Conference (I can’t remember who did that particular presentation).

German blogger Kai Malmus gives us his uniquely European thoughts on this topic here.  According to Mr. Malmus, a Commission (put into action by the German government and all opposition parties) has been empowered to find a solution within the next couple of years and then start construction by of a waste storage unit here on earth by 2032.  All of Europe, indeed all of the fission-using world, is searching for an answer to this problem.  And, anyone who has followed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository saga in the USA over the past 25+ years, knows that it is a political football to end all political footballs.

Is using a Space Elevator to get rid of nuclear waste a practical idea?  I don’t think so, but not for the “usual reasons”.  People worry about the safety of the elevator but I believe we can produce an elevator lift system of very high reliability.  Payloads will all have some sort of guidance system so that if the unlikely happens, they can be safely splash-landed in the ocean.  And people worry about somehow contaminating the sun with this waste.  The sun is so enormous, that it could handle this relative paltry amount of additional matter without even noticing it.

However, “paltry amount” is, as I said, relative, and therein lies the problem, IMHO.

How much nuclear waste do we produce each year?  According to World Nuclear Association website, about 200,000 metric tons of low and intermediate levels of waste and about 10,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste are produced each year.  And then there is the “legacy waste problem“, hundreds of thousands of more metric tons of waste that must be dealt with somehow.

Assuming that we’re not going to see a functioning space elevator until probably at least 2035 (and I’m being optimistic here) and the fact that the initial elevator(s) aren’t going to carry more than double-digit tons of payload (and there will be multiple customers clamoring for the space elevator’s services) and the fact that the nuclear industry is continuing to produce nuclear waste, I’m afraid that this is a problem which is going to have to be solved here, on the planet, without the help of a Space Elevator.

I wish I could be more optimistic – the idea sounds grand, kind of like space-based solar power.  But when you run the numbers, then things don’t look so cheery…

Perhaps only a very tiny portion of this waste truly needs to be disposed of, then maybe.  But if that’s true, then it can probably be dealt with here and we won’t need a space elevator to get rid of it.

But I invite debate on the matter – prove me wrong!

This is always a fun session.  People can suggest not-fully-thought-out ideas (another way of saying “half-baked”?) to the crowd and use them as an initial ‘sounding board’ to see if it has merit or not.  Over the years, we’ve heard some good ideas in this session and, frankly, some really wacky ones, too, but as I started out saying, they’re always a lot fun.  Great to see people challenging assumptions and thinking outside of that box…

There were six speakers:

David Schilling proposed covering satellites with an aerogel, several inches (a foot?) thick.  He reasoned that this cover could act as a barrier to space debris/dust that would hit the satellite and, if the debris was big enough to penetrate the aerogel, the aerogel would act to keep the satellite in, more or less, one piece, thus minimizing space debris, and all with only a minimal addition of weight to the satellite.

Keith Loftstrom suggested keeping emotions out of reactions to someone else’s idea.  And a reminder, be your own skeptic first.  Run the numbers on a proposal before you bother bringing it to anyone elese.

Charles Gorlinski suggested we pay more attention to building in some redundancy into a space elevator system and proposed, for example, using multiple tethers, all heading to the same Apex Anchor (counterweight) separated by some sort of spacing ring.  If one tether breaks, the system does not disintegrate.

Dr. Bryan Laubscher asked all attendees to network, network, network, looking for people / corporations / government agencies, etc. with money and, if/when found, to direct them Peter Swan (for space elevator interest) or to himself (Bryan) for carbon nanotube development interest.

Michael Laine briefly talked about LiftPort’s Lunar Elevator project and showed an animation of creating the Lunar Space Elevator.  He thinks it is possible to do this “within the current decade” at a cost of ~USD 800 million.

Finally, Phil Richter gave us some thoughts from his perspective as a structural engineer.  He proposed a much wider tether, perhaps 10m or 100m wide, for several reasons; 1) redundancy/stronger/safety/stability 2) changing the structure’s aspect ratio – something that structural engineers know is important 3) Logistics – easier to work with 4) Economy of scale and 5) better from a budgeting estimate viewpoint.

