How Does The Space Elevator Work?

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 🙂 )

3 thoughts on “How Does The Space Elevator Work?”

  1. Michael Laine

    nope, its an old article. maybe one of the oldest you have on the site. how do i know that? 3 things: 1) picture 1. from shane killduff at the art institute of seattle. he was the first staff artist. he did this image, while i was working with brad, but we had not formed HighLift Systems yet. 2) picture 2. this was a limited edition image. i think we only printed about 25 (maybe 50) of them. it was rarely circulated, so unlikey that it would be in many editors would be able to pull it out of thier archieve. 3) it references eureka scientific, which depending on how you count it, might be considered the first company brad worked with, on the space elevator. this was the company that brad wrote the original niac grant under. we created HLS near the end of this grant funding.

    so, either they just recently posted this, or you just recently found it, but it is most likely an old story. take care. mjl

  2. Brian

    It says “To prove that the idea is more science than fiction, he received a grant from NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) programs, who wanted to see if such a design were feasible. “I’m convinced that the space elevator is practical and doable. In 12 years, we could be launching tons of payload every three days, at just a little over a couple hundred dollars a pound,” he said. ”

    That was in 2001 or 2002. Old article. Going by that deadline we’ll see this in 2015. And people call ME foolishly optimistic ..

  3. Brian

    I spoke before I had all the facts. The facts date from 2002, but the article is a new post. Lucian Dorneanu responded to my feed back – letter below is the full text of the reply, my original is below that

    ——– Original Message ——–
    Subject: Re: space elevator article
    Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 13:15:32 +0300
    From: lucian dorneanu
    Organization: Softpedia
    To: brian.dunbar@liftport.com

    Hi,

    I’m glad you read my article, but I don’t know why you’re so upset about it?!?
    Yes, the fact in the article are from 2002, but the article itself was posted
    on a subcategory called “How To”

    This category doesn’t deal with absolute novelties, it deals more with the
    functioning principles of various engines (superchargers, Wankel engines,
    compressed air engine), gadgets (plasma TVs, space toilet), and extreme
    technological achievements (biggest engine, biggest truck, tallest building).
    Indeed, the featured image was extracted from your website via wikipedia, but
    it was properly credited and it was only used for informative purposes.

    The article was written after careful documentation of the working principle,
    not necessarily of the latest novelties in its development.

    It did have some novelty aspect to it, when referring to the carbon nanotubes,
    though, as I said, this wasn’t my main concern.

    I did not mention all the companies Dr. Edwards worked for, since free
    publicity doesn’t exist, but I mentioned yours as a pioneer in the field, and
    I don’t think that hurt your company’s image, on the contrary.

    Feel free to post more comments on past, present and future articles, as I
    accept constructive criticism formulated in a civilized manner.

    Respectfully,

    Lucian Dorneanu

    —–Original Message—–
    From: Brian Dunbar [mailto:brian.dunbar@liftport.com]
    Sent: 30 mai 2007 04:15
    To: newseditor@softpedia.com
    Subject: space elevator article

    Hi,

    All of the facts in your article “How Does The Space Elevator Work?”
    date from 2002.

    * Dr. Edwards was working for Eureka Scientific in that year. He later
    moved onto Highlift Systems, ISR, Carbon Designs and now Black Line
    Ascension.

    * 2002 was when he was awarded the grant from NIAC and founded Highlift.

    It is not that I mind so much seeing space elevators in the news – but
    y’all can work a bit harder to get out an updated story, not recycle
    news from five years ago ..

    —
    Brian Dunbar
    System Administrator
    Liftport – The Space Elevator Company

    brian.dunbar@liftport.com
    aim: bdunbar1967

    GMT -6
    this email is: [ ] bloggable [x] ask first [ ] private

    Meaningful Work or Death.
    Any other form of existence doesn’t interest me.

    Hugh Macleod

Comments are closed.