Long time readers know of the Elevator2Space guys - 4 funny dudes who have put out a couple of dozen short vignettes of Space Elevator humor…
Their ‘final episode’ (which I blogged about here) appears to have only been a pause in their efforts. They have two new episodes which I share with you here.
I am very pleased to report that the Isle of Man Space Agency today announced plans to build the world’s first Space Elevator. Details can be found here. According to the news release, the Isle of Man will be partnering with Fox News in this effort. Rupert Murdoch is quoted as saying “We have won the ratings race on this planet. We want to be the first news organization on both the moon and Mars and ensure our supremacy there, too. Rush Limbaugh will head up the Moon division and Bill O’Reilly will be in charge of the Mars branch and a Space Elevator is the only device powerful enough to lift their egos off of the planet.”
President Barack Obama praised the move saying “This is proof that my new NASA policy is already paying dividends. I urge Congress to pass legislation to ensure that all workers on the Space Elevator, including illegal immigrants, will have health insurance.”
In response, MSNBC issued a press announcement stating “Fox News cannot be allowed to monopolize the ’space-waves’. Though we admit that even a Space Elevator is not powerful enough to lift Keith Olbermann’s ego, we will work to find a solution that can. We call on President Obama and Congress to overcome Republican objections and repeal the Law of Gravity, thus ensuring a fair and level playing field for all.”
Osama Bin Laden issued an audio tape promising to build his own Space Elevator, which he will name the “Tower of Terror”. “You don’t need gravity to behead people” he is quoted as saying. He also announced plans to build a space station several thousand miles up on the tower and use it to drop infidels to their death. “Their screaming as they burn up in the atmosphere should make a lovely sound” he said. The Disney Corporation immediately announced their intention to sue Bin Laden over the use of the name ‘Tower of Terror’ and, in response, Bin Laden issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Buzz Lightyear as a ‘holy duty’.
The Pope hailed the opening of the new frontiers by saying “We’ve been having difficulty in moving some of our priests and being able to send them to the moon and Mars is a perfect solution for us.”
North Korea immediately denounced the move stating in an official press release; “Our Beloved Leader is mobilizing our armed forces to fiercely repel any attacks from the Space Elevator. ‘We will deal a decisive and final blow to any and all Elevator invaders!’” he is quoted as saying.
And finally, Sarah Palin is lobbying to become the United States of America’s first ambassador to the Space Elevator saying that “I can see both the moon and Mars from my house.”
View all of the episodes (they’re up to 26 episodes now!) here…
And, I just found a Tweet from Alex Koll (one of the four ‘climber-nauts’) which said about this episode “Season Finale”… Really? I’ll have to contact these guys again and see what’s what…
And, I’m sorry there’s been less-than-normal posting from me on this blog, but I have been very, very busy launching the various ISEC initiatives we’ve adopted for the year. We’ve received several abstracts already for the Artsutanov and Pearson prizes, we’re getting ready to issue a “Call for Papers” for the ISEC Journal, we’ve got artwork in process for the ISEC Posters, we have a Library project underway and the planning for the upcoming Space Elevator conference proceeds apace. We’ve had several new volunteers come on board and it takes time to get everyone up to speed.
At the 2008 Space Elevator Conference, a large contingent arrived from Japan (I blogged about this here). One of the many items they brought and showed was a video/cartoon that had been created by some organization in Japan. I think they also brought this video to the 2007 Space Elevator games held near Salt Lake City in Utah. I have tried to get permission to show this in the US, but so far without success
However, I did just find a website that is advertising this movie and, if you’re in Japan, you can go see it. The website is very cool, is bi-lingual (to flip it into English, just click on the ‘English’ button in the upper, right-hand corner of the webpage), and has a trailer of the movie.
Check out the Trailer and, as they have a contact form on their website, I will attempt to use this avenue to get permission to show this here in the US ☺
A few days ago, I linked to a YouTube video that featured Frank Chase, an artist out of Hilo, Hawaii. This video featured Frank and several of the space elevator-related animations and drawings he has created.
I’ve now gotten in touch with Frank and he pointed me to a couple of his websites where more of his work can be seen. The one which interests me the most, of course, is his “Space Elevator Visions” website - it has some very cool drawings and also some posters for sale - all of very high quality.
He also has another site, The Virtual Nautilus, with drawings “…established to showcase the Nautilus, as described by Jules Verne…”.
I think this has promise, but I’m not sure where the “700 miles of fullerene cable comes in” - a real space elevator would need to be about 60,000 miles long. Maybe we’ll find out in a future episode.
You know, we need to come up with a moniker for these guys (the ones at Elevator2Space and now Captain Casual).
‘Elevatornauts’ doesn’t roll off the tongue. Shortening it to ‘Vator-nauts’ sounds better but no one will know what you’re talking about.
‘Cable-nauts’ or ‘tether-nauts’?