I really like the aerogel-cushioned satellite idea – it makes so much sense that there has to be something wrong with it…

There are three Mini-Workshops scheduled for this conference and the first one is now underway.  Dr. John Knapman will be directing this Workshop aimed at getting several small groups to focus on the various Research Activities needed to advance our understanding of the space elevator.  John categorized several different topics (broadly categorized into topics that some work has been done on and those topics that have been largely untouched) and some of these will be focused on by these various groups.  The goals of this workshop, as in all workshops, are to get people brainstorming about these topics and come up with ideas and action items to attack them.

This afternoon’s presentations started with Akira Tsuchida talking about a new IAA study; “Road to Space Elevator Era”.  This will be a follow-on to the recently released IAA report Space Elevators: An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward.  One of they key outputs of this report will be the Space Elevator Prediction Feasibility Index (SEPFI).  I am going to be very interested in this – it should be a rigorous engineering review and prediction as to if and when, in the IAA’s opinion, a space elevator can be built.

As part of his presention, Akira also mentioned that the Science Council of Japan defined the Space Elevator project as part of the Master Plan for large research projects – 2014.  It is the first step of starting very small research but has recognized Space Elevator as National project.  Hopefully this will lead to significant government funding.

The next presentation was by Shuichi Ohno, chairman of JSEA, the Japan Space Elevator Association.  JSEA has been around for many years, and like ISEC, is dedicated to advancing our understanding of the Space Elevator.  Four people from Japan (three from JSEA) are attending the ISEC conference.  Mr. Ohno’s presentation started by talking about the activities of JSEA.  This includes several Climber competitions, including one, SPEC, which now requires climbers to ascend 1,200 meters.  They have ambitious plans for 2015 – increasing this amount to 5,000 meters (Note: they had the 2014 competition earlier this month and, unfortunately, I’ve not posted about it yet – I will rectify that after the conference.  You can find information about it here.)

Shuichi ended his presentation with a challenge to the US – to begin, again, conducting climber competitions, and this time, to do it in cooperation with JSEA.

Devin Jacobson, an American living in Japan and a member of JSEA, gave the next presentation; JSEA Outreach efforts and potential Business collaboration, or, The Space Elevator – Business or Pleasure?  Devin discussed about how, if we want to make a space elevator “real”, we will need to have to have more funding and he discussed some possibilities of how that could happen. For example, he talked about how the balloon climber competitions have advanced the art of being to able to send communications from a ballon based node – handy when needed in temporary situations (like a natural disaster or similar).

Day 2 of the conference is underway.  Our first presentation is a highly technical one: “For space elevator rope – Production of exfoliated graphene and high surface charged-cellulose nanocrystals as stabilizer synthesized by lyophilized acidic hydrolysis“.  Dr. Sherif Hindi of King Abdulaziz University, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, gave this presentation via Skype.  It was a difficult presentation to understand; a combination of the subject being highly technical, the presentation given via Skype and that English is not Dr. Hindi’s first language (though his English was excellent).  But if I got the gist of it, Dr. Hindi’s work consists of stabilizing/purifying Graphene (and thus making it stronger?) via cellulose nanocrystals produced from renewable materials.  I will need to review his paper to learn more.

The second presentation was by Dr. Bryan Laubscher, chief technologist of Odysseus Technologies, Inc. (full disclosure; I am an investor in OTI).  He gave us an update on OTI’s continuing efforts to build longer, stronger nanotubes.  He discussed the patents that OTI has made, both in terms of taking existing ‘forests’ of nanotubes, drawing off threads and strengthening those threads and also in growing stronger nanotubes themselves.  His presentation elicited many questions and a whole lot of discussion.  OTI’s problem now (as with a lot of startups, especially in this field) is funding.  OTI is doing a lot with a little – a little more would certainly help.  Dr. Laubscher made the observation yesterday that if you want to really advance the possibility of a space elevator, materials science is the place to be.  I’ve pointed out the obvious many times on this blog that without the materials strong enough to make a viable space elevator tether, this is all just a pipe-dream.  Long, strong tubes are the answer.

