If you visit the original Space Elevator site, you’ll see that it’s author, Marc Boucher, has succeeded in the upgrade that he has been working on for some time.  On Marc’s Nano2Sol website, he talks about the tools he has used to accomplish this upgrade and what benefits they can offer:

“For some time now SpaceRef has wanted to create an online collaborative service for the space community. It took some time though to try and find the right platform that would allow us to provide the community with the appropriate tools so they could in turn create rich interactive collaborate services.

I’m happy to say that we’ve now launched our new service called ColabSpace under our brand OnOrbit.

The goal of the service is to provide the tools that will allow users to effectively collaborate on a project increasing  productivity so that any given project moves ahead in a timely manner to conclusion.

For the platform we decided to use Deki, a social enterprise collaborative platform from MindTouch.

…

We’re already using the service ourselves for the Space Elevator Reference were we’ve launched an Open Wiki and are working towards launching a Developers Wiki.”

If you own/author a ‘space-related’ site, you might want to check out the tools that ColabSpace can offer you.

Astute readers may have noticed the latest entry in the ‘Upcoming events’ section of this blog (right-hand column) – the next Space Elevator Conference to be held in the USA.

Preliminary plans call for the Conference to be held in the same venue as the one earlier this year was; at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond Washington.  Conference dates are scheduled to be Thursday, August 13th through Sunday, August 16th, 2009, with a possible evening show on Wednesday, August 12th.

Be there or be square!

Over at the Discovery Channel’s DiscoverySPACE section, Spaceward’s Ben Shelef gives us a feel for what a Space Elevator tether might look like at ground level and discusses the benefits we might expect when these come into existence…

Money quote:

“…payload size is practically unlimited because space elevators can be built to any scale. Replace the quarter-inch tether with a 2.5-inch tether, and the elevator could lift 100 times the weight. That’s more than 1,000 tons in this case — about 40 shipping containers or three complete International Space Stations (ISS) — per day!”

Currently the assembled ISS components weigh 300,214 kg – about 300 metric tons.

3 of these per day?  That’s what I’m talking about…

The question arises, of course, who would want to ship that much stuff up into space…  To answer that question, take a look at the history of railroads in this country (or in any country).  As soon as the freight capacity was there, people came up with all sorts of things to send from Chicago to Oregon or New York to Los Angeles.  Once this capability was put into place, people began shipping stuff cross-country that once seemed fanciful; everything from refrigerated food and automobiles to raw materials, people and livestock.  And now that energy efficiency is becoming important again, railroads are becoming more important than ever.

Items traveling up the Space Elevator will be inside standardized shipping containers.  Individuals and companies who want to move into space, or visit other places, or put satellites into orbit or manufacture things in space, etc. will use these containers.  You won’t have to worry about things shaking loose or having to be subjected to crushing g-forces.  There will be a shipping depot on the ground (or in the ocean) to load and one or more depots in space to unload.  Shippers will be given a bulk rate and a container size to work with – the rest will be up to them.

And, shipping will work both ways.  Once material can be gathered in/from space (be it raw materials or items that are manufactured/grown in space), the Space Elevator can bring them back down.  Return items will also be in those same standardized shipping containers – no “Shuttle tiles” necessary to stand the heat of re-entry.

We cannot possibly imagine all the uses of the Space Elevator, but only the truly unimaginative can fail to see how it will benefit mankind.

I received an email from Markus Klettner, head of EuroSpaceward, informing me that the upcoming European Conference on Space Elevator and CNT Tether Design can now be registered for online.

Just go to their main website and, in a popup (actually a ‘drop-down’ 🙂 ) advertising the conference appears.  Click on it and you will be taken to the registration page.

I had previously blogged about their upcoming program here.

The 59th International Astronautical Congress was recently held (Sep 29 – Oct 3) in Glasgow, Scotland.  I have been to Glasgow and other points in Scotland – it is a beautiful place – and would have loved to attended this congress.  But I’m already spending too much money and time on this ‘hobby’ and have to pick my spots… 🙂

However our own Dr. Peter Swan (co-author of Space Elevator Systems Architecture) attended (and presented) and has emailed out these notes from the Congress:

The sessions at the International Astronautical Federation Congress in Glasgow were very successful and exciting with its presentations.  The one I really enjoyed was the reporting on the success / problems of the YES2 tethered Space Mail flight.  Real space tethers with modest success is always a delight to see in our industry. (Note – I blogged about this here).  In addition, we had the 6th annual Space Elevator Luncheon.

