Daily Archives: August 28, 2006

2000 tonne per day space elevator

Keith Henson proposes “…the design of a moving, non-tapered space elevator cable threaded through a system of pulleys that increase the number of supporting strands as the space elevator approaches geostationary orbit (GEO)”.

He gives a link to, I guess, a posting of this paper on the LiftPort forums but for some reason I can’t access it.  I know the idea of a pulley system has been floated around in the past – this is just the latest posting I’ve seen on this subject.

Until I can read the actual paper, I can’t comment on it.  But the abstract, accessed here, sounds interesting…

A rebuttal from David Stodolsky states that “While solar power satellites could make a contribution, they are not going to solve climatic problems. And as ongoing European Space Agency studies show, no new technology, such as space elevators is needed to activate the plan.”

Oh really?

Michael Laine to appear at Dragon Con

According to the published schedule, Michael Laine, Founder and President of LiftPort, is scheduled to give a presentation at this year’s Dragon Con convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Michael will be presenting on Saturday, September 2nd at 7:00pm in a track entitled “The Space Elevator – 2006 Progress Report”.  According to the published schedule, his talk will be on “What the LiftPort Group has been working on, including key technologies, and successes and failures over the past year. Where we are in our step-by-step development of a complete space-access infrastructure.”

In addition to hearing this presentation, I’d like to go to Dragon Con, if for no other reason than to meet some of the cast members from Babylon V, my all-time favorite Sci-Fi series.  Maybe next year…

Reminder – Dr. Brad Edwards to appear on the Space Show tomorrow night

On August 29th, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm Pacific time, Dr. Brad Edwards is scheduled to be interviewed on Dr. David Livingston’s The Space Show.

The theme of the interview will be “for space elevator updates and to discuss his views and understanding of energy from space.”

All of The Space Show interviews are available via podcast in case you cannot listen in at that time.