And, to get this out of the way right away, it’s a good thing that the Bears-Seahawks games was a preseason one – ’nuff said…

The first day of the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference was outstanding.  The morning was “setting the stage”, introductory information and a fine Keynote speech from Science writer Leonard David of how the Space Elevator fits into the current space paradigm.

The afternoon sessions were all technical ones and I think it’s safe to say all attendees learned a lot.  It’s hard for me to pick a favorite, but I must comment on the final session of the day, on Weather; how it can be measured, how it can be forecast and what it means for a space elevator.  The presenter, Winifred Crawford ended her presentation with the suggestion that we start recruiting a meteorologist (or two) and freely admitted that she was hooked on the concept of the Space Elevator.

All of these sessions are being recorded and will be on our video website in the near future – watch this space for an announcement…

On to Day 2!

Winifred Crawford gave a talk about some specific aspects of weather, specifically wind and lightning and what is really known about them.

Winifred talked about the amazing power of lightning and that there are two types; natural and triggered.  She also pointed out that the areas now posited as ‘best’ locations for the Space Elevator (for example, on the equator – west of the Galapagos Islands) have much less lightning that other areas do, but that the number of lightning strikes even there is not zero – it must be planned for.  She also talked about how lightning hurt (but did not destroy) the Apollo 12 mission and that lightning did destroy an Atlas Centaur launch.

She also talked about rain and the problems it causes and noted that much less data has been captured about weather over ocean locations than it has for land locations and so satellite weather gathering will be key.  Satellites can also capture sea surface temperature and current data, knowledge of both of which will almost certainly be needed to run a Space Elevator.

Finally, she showed how all this data can be used to forecast the weather at a Space Elevator Base station, something which will be absolutely critical for a successful operation.

Peter Robinson gave a very interesting talk on how we might go about validating the design and simulating the operation of a Space Elevator.  He pointed out some famous engineer failures from history and all of them, of course, failed to accurately simulate their operation.  A common theme to many of these failures was that they were the first of their design – there was no other similar acting structure to use in validation and simulation.

This will obviously be a problem with a Space Elevator too – the first one will be, well, the first one.  Peter proposed how simulation, validation and testing can be built up step by step.  He also emphasized that MTBF for Climbers is very important – they will be very difficult, if not impossible, to service while on the tether.  Peter also posited that the building of a Lunar elevator will be a pre-requisite to building an earth-based space elevator.

“You won’t be allowed to build an earth-based space elevator unless you can convince an awful lot of people that the elevator will be safe.”

Keith Loftstrom, author of the Lofstrom Loop, gave a presentation on “Loop Technology – Increasing Throughput, Decreasing Radiation”, his take on how to improve (or even in some cases, to discover) assumptions being used in designing a space elevator.  He touched on many subjects, but one was the location of the Ground Station.  Conventional wisdom has that it should be located on the equator for efficiency reasons.  Keith posited a Ground station 8 degrees south of the equator, claiming that a) this would allow the tether to be ’tilted’ allowing things to be oriented off of the tether, b) it keeps the tether out of the way of things in orbit around the equator and c) that if the tether breaks, the mass above the break will be flung out into space along the imaginary equator line, thus missing other tethers that may be constructed.

He also talked about how to use the Space Elevator to eliminate the Van Allen Belts.

He discussed much more – this is just a brief.  His talk, like all of the others, are being recorded and will be available some weeks after the conference.

If you want to view this presentation now, visit http://www.launchloop.com/SEPulley.

One of the ISEC reports, finished a year or so ago, is entitled “Space Elevator Concept of Operations“, a fairly in-depth look as to how the operational aspects of a Space Elevator system might actually work.  This includes the land port, the ocean port, the tether itself, attaching / detaching the climber to the tether, etc., etc., etc.

Skip Penny headed up this project and gave a talk on the report and current thinking on this topic.

One of the presentations this morning was from Nick Martin and Mark Dodrill, reporting on progress with the ISEC History Committee (I wrote about the formation of this committee here).  Lots of progress has been made, but this effort is still in the early stages.  Nick and Mark are collecting both oral and written documentation about the development of the concept of the Space Elevator and all the work that has been done since.  There IS a lot of information and I applaud this effort – things get forgotten if they don’t get written down.