The papers that were presented were:

Session I

• What if? Space Solar Power was Enabled by Space Elevators (this was Dr. Swan’s presentation)
• Sling-on-a-ring: A realizable space elevator to LEO?

Session II

• Cost Effective disposal of Geosynchronous Satellites by Means of Tethers
• Survey of GEO Debris Removal Concepts
• Space Debris & Space Elevator
• Mid-Earth Orbit Momentum Transfer Tether for Reduced Space Access Costs
• Dynamics of a Partial Elevator with Multiple Climbers
• Tethers as sustainable space transportation: Implications from the YES2 tethered SpaceMail development and flight results
• Improving Stability of the Space Cable
• The partial space beanstalk: its applications to space migration and commerce.

There will be one session on Space Elevators in the Korean conference in October of 2009.  As this location is near the activities in Japan, I would hope for much interest and many abstracts turned in prior to the deadline in March.

Pete

and…

I have finally made it back from Scotland… what fun and great scenery.  I now know why the Scottish have a mystic feeling about them.  The Ilse of Skye was remarkable and full of stark beauty.

Oh well, the conference over there went well and the topic of Space Elevators kept coming up thanks to the announcement of the Japanese right before the activities.  Many people asked about status and when the space elevator games were being scheduled, so I had a chance to fill them in on the European and US games… as well as the Japanese and European conferences.  Maybe some of them will show up.  The next International Astronautical Federation Congress will be in Korea in Oct 09 and will just be around the corner from the Japanese efforts.  Maybe we can have a great Asian showing at that one.

It sounds like it was a very interesting conference and I look forward to being able to access the proceedings.

As noted above, the 60th IAC will be held in Korea, and it is scheduled for Oct 12-16, 2009.

Thanks Pete!

The 1st Japan Space Elevator Conference is coming up very quickly, only about 5&1/2 weeks away.  The Times Online story about this conference has been picked up by EVERYONE.

It is going to be a noteworthy event, one well worth attending.  The Japan Space Elevator Association website has now been translated into English as well as the conference flyer (available here and also on their website, of course).

From the conference flyer:

“Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) will hold the first Japan Space Elevator Conference 2008 (JpSEC2008) where ”the Space Elevator”, the space vehicle having a potential to drastically change the future for mankind, will be discussed.

The program details are described as below.In this first conference, in addition to the technical sessions for scientists and engineers in the field, noticeable scientists and guests from both home and abroad will deliver lectures to widely introduce the Space Elevator to the public and provide the audience an opportunity to think about and discuss the future of Japan.”

As with the December European Space Elevator conference (recently mentioned here on this blog), a veritable list of “Who’s who” will be giving presentations.  If you are at all interested in this idea, you should make every effort to attend one or both of these conferences.

With the American Space Elevator Conference (held in July), the Japan Space Elevator Conference (coming in November), the European Conference on Space Elevator & Carbon Nanotube Tether Design (coming in December), the upcoming Space Elevator Games (coming up in the first quarter of 2009) and the growing knowledgebase regarding the manufacturing and handling of carbon nanotubes, the momentum is clearly building.  Every day I grow more optimistic that I may actually get to see this thing built and that is the number one item on my “Bucket List“.

See you in Japan!

On December 6th and 7th this year, the above-named conference will be held in Luxembourg.  A flyer has been prepared and released and is available here (cover page) and here ( inside page).  It is also available on the EuroSpaceward website.

From the flyer:

“The conference will bring together some of the world’s leading researchers and engineers on space elevator systems and carbon nanotube fiber production along with experts from the private elevator, laser, nanotechnology and space industries.  The object of the event is to push the technology development by examining and discussing the status quo of designs of space elevator systems and super strong carbon nanotube (CNT) tethers.”

It promises to be an excellent conference and I’m looking forward to going – mark your calendars!

To any CNN.com readers who found their way here via the Spaceward link in the Space Elevator story you read, welcome to the Space Elevator Blog!  Here I try and keep everyone up-to-date with all things Space Elevator related – I’m glad you stopped by.

In case you’re wondering, the Space Elevator is NOT a loony idea.  The physics are sound and the benefits of a Space Elevator, cheap and reliable access to space for huge quantities of just about anything you care to ship up there, are staggering.  Yes, the engineering challenges are formidable and the key ingredient, carbon nanotubes of sufficient strength and in sufficient number are not yet available.  But that’s what Engineers do with engineering challenges, they solve them.