As this is all comedy, maybe ‘Comic-nauts’ (like cosmonauts)?
I believe that in an earlier post I had mentioned it was now actually possible to purchase a Space Elevator Lego Kit in Japan. I wanted to see if I could get some information on them (and, perhaps have ISEC purchase a few so we could sponsor our own Lego competition), but I’ve had no luck. The Lego corporations in various countries don’t seem to talk to each other and certainly aren’t interested in sharing information with anyone. If someone who reads Japanese can visit the Japanese Lego site and find an email address for me to contact, I would be most grateful.
I think this catches us up on YouTube videos. Tomorrow onto something else…
And, continuing on my ‘YouTube theme’ from yesterday, here are a couple of more Space Elevator related videos that have been posted lately…
The first has been out a while, but I’ve searched back through my blog and can’t see where I posted it anywhere. It shows Michio Kaku and Brad Edwards both talking about the Space Elevator - it’s short on details though, almost like this video is a shortened version of a longer one floating around out there somewhere…
Several new Space-elevator related videos have been posted on YouTube lately.
This first one is pretty cool. Artist Frank Chase talks about the Space Elevator and shows a number of original (I think) concept drawings - some of them are very cool and very elaborate. I’ll have to see if this guy is interested in doing a poster for ISEC…
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I have XKCD in my Feed Reader, so I do get to see the latest when it’s sent out, but I also had a gazillion people email me today telling me about this cartoon. Thanks, everyone, and I’m glad to see that you’re paying attention ☺
This video is from the recently completed Space Elevator Games. It shows what ‘went wrong’ with a Climber pick-up before the problems were fixed and then it ‘went right’. Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates, is narrating.
In general, this video has it’s facts correct with a few exceptions.
The main advantage of a Space Elevator is it’s scalability (i.e. it’s ability to scale up to carry huge amounts of material into space), not it’s relatively lower cost/kilogram to get something into orbit. I can’t emphasize this enough. With a Space Elevator (and only with a Space Elevator), you can lift the enormous quantities of material you need to colonize the moon or mars or establish a significant amount of space solar power.
Scalability people, think scalability. The video is correct in comparing the Space Elevator to the intercontinental railway for that’s what a Space Elevator is - a carbon railway to space.
Another mistake in the video is at the end when he is fancifully showing space elevators begin stationed near Spain or Japan. While it’s possible to build a Space Elevator in those areas, the many problems which will occur (and have been described in the Edwards-Westling book) will almost certainly preclude it.
And finally, I must disagree with a third point of the video - that whoever builds the first Space Elevator will control access to space. Even if the United States (or Russia or the ESA, etc.) does not build the first one, they have the resources to build one later on. Certainly whoever builds one first will own a huge commercial advantage, but only until that second elevator is up and running.
It might sound like I’m dissing this video - I’m not. It’s well done and has most of its facts correct. But we need to have all of our facts correct if we’re going to convince someone that this is an idea worth doing…
With the recent effort surrounding the Space Elevator Games and the EuroSpaceward Conference, I’ve neglected some Space Elevator related items which have been piling up in my RSS Reader. And so…
A YouTube clip from a CNN-Chile newscast states that NASA wants to build a Space Elevator (at least that’s what it says when I plug in the caption into Yahoo Babel Fish). Also, I clearly hear the announcer say “Microsoft” during her report. I don’t know if she’s talking about the recent Space Elevator conference at the Microsoft Center or somehow she thinks that Microsoft is going to build a Space Elevator.
And in this clip (from the Science Channel no less), it says that “NASA is holding a contest to see who can come up with the best plans for building a “space elevator”. I wish that were true. The Space Elevator Games piggyback upon NASA’s desire for power-beaming and strong-tethers - they have no avowed interest in building a Space Elevator (though the NASA people who I talked to at Dryden during the recent Space Elevator Games thought it was a cool idea). The clip also says that the trip to the top will take “3 months”. I don’t know where they got that figure. Even a ride to the end of the tether (100,000 km) would, at 200 mph (320 km/hour) take about 13 days. Add some time in for slowing down during start-up and at the end and maybe a stop/transit at the GEO space station and you still have well less than 1 month to the top. And, the story says that passengers could be “struck by meteroids”… Oh my. They finalize the clip by repeating the lame joke about “Elevator music”. Oh well, at least it IS the Science Channel…
And then we have a new Space Elevator cartoon - this one from the strange mind of Andy Carolan. Having LaserMotive win that $900K at the recent Space Elevator Games has given the whole effort a new burst of publicity…
I think it’s “Alien” that’s coming out of the Space Elevator, but I’m not sure…
I’ve yet to view the new Star Trek adventure, the one with the Space Elevator in it, but thanks to this Spanish language publication talking about Space Elevators in general and the recent Space Elevator Games in particular, now at least I have a ’screen-shot’ of what it looked like in the movie. I rented it today from redbox and will watch it tonight (I know, I’m so far behind).