The picture thumbnail is of Nick – he has definitely won the “best dressed and most dapper” attendee at the conference (so far) 🙂

Click on the thumbnail for a full-size version.

Noted Science author Leonard David is now giving the Keynote speech at the ISEC 2014 Space Elevator Conference, talking about how the Space Elevator fits into the “current space environment”.

He had an interesting, and almost certainly true statement, early on in his talk.  He said the space elevator, whenever it is built, will be “very different” from what we think it might be now.  We need to keep an open mind.  One of his final remarks struck me; “Be prepared to be stunned by the future“.

Clicking on the thumbnail will display a full-size picture.

All of these presentations are being recorded so, “God willing and the creek don’t rise”, they’ll be posted on the ISEC Vimeo account in the near future.  I’ll notify you here when that happens.

It’s Friday, August 22nd, 2014 and that means it’s the first day of the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference!

I’m here attending again, as a Director of ISEC and as an enthusiast and supporter and will be documenting the conference as we go along.

I’m from Chicagoland and the conference is in Seattle.  Now, if you’re a professional football fan (and especially if you’re from Chicago or Seattle) you know that the Bears are playing the Seahawks in an exhibition football game this evening.  Now yes, this is preseason, but it’s preseason game number 3 and, if you follow football, you know that this is close to what you’re going to see during the real season as is possible in preseason.  The starters will play at least a half and maybe more.  I’m a Bears fan and, like all Bears fan, we’re really looking forward to this game – it will be a good test to see how the team might do this year.

I’m bringing all this up because when I left the hotel this morning, riding down in the elevator with me was a young couple and the lady was wearing a Chicago Blackhawks TShirt.  I commented to them that “I like your TShirt”.  They smiled and asked me if I was from Chicago.  When I said I was, they said they were too.  I asked them if they were going to watch the Bears-Seahawks game tonight and they said they were actually going – they had tickets!  I’m jealous.

So, a Chicago connection already and the conference hadn’t even started – a good omen indeed…

And, back to the conference – we’ve had the introductory remarks from Conference David Horn and now Dr. Bryan Laubscher is giving his “Space Elevator 101” talk to get everyone on the same page…

More soon…

A few weeks ago, first-time author Jerry Kaczmorowski emailed me and asked if I would like to review his book Moon Rising.  He told me that there was an American-built space elevator involved (as well as some other details I’ll let the reader explore) and, of course, that was enough to get me to say “Yes”.

I finished the book shortly after I started it – here is the review I put on Amazon:

This is an excellent book, especially for a first-time author.  The plot is rich and detailed and keeps the reader guessing.  The characters are believable and the action is non-stop.  Once I started reading it, I didn’t want to put it down and I believe that others who are fortunate enough to take a chance on this new author will feel the same.

As the author of the Space Elevator Blog, I’m always intrigued by a new book with a Space Elevator as the theme or the backdrop.  I’m also always worried because the authors of many of these types of books have obviously not done their homework on how a Space Elevator could be built or could work – they seem to have skipped all of their science and math classes in school.

Thankfully this book is not like that.  The author doesn’t delve deeply into Space Elevator architecture (it’s not the focus of the book), but what technical details he does write about are plausible.  What this book also does is show WHY we would want to build a Space Elevator and then presents a scenario as to HOW a Space Elevator might actually come about.  I don’t want to spoil the plot for new readers, but suffice it to say that, in this book, the world does NOT come together, sing “Kumbaya” and then build a Space Elevator for the advancement of all mankind.

I do have a couple of nits; the characters seem a bit one-dimensional at times and the villains are the “usual suspects”.  Nevertheless, adding everything together, I give this book 5 well-deserved stars and I look forward to this author’s next effort.

The author is going to be at the upcoming ISEC Space Elevator Conference (you ARE coming, yes?) and I look forward to meeting him.

And, buy the book – you’ll enjoy reading it!

The July, 2014 issue of the ISEC eNewsletter is hot off the presses.  You can access it here.

And, you can sign up for the free eNewsletter here if you want to be among the first “in the know”.

And don’t forget, the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference is almost here, but there’s still time to register.

See you there!