The state of the art in engineering carbon nanotubes is advancing by leaps and bounds.  People I know and trust believe that carbon nanotube fibers with the quality needed to create a Space Elevator will be available in the next few years.

In addition to the engineering challenges, there will be legal issues, political issues and, of course, business issues to be addressed.  But where there are huge benefits and huge profits to be made (both possible with the Space Elevator), these issues can be overcome.  Stay tuned…

If the idea of the Space Elevator intrigues you, I urge you to put this blog into your RSS feed.  Two other sites which you should also check out are the Spaceward site (the home of the Space Elevator Games) and the Space Elevator Reference.

Finally, let me make you aware of the Space Elevator Games.  This is a 5 year challenge, sponsored with 4 million dollars of money from NASA.  There are two competitions, one in power-beaming and one in creating strong tethers.  Both of these technologies will be absolutely essential to build a space elevator and the Spaceward Foundation has partnered with NASA to promote these technologies/competitions.  This year is the fourth year of the challenge.  If you are interested in learning more about this, visit the Spaceward Foundation website.  If you’d like to see what happened at the games last year or the prior year, just do a search on this blog for 2007 Space Elevator Games or 2006 Space Elevator Games.

And thanks for reading…

That story put out a couple of weeks ago about how the Japanese are now working on building a Space Elevator has received more play than anything else I’ve ever seen Space-Elevator related, even more than the Space Elevator Games.  I’ve blogged about how there really isn’t anything new in this article – but it sure seems to have taken off.

It’s now even on Indian (New Delhi) TV – a clip was recently posted on YouTube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xya5S1AJ2sU[/youtube]

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Just another piece of the puzzle falling into place for my long-predicted Dubai-Indian Space Elevator…

There was a very interesting article in the most current Newsweek titled “The Real Space Race is in Asia“.  I think the author is absolutely spot-on in his analysis.  I have long argued that the space race between India and China could wind up to be a driving force behind developing the world’s first Space Elevator (I’ve blogged about this here and here and presented this conclusion at the last two Space Elevator conferences I’ve attended).

I think that the possibility of a Dubai-India connection to jointly develop a Space Elevator makes all sorts of sense.  Dubai can fund this out of their ‘pocket change’ (only a slight exaggeration) – they certainly have the financial wherewithall and they are actively looking for projects to make money for them when their oil runs out.  A Space Elevator would be PERFECT for this.  The Indians have a real and growing space program.  They have a real military, are a nuclear power and have direct sea lanes to two of the most favored potential sites for a Space Elevator.  And, as the article points out, they are locked in an ever-increasing space race with the Chinese.  A Space Elevator would be an outstanding way for them to leapfrog the Long March…

Some money quotes from the article:

“China sees its spacewalk as a way of proving that it belongs with the United States and Russia in the top tier of space-faring nations. But its true opponent in this space race is not the West so much as its Asian neighbors—India in particular. India has in recent years transformed its space program from a utilitarian affair of meteorological and communications satellites into a hyperactive project that seems designed to make a splash on the world stage. Its robotic-exploration program is scheduled to launch a probe on Oct. 22 that will orbit the moon for two years.”

And…

“The United States and the Soviet Union were racing in the context of a cold war, but India and China are vying for leadership in a competitive marketplace of people and knowledge industries. It’s about developing technology, talent and markets.”

The article is highly recommended.  And remember, you heard it here first (and at Newsweek, second) 🙂

That’s the implication of this article, published today in the TimesOnline (and linked to from the DrudgeReport – guaranteeing a HUGE audience).  I was excited when I read the headlines (“Japan hopes to turn sci-fi into reality with elevator to the stars“), but the article mentioned no new breakthroughs in this effort.

Having said that, the likelihood of the Japanese building the world’s first Space Elevator certainly cannot be discounted.  They are a technologically sophisticated and financially able people.  It is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that the Japanese could decide to wean themselves from the oil economy by launching a number of Solar Power Satellites (SPS) for their own use and the only way that they (or anyone) is going to be able to launch a significant amount of payload (i.e. SPS) into orbit is with a Space Elevator.

