In this newsletter, LiftPort announces that they are creating an “open-source”, wiki-based project to let the Space Elevator community help LiftPort (or someone) “build” a Space Elevator.

You can read the newsletter here.

At the Space Elevator Reference, Dr. Brad Edwards announces;

“EuroSpaceward was just awarded funding by The National Research Fund of Luxembourg to hold a workshop on space elevator climber and tether design primarily focusing on systems for entry in the US and German competitions. The tentative dates are Nov. 14-16, 2007 and the workshop will be held in a yet to be announced venue in Luxembourg.”

This is very cool and is yet another sign that the Europeans are getting serious about this idea.  Read Dr. Edward’s full post here.

An undated but recent (I think) short article from Softpedia on the Space Elevator…

(Update 29MAY2007 – Comments from both Michael Laine and Brian Dunbar indicate that this is an old article, not a new one.  As I’ve written before on other posts, Search Engines are weird things…)

(Update 30MAY2007 – And, yes it is a NEW article.  See the comments thread below.  My apologies to my search engine 🙂 )

For me, the “killer app” of Space Elevator Development has always been the economically viable deployment of Solar Power Satellites.  It promises unlimited, clean energy from the sun, captured by SPS and beamed to earth-based rectennas and from there, channeled into the earth’s power grids.  The problem has always been, as I understood it, getting these SPS into orbit cheaply enough so they could be economically viable, and this is still true.

But there’s a BIG difference between making SPS a commercially viable enterprise and making SPS able to generate the lion’s share of earth’s energy usage.  In my naiveté, I had hoped they would be one in the same, that we could replace most or all of our polluting energy sources with SPS.  Sadly, unless my calculations are way wrong, this turns out to be not the case.

Here’s the basic numbers (I’ll explain where I got them later on in the posting):

• The performance numbers of SPS are projected to be on the order of 2kg/kW (Henson / URSI / Wikipedia)
• A 200T ribbon (140T payload) can handle 125 trips per year (Edwards-Westling)
• This equals a lift capacity of 17,500T per year, per ribbon
• This equals ~8.75 GW per year, per ribbon
• Planet-wide energy usage is project to increase ~.5TW per year (EIA)
• This means it will take ~60 of these ribbons to handle just the INCREASE in planet-wide energy usage, not making a dent at all in currently generated power

I hope my numbers are wrong because they mean that, unless SPS efficiency can be increased by at least an order of magnitude (or two), a SE-SPS solution may be commercially viable, but will not seriously decrease the release of CO2 and other pollutants into our atmosphere.

Another interesting number I came up with is that a space-based solar power array sufficient to power the planet in the year 2030 would be approximately equal in area to the country of India and the rectennas would need to be approximately equal in area to the country of Italy.  Well, I thought it was interesting…

I invite everyone to try and prove my numbers wrong – I’ll be very happy if you can show that I’ve overstated the problem somewhere…

Where did I get my numbers?

I got the SPS performance number from a presentation by Keith Henson.  This presentation (PowerPoint format here, pdf format here) is quite interesting.  He presents the 2kg/kW number as an aside; his proposal is for a “direct drive” Space Elevator (as opposed to the Edwards-Westling “laser-drive” version).  I went to a couple of other sources to try and verify his number.  Wikipedia gives a range of .5kg – 10kg per kW.  A White paper by the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) gives a number of 1kg/kW for their proposal.  So 2kg/kW seemed reasonable to me.  Incidentally, I had blogged about his “direct-drive” proposal earlier, here.

The 140T / 125 trips per year number comes directly from the Edwards-Westling book, The Space Elevator.

The projected, yearly, planet-wide energy increase comes from the US Governments Energy Information Administration website.  This website contains all sort of fascinating information and I had a lot of fun poking around in it.

This information, in part, led me to the conclusion that only the profit-motive is strong enough to drive the development of the Space Elevator, not the ability to solve our global energy and/or pollution problems.  I presented this at the recently completed SESI conference and blogged about it here.