All for now…
(Dec 14, 2009 Update - In the Comments, reader J.D. Muriel provides a translation of the Chilean broadcast. It’s odd (’surprising’ in J.D.’s terminology) to say the least… Microsoft is not sponsoring a Space Elevator, but the Space Elevator conference. And, as far as I’m aware of, there is no “Japanese-Russian alliance” that is working on this project. I think they read this article and misinterpreted it. Now don’t get me wrong - I’d love it if the Japanese and Russians decided to do this. I’ve heard rumors that the Japanese are supposedly working on some sort of ’secret’ carbon nanotube initiative and the Russians have as much (maybe more) experience working in space as does US-NASA. But I just don’t think it’s happening. Please prove me wrong
While setting up this morning for the conference, I happened to walk outside the conference room and noticed that the clock on the wall was acting strange. This video is not sped up or altered in any way…
When I looked closer, I saw that there was a legend on the bottom of the clock which read “radio controlled”. Obviously something was FUBAR’d…
I pointed it out to the Hotel personnel helping us set up. They tried to fix it, but failed and finally just turned off the radio control. It is now permanently 4 03′ 54″ (am? pm?) at the conference.
Talking at the beginning of the video is John Winter (from EuroSpaceward) and myself…
These are cool… I stumbled across some pictures posted on Flickr that are artists conception of moving skyscrapers that travel up and down multiple Space Elevators. I followed the Flickr link back to the website and discovered “Squares are evil“…
The level of detail in this work reminds me of the Base Station designs I posted about earlier. At some point, I need to get someone to start finding these online designs and building an entry about them at the Space Elevator Wiki. This type of forward-thinking will be very helpful in the eventual real design of a Space Elevator.
Any takers for this project out there? If so, please contact me at ted [at] spaceelevatorblog.com.
And here is a picture of SpongeBob SquarePants taking a trip to the moon in (I think) a Space Elevator. Not as much detail as the artist drawings, but you got to love it all the same…
(Drawing picture thumbnail taken from the Squares are Evil website. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version or visit their website to see this and many other conceptual drawings they have created.)
(SpongeBob SquarePants picture thumbnail taken from Flickr. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.)
I guess it had to happen sometime - there is a (new, I think) music group out now called “The Space Elevators“. They have released several songs on their MySpace website and also now have a video out on YouTube:
Their music is entirely without vocals - it’s all instrumental.
Now, understand that I’m a baby-boomer. I grew up in the drug-culture of the 60’s (for which I’m eternally grateful). Much of this group’s music reminds me of the electronic experimentation I heard during that time. There was this group called “The Corporation” and they were, I think, out of Milwaukee. The music out of these guys reminds me very much of that group…
I’m sure it’s not everyone’s “cup of tea”, but if you’re into electronic music, you might enjoy their offerings very much.
For yesterday’s post, I attempted to find non-US Space Elevator related videos - and was notably unsuccessful. But then I remembered - Gundam! This cartoon/anime series is always good for some Space Elevator ‘video’. Lot’s of shoot-em-up action…
And if I’m looking a little desperate for Space Elevator material to post, well, you’re correct. I’m in the middle of my yearly pilgrimmage to Arkansas and am a little out of touch…
And, this has ‘Space Elevator’ written all over it - let’s hope they write it in to the script…
I think that designing (and testing!) a zero-g or low-g distillery would be a very worthwhile science effort. I will present a proposal to the ISEC Board that we sponsor such a project. Volunteers, please contact me at ted-public [at] isec.info…
(Picture thumbnail from here - visit their website to see it in context)
Our intrepid explorers are getting bored and a mean streak is beginning to surface. It all ends with the dreaded Romulan Throat Thrust. Oh the humanity…
Our intrepid elevator riders are back with another two episodes. Someone has, evidently, pressed all the buttons, so it appears that this trip is going to take some time.
In episode 4, we learn that “Rappaport” is a jokester and in episode 5 we learn the alleged benefits of sharing…
Reader Sean Keane sent me a link to 3 new Space Elevator videos that he and his friends have produced. The theme is pretty self-explanatory and the videos definitely made me laugh.
It looks like these videos are the first in a series and I’m looking forward to future releases. My personal favorite of these is Episode Two…
The home website for these videos is http://elevator2space.com/ and at this site we will, presumably, see future episodes. I’ll be posting them here, too, when they appear.
Thanks Sean - I look forward to future efforts from you and your cohorts - I think there is a definite chance that the four of you can become cult heroes…☺
In the Department of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Professor Michael Fox had his students do a very cool and relevant project, a design of an ocean-based base station for a Space Elevator. As far as I know, this is the first time that people from the Architecture world have had a go at this. When the time comes to actually design a real base station, we will need the Architects to work along with the Engineers in order to design this right. Yes, we could just have a floating platform that looks like an ocean-based oil rig, but why not make it aesthetically pleasing as well? Plus, architects are going to include amenities and other practicalities that would not be obvious to engineering-type designers.