We’re all waiting for the breakthrough in carbon nanotubes and the accelerating pace of research into this field means, IMHO, that this is not far away at all; I think we will see ‘the breakthrough’ before this decade is out.  And, when that happens, the idea of a Space Elevator could move very quickly from an academic exercise to a new ‘space race’…

The article mentions the upcoming Space Elevator conference being held in Japan on November 15th and 16th.  I’m told that the English language progam for this conference will be available soon.  I’m going to be attending this conference and very much look forward to going.

The Japanese also had a large presence at the recent Space Elevator conference held at the Microsoft Conference center (I blogged about it here).  The picture, above, is of the attendees from Japan at this conference (click on it for a larger version).

The Japanese Space Elevator Association also has an extensive website (all in Japanese) which can be found here.

One of the attendees at the recent Space Elevator Conference was John Lee.  I met John briefly, but was not able to spend more time with him and learn what he is up to.

A recent article in the Estes Park Trail Gazette gives a very thorough explanation of John and the organization he’s started, the JPL Space Foundation (JPL here stands for “John P Lee”, not the “Jet Propulsion Labs” that most of us think of when we see these three letters) and what they are doing.  From the article;

“In its Web site, the JPL Space Foundation urges people to ‘Help save the Earth, move to outer space!’

The foundation is ‘supporting affordable, reliable and safe access to space for all. Dreaming of space travel? Not rich but want to go into orbit? Enter our contest — each $20-plus donation earns you one chance to win a trip to orbit.’

In a more serious vein, the foundation exists to: raise money, promote space research, finance space missions, support space exploration and colonization and encourage educational programs related to space exploration and astronomy.”

John’s website also has a Good Search option you can use or download to your own website.  45% of the Money raised from this “…shall be placed in an interest bearing account to be used for research grants to develop the Space Elevator or any other technology that will offer an affordable access to space; plus any other activities that support the foundation’s Mission.”

Check out the website.  Thanks John!

I know, I said I wasn’t going to post anything else ’til I got back from vacation, but I was channel-surfing last night and came upon a program that was discussing a ‘tether challenge’.  Of course I was immediately hooked.

It seems that one of these new wind turbine ideas was being discussed; you’ve probably seen the videos of one;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDJhhGJwSuA[/youtube]

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Anyway, they need a strong tether to a) hold this thing from flying away and b) conduct electricity into the grid.  They had a ‘tether challenge’ between a steel cable (diameter unspecified) and a cable made out of Vectran (diameter of .9 inches and copper-clad to conduct electricity).

Rather than match them directly against each other, they had the cables lift a series of cars.  The steel cable broke when attempting to add the fourth car to the load.  The Vectran cable came through with flying colors and was able to lift all six cars they had.

The rest of the show was about the wind turbine itself.

The show was titled “Infinite Winds” and is part of the “Discovery Project Earth” series shown on (naturally enough) the Discovery Channel.  I don’t know if it’s going to be re-broadcast anytime soon, but if it is, you might want to check it out.

A few odds ‘n ends, related to our favorite subject…

First of all, a new video has been posted on YouTube.  This is not the first Line Rider video I’ve seen, but it’s the first one I’ve seen with a Space Elevator in it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG2P92cLYrE[/youtube]

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Next we have this blog post by Mike Brotherton (“Rocket Scientists are Stupid Smart People”) relating to Space Travel, Space Elevators and the short-sightedness of some people which, IMHO, very effectively replies to this article in Wired.com (“Rocket Scientists Say We’ll Never Reach the Stars”).  Mark is clearly a kindred spirit…

Finally, a portion of a  review (in Christianity Today no less) of Joe Haldeman’s new book “Marsbound” mentions;

“As the story opens, Carmen Dula and her family have been chosen by lottery for a six-year trip to Mars. On the beach, waiting for the Space Elevator that will left them up to their space ship, she meets a man, fifteen years older, named Paul Collins—who turns out to be the pilot who will fly them to Mars. Two weeks in the crowded confines of the Space Elevator gives her no chance to get to know Paul better, but during the six-month flight on to Mars, she manages to find enough privacy to form a relationship with him.”

I wonder how the interior of the Space Elevator Climber (or whatever the author calls it) and the trip itself is described.  I think I’ll wait ’til the paperback version comes out – but I’ll be interested in finding out.

Even though this post from the website io9.com (a very strange site, to be sure) only lightly touches on the subject of Space Elevators, it’s overall theme; building big things in space, is a subject which is interesting all by itself.