One final note; Keith Henson was recently interviewed by RUSirius.  You can find the podcast here.  It’s a long podcast; they actually begin talking about at 10:03 into it.  I strongly recommend you review Keith’s proposal before you listen to this rather rambling podcast – otherwise it may not make much sense to you.

(The picture is from www.abo.fi – click on it for a larger version)

At this year’s ISDC conference, Jerome Pearson, one of the “fathers” of the modern Space Elevator concept, is scheduled to speak on Saturday, May 26th.  The title of his presentation is “Space Elevators for Earth & Moon”.

A website detailing some of Mr. Pearson’s accomplishments is here.

(Photo credit; Wade Spees for the Washington Post – click on it for a larger image)

From the May, 2007 Newsletter;

Michael Laine, President of LiftPort Group, has set a hard date by which we must turn this company profitable. We must produce 25k/month in revenue by September 1st or we will be dissolving the corporation. It’s possible. We have tons of books and other retail items yet to be sold, we have the Tethered Towers balloon product, we have great speakers, we even have a non-working nanotube furnace on the other side of the country that needs a lift. Some of these could produce that revenue on their own; several of them together should be able to do it.

You can read the entire newsletter here.

Here is a book review of an effort that sounds interesting and amusing.  According to the review, Space Elevators are mentioned in this book, but I have no idea how much or how seriously.  Still, if someone is looking for reading material, this may fill the bill.  Available at Amazon.com (and probably other places as well)…

Another review of the book, complete with an interview with the author, can be found here.

(Click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the Book Cover)

There is now a YouTube channel comprised solely of videos from the LiftPort crew.  These videos show various types of testing they’ve done with their prototypes.

There are 8 videos on there now and more are promised in the near future.

I’ve linked to one of the videos here.  Visit the channel to view the entire collection…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ElevatorToSpace[/youtube]

This coming Sunday, May 20th, the CBS Sunday Morning show is scheduled to air a segment on the Space Elevator.  The reporter researching the show, Mary Lou Teel, has been in touch with several sources (including yours truly), so I’m hopeful that we’ll have a serious, thoughtful treatment of the subject.

You’ll need to check your local listings for what time the show will air in your area.  In the Central Time Zone, it is 8:00am.

I’ll have my TIVO running…

In the meantime, here is a story from 2003 that CBS did on the Space Elevator.

On the MAST blog, they’re reporting that have seen mixed results so far.  While they’ve been able to contact “Gadget” and download a lot of data from it, they’ve had only very limited success in actually deploying the tether.  From the blog;

“Based upon the data we have, we have concluded that Ted did separate from Gadget and begin to deploy the tether. However, a problem with the restraint system prevented Ted from ejecting smoothly, and as a result Ted was pushed away with too little momentum to continue pulling the tether off of the deployer spool. As a result, the deployment halted almost immediately. Our analysis of the magnetometer data we have downloaded from Gadget reveals that the tethered system is rotating slowly, but the length of tether connecting the two bodies is very short. At this point, we believe there is not enough energy in the rotation to pull more tether off of the spool. This is certainly disappointing, as it means that obtaining data on tether survivability may not be possible, but nonetheless we are obtaining interesting data that will be useful in validating models of the behavior of tethered spacecraft.”

This is disappointing, of course, for the Space Elevator community; being able to successfully unspool the Space Elevator ribbon in space will be a necessary requirement for its deployment and it would have been truly wonderful to get some data on how tethers surive in space.  Nevertheless, the fact that they were able to successfully launch this experiment and have some success with it should go a long way towards having an even more successful experiment the next time around.  Congratulations here are certainly richly deserved…

Read the whole post here.