There are 11 designs in all - each of them really outstanding. I invite you to visit the main project website and look at the effort each of these teams have put into this project and the level of thought and detail that they have included. I hope to be writing more about this project in the near future.
The two picture thumbnails in this post are cut from two of the projects. The topmost one is from the INTERFASE project, created by the team of Ehsaan Mesghali and Owen Liu. The bottom one is from another project (I’m unsure of the team that created this one, but I’ll find out ☺). Click on either of them for a larger version of the picture.
I urge you to visit the main website and then spend some time browsing the individual designs - there really is lot of fine work here and all of the students are to be commended for their efforts.
This is starting to become very cool - more and more people / groups are releasing music about the Space Elevator. With the recent find of the song by Apraxis, that makes at least 4 Space Elevator songs I’ve found so far. Maybe I’ll put up a poll at some point and let people vote for their favorite - we can ask Simon Cowell to host a “Space Elevator Idol” show…
Click the play button above to listen. This is now at version 1.0 and its not fully mastered.. etc.
It’s not totally done but we don’t like to keep the fans waiting! Stuart T joins me on this track as well and it’s a joy working with him. For more info on the concept keep reading.
There is a Play Button, of course, for the music, and also a description of the Space Elevator concept in ‘500 words or less’. They also link to the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC - come join us!), so they’re keeping the website up-to-date.
Astronomers from the California Institute of Science have announced today the direct observation of a Space Elevator erected by an alien civilization outside our solar system, located around the second planet in the star system Epsilon Eridani.
Just like the great wall of China, which is the most space-visible human-made artifact on Earth, a Space Elevator is easily detected as a 100,000 km searchlight blinking on and off around the alien planet. NASA’s recently launched Kepler Space Telescope is especially designed to detect such beacons, and the detection circuits located the Eridani Space Elevator as soon as the telescope was switched on.
When asked about the significance of the discovery, ISEC’s president Ted Semon remarked that it is only logical that an alien advanced race would build a Space Elevator as they become a space faring civilization. “It is what I would do” he added. “This is also another example of science fiction predicting science fact. As is well known, the TV series Star Trek placed the planet Vulcan in the Epsilon Eridani system and now we find that there is actually an advanced civilization there.”
Scientists caution, however, that no more than 12 adults or 2000 lb (which ever is less) should be loaded onto the elevator at any given time, and that you should be careful of the closing doors. Also, if you have small children with you, you should prevent them from pushing all of the buttons as this could extend the trip by several days.
It’s been a while since I’ve inflicted shown you Space Elevator related videos I’ve found on YouTube. No, this is not the Jay Leno version of “Videos I’ve found on YouTube”, it’s mine…
This first video is of the ‘future history’ variety, talking about Space Elevators in the 31st century: (Note - updated on 03APR09 at the request of the author of the video, Erich Stüssi. He emailed me to tell me that the video I had posted was just the ‘rough cut’ of a school assignment. The one below is the final version. Thanks for the update Erich.)
This second video is of YerbY, another musician singing about a Space Elevator. This YouTube version is the ’solo acoustic’ version of his song, Space Elevator (on the album called “Space Elevator”). He also has a website where he has an orchestral version of this song plus some clips of other tunes on the album. From his website:
My album Space Elevator is the culmination of the writing I did during most of 2008. On the album, I sought not to write your average pop songs. There are no repeating choruses or verses. Every word of the lyrics was stated with care. I arranged the instruments with the goal of letting each song unfold gradually from beginning to end, hopefully taking the listener through the same journey I went through in writing it. Also, there is no “filler” on the album; I worked tirelessly on each song until I felt it expressed the idea I intended to convey. I posted the few songs above to provide stylistic samples; I wrote Space Elevator hoping for it to be heard as a complete work.
Finally, saving the best for last, is the Space Elevator Games recap / teaser put together by the Chicago video production company Bitter Jester Creative, Inc. If you were at the last Games, you undoubtedly saw this group, filming everything in sight and interviewing almost everyone in site. They are putting together a video about the Space Elevator Games with an emphasis on the human side rather than the technical side (though that will be shown, too).I really, really like this video and I can’t wait to see their final product.
Yes, it’s true, LaserMotive now has a spiffy new motor for their climber.