The post also briefly mentions Dextre, the Canadian-built robot now sitting on the ISS.  I would imagine that robots similar to Dextre will play a major role in actually building and maintaining a Space Elevator.

This post also contains a clip from one of the most under-rated movies ever, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…

(Picture of Dextre – click to enlarge – from the Canadian Space Agency website)

Anyone who has paid any attention to this blog knows that I am a HUGE fan of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.  His works, fiction and non-fiction, are compelling, well-researched, out-of-the-box, etc., etc., etc.  No one who knows me should be surprised that I pre-ordered his final book (The Last Theorem, co-authored with Frederik Pohl) from Amazon, just to ensure that I would receive it as soon as it came out.

Alas, the book was quite a disappointment – the collaboration between these two great authors maybe just didn’t work or Sir Clarke’s inability, due to his illness, to contribute more fully might have been a problem, or something.  I kept waiting for the book to GO SOMEWHERE, but it never did.

The list of flaws is long; the aliens introduced were cartoonish and plastic, the sub-plot with the main character’s son (who seemed to have some sort of advanced mental capability) went nowhere, the title of the book didn’t have anything to do with the main storyline (whatever that was – it was difficult to tell), previous ideas of Sir Clarke’s (a fascination with pentominoes, solar sail racing, low-gravity olympics) were revisited in a boring, copycat manner, etc., etc., etc.

Oh yes, a Space Elevator is mentioned and briefly discussed, but no new ideas are talked about.

Ah well, I have many of his other books I can re-read and re-enjoy.  IMHO, his best works were The Sands of Mars (even as out-dated as it now is), Songs of Distant Earth, Rendevous with Rama and Childhoods End.  And, of course, Space Elevator afficianados are huge fans of his The Fountains of Paradise.  Finally, if you like short stories with a good bit of (English) humor in them, check out Tales from the White Hart, a series of stories told at the White Hart pub.

My advice on The Last Theorem, wait for the paperback version or get it from the library.

I received an email from ScienceDirect listing their “TOP 25 Hottest Articles“, a list of the 25 most downloaded articles from Acta Astronautica.  Number 4 on the list is titled “Design and Deployment of a Space Elevator“, a November, 2000 article from Dr. Brad Edwards.  The abstract of the article reads:

“The space elevator was first proposed in the 1960s as a method of getting into space. The initial studies of a space elevator outlined the basic concept of a cable strung between Earth and space but concluded that no material available at the time had the required properties to feasibly construct such a cable. With the discovery of carbon nanotubes in 1991 it is now possible to realistically discuss the construction of a space elevator. Although currently produced only in small quantities, carbon nanotubes appear to have the strength-to-mass ratio required for this endeavor. However, fabrication of the cable required is only one of the challenges in construction of a space elevator. Powering the climbers, surviving micrometeor impacts, lightning strikes and low-Earth–orbit debris collisions are some of the problems that are now as important to consider as the production of the carbon nanotube cable. We consider various aspects of a space elevator and find each of the problems that this endeavor will encounter can be solved with current or near-future technology.”

Obviously the thinking about how the ‘Edwards-Westling model’ of the Space Elevator has evolved over the past several years, but it’s encouraging to see how even this relatively older article is still of such interest to the Acta Astronautica readership.

Click here to see the entire list (list in pdf format – links intact so you can preview all of the article abstracts).

In this recent article in To BHMAOnline (which my search engine just turned up), author Tasos Kafantaris discusses the future possibilities of Space Tourism.

A Space Elevator is briefly mentioned; the article says that a ticket to space today costs ‘…20 to 22 million Euros”.  Kafantaris speculates that a Space Elevator ticket to an orbital hotel might only cost “100 Euros”.  Of course these days, that’s a lot of American money… 🙂

The original article is in Greek – the Google translation into English can be found here.

A few days ago, I was interviewed by Jon Udell, he of the Perspectives podcast fame.  The subject was, of course, the Space Elevator.

One of the questions he asked me was “Who would be the potential customers for a Space Elevator?”  This is a common question, of course, and I gave him the “stock” answer; satellite companies, governments (for satellite launches), tourists and other exotic applications, presently unknown.

I bring this up because The Washington Post recently had an article about how many satellite companies were now in, essentially, a “Mark II” phase – they have been through the ringer with previous investments (some of which had worked out and others which had not) and, with this increased experience under their belt, were looking to increase their investments in the satellite arena.