Peter and Cathy Swan have just released a new book which should be of great interest to the Space Elevator community.  It’s entitled “Space Elevator Systems Architecture” and should satisfy the “geekiness” in all of us hard-core SE aficiandos…

A description of the book, from Peter and Cathy;

“Space Elevator Systems Architecture gives a new look at a futuristic SPACE ELEVATOR project from a Systems Architecture perspective.  This system of systems is a … “revolutionary way of getting from Earth into space, a ribbon with one end attached to Earth on a floating platform located at the equator and the other end in space beyond geosynchronous orbit.  A Space Elevator will ferry satellites, spaceships, and pieces of space stations into space using electric lifts clamped to the ribbon, serving as a means for commerce, scientific advancement, and exploration.”  The purpose of this book is to make the Space Elevator’s arena a little easier to understand, through the use of Space Systems Architecture; and, is directed toward decision makers, engineering managers, regulators, financiers, engineers, and technicians.  This book lays out the initial “top level” view of a Space Elevator through a Space Systems Architecture approach for space mega-projects in both an academic and a practical manner illustrating steps, tradeoffs, and complexities.”

Once I’ve read this book, I’ll be posting a review of it.  Get your copy from Amazon.com today!

(Click on the picture of the book’s cover to see a larger version)

In February, I had blogged about a new microdosimeter being developed by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute.  A few days ago, I received their latest newsletter.  In it there was a story about how it had been launched in March of this year as part of a multi-experiment payload aboard MidSTAR-1.

From their newsletter: “The goal of the MIDN (microdosimeter instrument) project is to develop a rugged, portable, lightweight radiation detection instrument that will measure the three forms of space radiation – solar flares, trapped particle radiation and galactic cosmic rays. When fully developed, the instrument will enable real-time measurement of radiation risk in space and risk of damage to body tissue.”

This device or one similar to it is going to be required, I’m sure, on all Space Elevator payloads, especially human ones, to ensure that the shielding is working properly. 

You can go here to read the newsletter with the rest of the story.  (Bob Munck alert – it’s a .pdf file)

About a month ago, stories were circulating that NASA was getting ready to close down NIAC, a decision which many of us found to be incomprehensible.  I blogged about this story earlier as did many others.

Via Andy Price, I’ve become aware of an effort within NIAC to try and save the agency.  They have asked that people who can help them demonstrate benefits of NIAC funding in the past, contact NIAC with this information.  Specifically, they are looking for a demonstrated ROI in areas such as;

1) Subsequent investment by NASA, other government agencies, or the private sector.
2) Intellectual contributions that have resulted in an agency putting resources into its own studies of a concept. For example, prompted by the success of a Phase I or Phase II concept, an agency convenes panels to study the work, includes it in a decadal plan, or otherwise funds studies of its own.
3) Unexpected spin-off technologies. For example, some NIAC studies have resulted in new medical technologies.
4) The production of technical PhD and Master’s level students.
5) The production of new jobs.
6) Enhancement of public understanding of agency missions (for most of you, this would be beneficial PR for NASA, or NRO, or DARPA).

For us in the Space Elevator community, the results of NIAC funding have been nothing short of revolutionary; before their funding of Dr. Bradley Edward’s research, an SE was strictly a Science-Fiction concept only.  Now it’s something that is an actual possibility.  The Space Elevator project is gaining public momentum and acceptance, to the point of being the subject of conferences, in museum exhibits, on TV shows and in Space Elevator games (both for “adults” – ie. chasing after real prize money and for kids, in the Robotic games).  To me, this is what “blue-sky” funding is all about; taking a concept which is totally revolutionary and finding a way whereby it can actually happen.

At least that’s something along the lines of what I’m going to say in my letter (email, actually) to NIAC.

Here’s another article about NIAC, this from Wired.com in 2004.

Further words from Brad Edwards on the potential defunding of this program; “My general thoughts are that this is a very poor decision on NASA’s part. NIAC has demonstrated that it can produce results on a small budget unlike other components of NASA proper.  Cutting NIAC is easy simply because it is an external contract.  NASA would be better served by taking the more difficult road and trimming the non-productive components inside the centers and funding development of new technologies that can save time and money while reducing risk and producing better results in the long-run.  NIAC and programs like it, if utilized, can provide the tools to define NASA roadmaps and programs that have low risk and produce the results needed to succeed.”

If you want to offer some words to NIAC, send them to Diana Jennings (djennings [AT] niac.usra.edu).  Dr Edwards says to send “Specific results, work, ROI are best but stated support can’t hurt.”

Amen to that.  Let’s let ’em know that what they do matters…