Check out their blog post for a picture of the motor and some more details…
Note that they are also looking for alternative uses for this motor. Hmm… I think they should use it to power a robot that automatically pumps out draft beer…
Here’s one that pours canned beer from (presumably) a mini-fridge inside of it. I love how it pours the can in three different phases so that it (almost) doesn’t allow the head to overspill. It would have been even cooler if they would have had a knife go across the top of the glass to knock off the excess head :) Of course, one would die of thirst waiting for this thing to finish…
Here’s one that does bottled beer. It has a unique (and unsanitary) way of ensuring that the head doesn’t spill over the top of the glass. I love the little ’swirl’ action at the end to ensure it gets every last drop…
“The Space Elevator’s temporary low altitude support balloons, photographed here looking down from the construction shuttle at 15 miles above the Earth. The ballons provide additional stability/lift to the carbon nanotube ribbons in the lower 20 miles as they are unreeled from the international space colony transit station, sitting in geo syncronous orbit at approximately 200 miles above ground. The carbon nanotube material was first used commercially in the first decade of the 2000’s for DVD shrink wrapping….proving it’s worth then as a virtually impregnable material and frustrating thousands of consumers.After damage from several incidents involving homemade comets the Space Elevator program is currently stalled pending litigation against ‘Sprockley Space Toys’ and their ‘Comet Creation Kit’.”
The ‘author’ of this picture (Bruce Lemon) also goes on to tell us that;
“The elevators run 24 hrs Mon-Sun Jumahl, as long as it’s not too cloudy..(clouds interfere w/ the laser powered shuttle cars). Fee is $35,000 US dollars per 20 pound/1 cf payload, with a 50% discount for elevator construction consortium governments. 2 buttons currently, w/ an additional planned for the moon at an unknown future date. No smoking, and meals are an extra $10.”
So this is way cool - when can I book a ride?
(Click on the picture thumbnail for a larger version, or visit Bruce Lemon’s photostream on Flickr. He has several hundred pictures loaded, the last one, as of the writing of this post, was of one scary looking goose…)
This past year has been a wonderful one for me and my family (the stock market notwithstanding) and I hope it has been for you too. I hope your 2009 is even better.
Happy New Year everyone!
(This New Year picture was kindly sent to me by Karen Ghazaryan - thanks Karen! Click on it for a larger version)
I finally have my copy of the new Marvel release, Iron Man - The End. It’s been one busy week, so I didn’t have a chance to read it until tonight.
The issue is about 98% Iron Man and 2% Space Elevator, but hey, 2% of a Marvel Iron Man issue is nothing to sneeze at. I was initially going to do a review of the storyline, but decided against it because a) I am not competent to do so as I really know nothing about the comic book genre and b) I thought it would be more interesting to tease out the 2% Space Elevator bits to see how they stack up against the ‘currently accepted model’.
To begin with, the earthport of the Stark Space Elevator (Tony Stark = aka Iron Man) is based on a tiny island. This does not fit the currently proposed model, which calls for an an ocean-based, movable platform. The Edwards-Westling book gives eight reasons why we would want to have a movable base;
Able to move the ribbon out of the path of orbiting objects and also any storms strong enough to be dangerous.
Can be located directly on the equator in the most weather-friendly position possible.
Can be located in international waters.
Can be located near populations or not as selected.
Large-scale, mobile sea platforms are tested technology (Sea Launch).
If the ribbon breaks, much or all of the lower portion will probably fall into the ocean.
No high-altitude operational challenges (snow, thin-air, etc.)
Easier to ship really large, bulky, irregular-shaped items to a Space Elevator via sea than on land.
Some difficulties of a ocean-based earth-port vs. a land-based earth-port are also mentioned in this book;
Vertical movement of the anchor
Movement of the power-beam(s)
Salt
Remoteness
Personally, I’ve never liked the idea of an ocean-going earth-port - the idea has always seemed a bit dodgy to me. When I first read The Space Elevator, everything proposed made sense EXCEPT for the earth-port. Having to move the earth-port itself to induce a wave in the tether in order to make it miss a bit of debris (or a satellite) is really inefficient. Why not have lasers zap the 99.99% of the debris that no one cares about and have thrusters mounted on the ribbon every 1,000 Km or so and let them move the ribbon as necessary for the rare bit (live satellite or whatever) which cannot be zapped? Just find the thruster that’s closest and use it. And, with the portion of the tether which is in the atmosphere now probably going to be a cable rather than a ribbon, it will be minimally affected by the wind.
So, my heart is with Stark on this one, though the ‘prevailing wisdom’ says otherwise…
The next item mentioned is the tether itself. To quote from the relevant frame; “Basically a giant nanotube ‘grown’ from a geostationary Space Station.“ Travel on this tether will be by (again quoting); “…magnetically levitated shuttles (which) will carry passengers and cargo at less than two percent of current costs making the stars accessible to the common man.” Hmmmm.
