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…