Daily Archives: August 24, 2014

Mini-Workshop #3: Space Elevator Architectures and Roadmaps

The third and final workshop of the conference was put together to flesh out an initial Space Elevator Architectures and Roadmaps document put together by Michael Fitzgerald (“Fitzer”), the champion of this topic – the 2014 (current) ISEC Theme.

Fitzer was in overall charge of this workshop and is going to be heading up the ISEC report on this topic.  He has long and extensive expertise in studies of this type and is another example of the valuable skill set that ISEC President Dr. Peter Swan has been recruiting since he became president.

Three groups were created, each of them handling a different aspect of Space Elevator Architectures and Roadmaps.  After a brainstorming session, each group reported back to the conference at large.  At some future point, these reports will consolidated and made available to the public.

Space Elevator Speech Competition

New to the conference this year was a competition to create an “Elevator speech”.  If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, the idea of such a speech is this; assume you’re in an elevator with someone who you want to convince of the need and usefulness of building a Space Elevator.  You have only a short time – it is an elevator ride.  In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept, there are several articles available – a typical one is here.

Conference attendee Peter Robinson came up with the idea and was in charge of the competition.  It was announced at the beginning of the conference and a sign-up sheet was available for all those who wanted to participate.  The competition happened today, just before lunch.  There were a total of 7 speakers and 4 judges (of which I was honored to be one).

Each person talked, in turn, for no more than 90 seconds (Peter timed it and cut off the people who exceeded it) and the judges created scores on “Technical Merit” and “Style”.  Peter tabulated the scores and the winners were announced.  First place received a $100 Amazon gift certificate and Second Place received a $50 Amazon gift certificate.

Lana Gorlinski was awarded First Prize and Campbell Gorlinski was awarded Second Prize.  All of the competitors did a fine job.  This picture shows Lana and Campbell, with their prizes, and most of the rest of the Conference attendees.

This competition had a very practical aspect, making all of us who support the concept of a space elevator think in terms of convincing others, in a very short time, of the worthiness of the project.  I would expect this competition to become a fixture at future Space Elevator Conferences.

Mini-Workshop #2: Marine Node Design Concepts

Next up was the second mini-workshop of the conference, this one targeted towards requirements, design considerations, issues & concerns, etc., with a marine-based earth port.  “Conventional wisdom” says that the earth anchor of a space elevator will be based in the ocean (for details, see Dr. Brad Edwards & Eric Westlings book).  This has several advantages, but also brings up some problems vs. a land-based earth station.

Conference attendee Vernon Hall was in overall charge of this workshop and is going to be heading up the ISEC report on Marine Node Design Concepts (the 2015 ISEC theme).  Mr. Hall has extensive experience in designing ports, including the Port of Los Angeles and should be a very valuable resource for ISEC and their goal of increasing our understanding of the Space Elevator.

Four groups were created, each of them handling a different aspect of Marine Node Design.  After a brainstorming session, each group reported back to the conference at large.  At some future point, these reports will consolidated and made available to the public.

Living on Cloud 9: Or What We Could Do With a Lunar Space Elevator!

Next up was author Paul Wieland.  He talked about “sphere habitats that could be built on the moon and then “launched” to earth via a lunar elevator.  Paul said that Buckminster Fuller came up with this idea of sphere habitats (we’re talking about spheres 1,000 or 1,500 meters in diameter) and that, because they would be inhabited and that the inhabitants generate heat, this heat would cause the sphere to float.  He quickly ran through the numbers which claim that this could be true.  Frankly, I have to think about this and look at the numbers more thoroughly before I accept this as do-able, but the idea is very intriguing.

I have never heard of this idea before, but a quick Google search turned up a number of sites that discuss the concept, for example here and here.

Philanthropy vs. Investment – Starting a Space Elevator Institute

The first presentation of Day 3 was by ISEC President Dr. Peter Swan.  He talked about raising money for the space elevator effort and ran through the pro’s and con’s of starting up an Institute vs. a Charitable Foundation.  He talked about the type of people that could be approached, and the pitch that we in the community need to make; a space elevator is an investment in the future of mankind and should be approached that way.  A financial payoff is there, but it is considerably down the road and occurs only after a large investment in the infrastructure of a space elevator.

Dr. Swan made the point that philanthropic “types” can have this long-term vision and therefore could be approachable with such a pitch.  He concluded by talking about the ongoing efforts of he and ISEC to put together a “package” that can be used in this effort.

2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference – Day 3

And Day 3 begins.  The conference began with ISEC President, Dr. Peter Swan, giving a special award of recognition to Ben Shelef.  Anyone who has followed the space elevator “arena” or this blog knows who he is, but for those of you who may not, Ben and his Spaceward Foundation partnered with NASA to create the Space Elevator Games.  This multi-year effort, targeted towards advancing the state of the art in power-beaming and strong tether development, culminated in the award of $900,000 to LaserMotive for their successful efforts in the 2009 Power Beaming competition.  These events were the first of these competitions and were the precursors of Climber competitions in both Japan and Europe.  They also generated a lot of publicity and put the space elevator “on the map” for a lot of people.  Ben also created the Space Elevator Feasibility Condition, a paper that quantifies tether strength and Climber power requirements in a rigorous manner, giving others a baseline to work for.  He’s also given multiple talks on the Space Elevator, provided a sanity check to space elevator development efforts and, I’m sure, other space-elevator related activities that I’m forgetting at the moment.

This award is well deserved – congratulations Ben and all of us in the space elevator community are much better off because of your involvement.