Again, the current model says that the baseline tether will be shipped to GEO, assembled, and then simultaneously deployed downwards (towards earth) and upwards (away from earth), this to keep it stable. If the tether is only ’grown downwards’, as is shown in the comic book, pretty soon (very soon, in fact), gravity will have its say and will pull everything down. Yes, you can have a counterweight at GEO (with nothing above it) to hold the tether in place, but it would have to be ginormous, far bigger than the space station shown in the comic. Also, later on in the issue, there is a picture of the tether in the clouds, looking like it’s being ‘grown downwards’, but it’s not a tether at all, but rather a very large structure. This is reminiscent of the ‘Clarke model’ from his Fountains of Paradise novel.
So, IMHO, I don’t think the tether scenario in the comic would work at all…
The next Space Elevator item was, well, there was no ‘next item’ - that was it. Like I said, 98% Iron Man, 2% Space Elevator.
If you want to find out if Tony Stark succeeds in building his Space Elevator, you’ll just have to go out and buy the issue
When this issue was first announced, I emailed one of the storyline artists, Bob Layton, and asked if he would be willing to answer a few questions for us. He graciously consented and below, is our short interview with Bob.
[Space Elevator Blog - SEB] Have you been following the evolution in thought regarding the development of a Space Elevator? Do you consider it to be a realistic possibility or just a crazy idea? [Bob Layton - BL] I believe that it’s a totally realistic concept and I hope that we eventually apply our energies as a society to make this science into a reality.
[SEB]Why did you pick a Space Elevator as Tony Stark’s “Ultimate Project”? Were you at all influenced by author Arthur C. Clarke and his fictional engineer (Vannevar Morgan) building a Space Elevator as his ‘ultimate project’ or was there another inspiration behind this? [BL]When David Michelinie and I were originally concocting the plot to Iron Man: The End back in 1999, I had just finished reading Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Songs of Distant Earth’. The scientific theory around the Space Elevator in that story served as an inspiration.
[SEB]If it’s not revealing a plot line you’d rather keep secret for now, does Tony Stark use the ‘Edwards model’ for building a Space Elevator (a carbon nanotube ribbon as the climber cable, anchored in the ocean at the earth-end) or the ‘Clarke model’ (a more solid structure anchored on land) or some other model? [BL] We use a little bit of the “Edwards Model” and the “Clarke Model” in IRON MAN:The End.
[SEB] Reading your Bio on your website (http://www.boblayton.com <http://www.boblayton.com/>), it’s obvious that, to date, you have had a long and successful career in the comic book industry as well as in film and television. During your career, have you used the concept of a Space Elevator in any other project? If so, could you tell us a little bit about those projects? [BL] No. But I have a proposed TV series in the works entitled “Jett’s Way” that revolves around the first commercial Space Agency. In the premise, the lead character is trying to get permits to construct the space elevator and encounters political and corporate opposition from every imaginable source.
[SEB] There is support building for a Space Elevator in both Europe and Japan and I think they would be very interested in this issue. Are Marvel Comics available in other languages? [BL] Yes.
[SEB] Finally, if you had a chance to ride on a real Space Elevator, would you do it? [BL ] In a HEARTBEAT!! YOU BET!!
Thank you Bob! And, please keep us updated on the “Jett’s Way” project you mentioned. It sounds fascinating.
Go out and buy this issue, dear readers. More than most comic books, I think this could become a ‘Collector’s Item’.
Two new space elevator-related videos have made their way to YouTube.
The first is excerpts of an interview with the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It’s undated, but in the opening seconds, Sir Clarke states that he wrote the “Fountains of Paradise 20 years ago…”. That book was written in 1979, so this interview was recorded in 1999 (or thereabouts). Most of it is about the Space Elevator, but some other subjects (like Cold Fusion) are mentioned. I enjoyed the interview, but, he does mention something about Mars “…being infested with life…” due to “…Mars Orbiter photographs showing huge areas of vegetation…”. Really? A quick Google search discussed that this ‘vegetation’ is really natural formations or the results of carbon dioxide geysers or whatever. I like Sir Clarke’s explanation better - I just wish it were true.
If anyone knows where I might get a copy of the LP record Sir Clarke shows in the begining of the interview, I’d dearly love to know about it.
And this other video is a shameless ripoff of existing Space Elevator images and photos from the Space Elevator Games, intermixed with multiple photos of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin, Russian Flag images, etc., etc., etc. all set to some sort of strange ‘Martial-techno’ music. It’s all very bizarre…
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I didn’t say it was good, only that it was there
Update - 20NOV08 - Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates Power-Beaming / Climber team, found a link to a NY Times interview (in 1999) that may have been the source of the Sir Clarke video shown earlier in this post - thanks Brian!)
Today is the day that Iron Man - The End was released to the public. I sauntered over to my local comic book store about 11:00am this morning only to find that they were sold out already! Hopefully, you’ll still be able to find one in your area.
I ordered a copy and it’s supposed to be in my hands next Wednesday or Thursday - I’ll write more about it then. I also have an interview with Bob Layton (the storyline author) to publish along with it.