The latest ISEC eNewsletter is hot off the presses and can be found here.  It’s a shorter eNewsletter than usual as ISEC efforts are now focused on the upcoming Space Elevator Conference (less than two months away – you ARE coming, aren’t you?).

And, about the upcoming conference, there have been a record number of papers/presentations submitted so I think it’s safe to say that interest is running very high.

This is also a good time to remind everyone that the Early Bird Registration prices for the conference end on Monday, June 30th, so don’t delay.

See you there!

In my previous post, I had written about a new Space Elevator competition in Israel and that the originator of the modern-day concept of the space elevator, Russian Engineer Yuri Artsutanov, would be there as a judge.  While I can’t find any results posted as of yet, I did hear from Eugene Schlusser, Yuri’s friend (and unofficial translator), who accompanied Yuri to the 2010 ISEC Space Elevator conference.  Eugene lets me know that Yuri did indeed make it to the competition and did act as a judge.  And, better yet, there was coverage of this in Russia and a YouTube video has been made of it (hint: it helps if you speak Russian and/or Hebrew :).

Yuri appears at two different times in the video; around the 53 second mark and again at the 1:05 mark.

I’m still hopeful of getting some pictures from the competition which I will, of course, post here.

This competition reminds me so much of the early days of the NASA/Spaceward Space Elevator Games; Climbers climbing a racetrack held aloft by a crane, students frantically working on their equipment, etc.  It brings back some great memories.

Thank you Eugene!

This is cool.  The father of the modern-day concept of the space elevator (and a guest at the 2010 ISEC Space Elevator Conference) Yuri Artsutanov, will be one of the judges at a Space Elevator contest being held next Wednesday, June 18th, in Israel.

“This year’s challenge at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s 12th annual Technobrain competition is to build a “space elevator” — a device capable of climbing in a nearly vertical manner (at an 80 degree angle to the ground), to a height of 25 meters.”

More details can be found here and here and there is also a posting on the Technion Facebook page.  The official posting from the Technion website can be found here.

I’ve reached out to both Yuri and the Technion institute for more details.

(Photo thumbnail is from Yuri at the 2010 ISEC Space Elevator conference – click on it for a full size picture)

An article that has been making the rounds recently seems to confirm that GoogleX, once upon a time, was interested in building a Space Elevator.  This story has been reported in several outlets but they all seem to come from this story at Fast Company.

Money quote from the article:  “The [GoogleX] team knew the cable would have to be exceptionally strong– ‘at least a hundred times stronger than the strongest steel that we have,’ by ­Piponi’s calculations. He found one material that could do this: carbon nanotubes. But no one has manufactured a perfectly formed carbon nanotube strand longer than a meter.”

Yes, indeedy, that is the stumbling block.  If someone is truly interested in getting closer to the day when a Space Elevator could be built, I would recommend that they invest in Materials Science research; carbon nanotubes, boron-nitride nanotubes, carbyne, it doesn’t matter which one, just as long as the goal is stronger materials.

Many months ago, I contacted Astro Teller, the head of GoogleX, to see if they would be interested in sponsoring a rebirth of the Strong Tether Competition.  I thought their (at the time) rumored interest in the Space Elevator coupled with their deep pockets would be a natural fit.  Sadly they were not interested.  When this article surfaced, I contacted Mr. Teller again and he confirmed that GoogleX is not currently working on this project, sigh.

So, it’s nice to know that they were interested, once upon a time, but we will need to continue to look elsewhere for the breakthough needed to make this project a reality…

Yes, today this blog celebrates its 8th anniversary – it’s hard to believe that I’ve been doing this for such a long time…

Much has happened in the Space Elevator field since I first began my missives.  In no particular order they are:

The Space Elevator Games – this joint venture between NASA and the Spaceward Foundation created lots of interest in the power-beaming and strong-tether technologies over its many year run.  Games were held in California (Mountain View and Mojave), New Mexico and Utah and produced a winner (Lasermotive) that took home $900,000.  It’s unfortunate that NASA didn’t renew the contract, but they have other ‘fish to fry’ these days. However, it’s good to know that there are still organizations and groups trying to push the boundary of power-beaming.  For example, the Kansas City Space Pirates recently set an unofficial record for beam-powered flight.

