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.