Back in August, I had put up a post about how Tony Stark (aka The Iron Man) was going to oversee the building of the world’s first commercial Space Elevator. The release date (according to Bob Layton’s website) for this issue of Iron Man has now been set for November 5th - the day after election day.
From the preview:
“It’s the middle decades of the 21st century. After a lifetime fighting crime, corporate evil and super-powered villainy as Iron Man, industrialist and inventor Tony Stark faces his biggest challenge ever: building the legacy he will leave humankind after he’s gone. But when his world-changing project comes under attack, Tony must fight espionage and super-villainy once more…perhaps for the final time.”
I’ve included two graphics from Layton’s website. One looks like a Space Station, perhaps at the end of the tether (though I can’t see the tether) while the other looks like an earth-port under-construction. But I could be wrong on both - we’ll see when the comic book comes out.
Mark your calendars!
(Click on the images for a (slightly) larger version or, better yet, visit Bob’s website to see more graphics from this edition)
As promised in my last post, I’ve found some new Space Elevator graphics that I’ll share with you. I found this first set via the website io9, a ‘different’ site I’ve posted about before. The title of the post was “Imagining the Chuck Klosterman Space Elevator“. Chuck is a writer for Esquire magazine and he published a future history of the 21st century. In this history, he predicts;
“JUNE 22, 2043: As predicted by Arthur C. Clarke in 3001: The Final Odyssey, the orbiting luxury hotel is connected to Earth by a massive space elevator. Hyperstrong cables anchored to the earth near the equator (as required by physics) stretch 100,000 kilometers into the sky, rising into the hotel’s lobby.”
Of course he also predicted that McCain would win the election next week and, among other things, that on ”MAY 8, 2030: A deathbed confession by George W. Bush reveals that JFK was, in fact, assassinated by the CIA.” and on ”OCT. 19, 2071: An army of panda bears attacks Beijing, killing twelve hundred people and wounding thousands more during a bloody four-day onslaught.” The CIA assassinated JFK? Maybe, but I’m not buying the Panda Bear thing…
Anyway, back to the graphics I promised. These first two graphics in this post were shown with that ‘Chuck Klosterman…’ story and credited to artist Bruce Irving. They came from Flickr, posted by “Flying Singer”. The first is the earth-based Elevator rising to a Space Hotel while the second is an Elevator on Mars. If you visit the Flickr site, you’ll see that the earth-based Elevator graphic is an ‘active’ one with various call-outs as you mouse around the picture. A visit to Flying Singer’s Flickr site is highly recommended - lots of cool photos and graphics to peruse…
This next graphic comes from Arie Wijaya’s website. On this site, he discusses the Online Times article (he’s the 5,259,027 blogger who has picked this up ). He doesn’t give credit for the graphic, so I don’t know where it came from - might even be from the LiftPort archives.
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Finally, from the LaserMotive blog, we see this picture of ‘horribles’ being perpetrated on a gold-plated mirror. Visit the LaserMotive blog for the rest of the story on this travesty…
And that, truly, catches us up with all of the backlog in my Search Engines.
(As always, click on the picture thumbnails for a larger version)
The authors of these cartoons love to draw in little “in the know” bits. Note the “Edge of Federation Sector 0-0-1″ in the “Height” image and Peter Norton shooting down a bacteriophage and the “IPOD Femto” in the “Depth” image.
But the real prize in the “Depth” image is the carbon nanotubes and resulting Space Elevator. We’re everywhere! We’re everywhere!
This website / cartoon strip is HIGHLY recommended. Put it into your RSS reader - it really is worthwhile.
Wikipedia has an extensive entry regarding XKCD - very interesting reading…
Finally, let me link to an earlier post I did with an XKCD cartoon - one with James Bond and the centrifuge.
When it’s at Burning Man. At this year’s just concluded festival (and I guess at earlier ones, too), they had a “Space Elevator” booth described thusly;
“Space Elevator, elevating from the trance communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, featuring psytrance, progressive trance, funky-electro beats and chill-out music on a 20,000 watt sound system, with local and international DJs from all over the world bringing their best music to you on the playa.”
There are several videos on YouTube about this event; a couple are included below:
If you do a Search on “Space Elevator” at YouTube and sort by date, all the videos (there are 5-6) will show up at the front.
Here’s a post by an organizer looking for DJ’s for this event. I’m truly glad my 16 year old son didn’t know about this; he’s a part time DJ and this is EXACTLY the type of music he likes. I’d have never heard the end of it…
This last video, while not at the Space Elevator camp, is my favorite. Give it a few seconds and, I think you’ll be hooked…
Oh joy of joys! Oh frabjous day! There is now a new audio Doctor Who episode centered around the Space Elevator!!