The birth of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC).  This organization began in 2008 and, after a rough first year, has found its way.  I was privileged to be its President for four years and it is now in the capable hands of Dr. Peter Swan.  This organization has taken up sponsorship of the American Space Elevator Conference, produces year-long studies on various aspects of Space Elevator Technology and also CLIMB, the Space Elevator Journal.  Recently, ISEC created the Space Elevator Research and History Committees to further knowledge in this field.  And hey, lets not forget the posters ISEC creates too…

The birth of the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA).  This very active group holds a conference every year and hosts multiple competitions too.  They have an active website and lots of members and are group of very good, committed people.

The Space Elevator Conferences.  The American ones were originally hosted by the SESI organization and have now, as noted in a previous item, been taken over by ISEC.  During the past few conferences, we’ve had luminaries such as Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson attend and give Keynote speeches and this year’s conference will be very exciting too, I’m sure.  JSEA also hosts conferences in Japan each year and EuroSpaceward (apparently not active anymore, unfortunately) has hosted a few conferences in Europe where Space Elevator Technology and Research has played a central role.

The International Academy of Astronautics released a report about Space Elevators (An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward), the first comprehensive study of Space Elevators since Brad Edwards and Eric Westling’s seminal publication in 2002.  This report has been just recently published and has received a lot of Press coverage.

We’ve seen the growth and demise and then subsequent rebirth of LiftPort.  They are now concentrating their efforts on building a Lunar space elevator.  They were able to host a very successful Kickstarter campaign and raised a lot of money for their efforts.

While the Space Elevator is a familiar concept in Japan (Gundam rocks!), publicity about this enterprise is growing in the western world too.   There have been articles published about the Space Elevator in such world-wide publications as the National Geographic Magazine (both online and in print) and a Google Search on “Space Elevator” will now turn up hundreds and hundreds of hits of articles about this concept.  Also, several fictional and non-fictional books about the Space Elevator (or with the Space Elevator as a backdrop) have been published.  The idea of a Space Elevator is no longer a strange concept and I’m hopeful that this blog has had some small part to play in that.

There have been many other developments in the Space Elevator field over this past eight years, too numerous to list here.  I’ve highlighted major ones (IMHO) in my previous anniversary blogs:  Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6.  No posting, sadly, for Year 7.

While all of this is good and exciting, we continue to wait for science & engineering to come up with the material strong enough to construct an earth-based Space Elevator tether.  Research in the Carbon Nanotube tensile-strength field has not made the progress that many of us had hoped for by now, but on the grand scale of things, we’re still in the ‘early innings’ of this project.  And research is now proceeding with a second material theoretically strong enough to build an earth-based Space Elevator tether from, Boron Nitride nanotubes.  Options are good things!

My faithful readers over the past several years have noted, I’m sure, this blog’s change in focus from “all-things Space Elevator” to “all-things ISEC”.  This wasn’t deliberate, but was rather a side-effect of my being president of that organization for four years.  Now that I’m no longer president (but I’m still very much involved as a Director and being in charge of publicity), the focus of this blog is returning to “all-things Space Elevator”.

So, thank you for reading and onward and upward!

As many people who follow developments in the Space Elevator ‘arena’ are aware, LiftPort has turned its attention to developing a Lunar Space Elevator.  Leonard David, SPACE.com’s “Space Insider Columnist’ recently posted a story on the current status of this project.  In this article (which includes a link to a video created by LiftPort), he interviews Jerome Pearson, the American co-inventor of the modern-day concept of the Space Elevator (and the first one, to my knowledge, that seriously discussed a Lunar Space Elevator) and LiftPort’s Michael Laine.

It’s a very good article, well worth the read…

At the www.space.com website, Leonard David has written a fine article about the Space Elevator and the recent IAA Study concerning Space Elevators.  It’s well worth the read.

And, check out all the illustrations from Frank Chase.  Frank has been the artist for ISEC for several years now; he has designed most of our posters, the covers for CLIMB and for the ISEC reports and has contributed his artwork in other ways too.  He’s a very talented guy 🙂

Anyway, check it out…