Yes, Doctor Who fans, ’tis true, the Good Doctor, Jamie and Victoria Waterfield visit the Artsutanov Space Elevator, anchored in Sumatra on the earth end and the “Sky Satellite” in geosynchronous orbit at the space end. This Space Elevator is electrically conductive, batteries are used on emergency climbers (which get to the top in no time) and has all sorts of other heresies, but who cares? It’s Doctor Who! This episode, like all Doctor Who episodes, has villains, narrow escapes, stupid moves by the protagonists (which never get them in unrecoverable trouble) and much derring-do. It’s 70 minutes of great fun, outrageous plot twists, sexual innuendos (complete with a “scantily clad, female security guard”), glorious non-sequiturs and, the dialogue - oh, the dialogue!
“I come from the Space between the worlds”
“You will be converted - you will become part of us!”
“Now, let’s not be hasty…”
“The creature has consumed the Doctor!”
“They have to be completely insulated!”
“We’ll be returning earth to clear, sunny skies.”
And, best of all…
“Thank God for the thick, white foam!”
Glorious, truly, truly, glorious… Earth is saved with Faraday cages, thick white foam and Fleming’s left-hand rule…
Highly, highly recommended and well worth the $7.99 download price. Truly, this is a treat. You can order it here, but note that you must register with the distributor (Big Finish) before you can order the download. The download comes as a 96MB zip file, containing 21 tracks/chapters (.mp3 files) and the artwork shown above (click on it for a slightly larger version).
Click below to listen to the trailer - make sure your sound is turned up!
One suggestion; import the 21 tracks/chapters into a playlist and listen to it as a whole - it’s a lot better than clicking on and listening to each track separately.
I’m not a big comic book fan, and haven’t kept up with all of the creations in the Marvel Universe. However, even I have heard of Tony Stark, aka the Iron Man.
Evidentally, he’s outlived his usefulness, so his demise may be in the works. In November, Marvel Comics is scheduled to release “Iron Man: The End” in which:
“Decades in the future, a 70+ Tony Stark is overseeing his ultimate project of his lauded career—the completion of Earth’s first commercial space elevator, whose inauguration will change the world’s economy and the future of space exploration forever. However, not everyone is looking forward to this project’s launch with the same enthusiasm as the head of Stark Universal. Sinister forces are at work, behind-the-scenes, to insure that Stark’s pinnacle scientific achievement ends in disaster.”
It looks like EVERYONE wants to destroy the Space Elevator. Guess we’re just going to have to build a bunch of them…
This is one comic book I’m going to buy. No one can doubt the talent and creativity of the Marvel artists and I’m looking forward to their “concept drawings” of a Space Elevator.
(Picture of Iron Man from here. Click on it for the larger version)
I am very pleased to report that the Isle of Man Space Agency today announced plans to build the world’s first Space Elevator. Details can be found 
A few days ago, I 
A YouTube clip from a CNN-Chile newscast states that NASA wants to build a Space Elevator (at least that’s what it says when I plug in the caption into Yahoo Babel Fish). Also, I clearly hear the announcer say “Microsoft” during her report. I don’t know if she’s talking about the recent Space Elevator conference at the Microsoft Center or somehow she thinks that Microsoft is going to build a Space Elevator.
And in this clip (from the Science Channel no less), it says that “NASA is holding a contest to see who can come up with the best plans for building a “space elevator”. I wish that were true. The Space Elevator Games piggyback upon NASA’s desire for power-beaming and strong-tethers - they have no avowed interest in building a Space Elevator (though the NASA people who I talked to at Dryden during the recent Space Elevator Games thought it was a cool idea). The clip also says that the trip to the top will take “3 months”. I don’t know where they got that figure. Even a ride to the end of the tether (100,000 km) would, at 200 mph (320 km/hour) take about 13 days. Add some time in for slowing down during start-up and at the end and maybe a stop/transit at the GEO space station and you still have well less than 1 month to the top. And, the story says that passengers could be “struck by meteroids”… Oh my. They finalize the clip by repeating the lame joke about “Elevator music”. Oh well, at least it IS the Science Channel…
And then we have a new 
And, 
This is starting to become very cool - more and more people / groups are releasing music about the Space Elevator. With the recent find of the song by Apraxis, that makes at least 4 Space Elevator songs I’ve found so far. Maybe I’ll put up a poll at some point and let people vote for their favorite - we can ask Simon Cowell to host a “Space Elevator Idol” show…
Finally, saving the best for last, is the Space Elevator Games recap / teaser put together by the 
Yes, it’s true, LaserMotive now has a spiffy new motor for their climber.
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The next item mentioned is the tether itself. To quote from the relevant frame; “Basically a giant nanotube ‘grown’ from a geostationary Space Station.“ Travel on this tether will be by (again quoting); “…magnetically levitated shuttles (which) will carry passengers and cargo at less than two percent of current costs making the stars accessible to the common man.” Hmmmm.