These are companies / Investors who are willing to place these bets at thousands of dollars per pound of payload.  What will these people do when the payload cost drops by an order of magnitude (or more)?  There will be no shortage of customers as I think we’re just scratching the surface…

(Picture from here; I’ll let people know when the interview with me is posted)

At the recent Space Elevator Conference, I gave a presentation entitled “Who will build the first, Earth-based Space Elevator”?  This was also the title of the presentation which I gave at last year’s SESI conference.

To arrive at a reasonable, defendable answer for this question, I looked at the problem from two different angles:

• What would be the motive for building the first, earth-based Space Elevator
• Who would have the technical capabilities to actually build an earth-based Space Elevator

My conclusion was essentially the same as last year;

• Only the profit-motive would be strong enough to drive the building of the first Earth-based space elevator
• There are 7 ‘entities’ who would be capable (considering a 2025 ‘earliest-build-date) of actually building a Space Elevator

Based on that assumption, I believe that the two most likely probabilities are:

• A consortium of US Companies partnering with the US Government
• A Joint Venture between the Governments of Dubai and India

A third group I picked as a possibility (the ‘dark-horse’) in this race was an effort by the Japanese Government.  Based on what we saw at the recent conference, there is the beginnings of a serious effort underway in Japan to make this happen.

For details on why I picked what I did, you can view the presentation here (it’s a pdf file) and for more detailed reasons on why I picked a possible Joint Venture between the governments of Dubai and India, please read my post (‘Emerging Asia’) I put up about this last year.

You heard it here first…

On this day, 50 years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower signed The National Aeronautics and Space Act (Pub.L. 85-568) to create The National Aeronautics and Space Agency, more commonly known as NASA.  NASA was created to respond to the challenge of Sputnik and officially began operations on October 1st of that year.

I’ve always admired NASA, in spite of its well-chronicled woes, and posted my thoughts about them last year (so I won’t repeat them).  Suffice it to say I’m a big fan.

The picture (from the NASA web site) shows President Eisenhower (center), Dr. T. Keith Glennan, right, commissioned as the first administrator for NASA and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden as deputy administrator.  As always, click on the picture for a larger version.

Happy Birthday NASA!  Long may you continue to amaze us with your accomplishments and long may you continue to ad astra per aspera.

There has probably been enough time elapsed since the end of the 2008 Space Elevator Conference (last Monday) to have all the articles about it percolate through my RSS feed reader – hence I think this is a good time to do a round-up of those articles.

First up, of course, Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log article, “Will the Space Elevator Rise?”.  It was good to see Alan again.  His office is just a short ride away from where the conference was held and he invited me to visit it, but I just didn’t have the time (I had to forgo a schedule interview, too, sigh…).  Anyway, it’s a fine article, but has prompted a note of Tom Nugent (from LaserMotive) who is quoted in the article as saying that a Space Elevator would “never be built”.  Tom tells me that he told Alan that the FIRST one would not be built on Earth (and he gave a presentation about that), but that someday it might be possible.  I wasn’t part of the conversation so I don’t know who said what to whom in response to which question.

The conference was also featured in Gizmodo, who concentrated on the Lego Space Elevator brought to us by the Japanese contingent.  I have a few other pictures of this Lego model which I’ll send off to Gizmodo.  This must a very popular site; the mention of the Space Elevator Blog caused a large spike in my traffic.

Mary Stevens Decker wrote a fine article about the conference in the PNWLocalNews.com Lifestyles section.  It certainly sounds like, from the article, that she attended the Conference; I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet her.

Did you know that there is a podcast show out there devoted to the Elevator industry?  Neither did I.  The Elevator Radio Show.com is just such a show.  This host of this show, Tom Cyber Sybert, briefly covers press stories that have anything to do with the Elevator “field”.  Many of the stories in this weeks show were about the Space Elevator and the Space Elevator conference.  In the past, I’ve been the recipient of emails from someone purporting to represent an Elevator manufacturing company in China and promising me the “best prices” on Elevator parts, but this show clearly treated us as not an ordinary Elevator application.  On a related note, I was recently interviewed by Revista Ascensores, a Spanish language publication devoted to the Elevator industry.  Again, the interviewer clearly knew the difference between a “normal” elevator and what we’re trying to do, but thought the interview would be interesting and fun for their readers.  One other note about The Elevator Radio show.com; they are out of Chicago (my own neck of the woods) and they are currently sponsoring a contest where the prize is a Beer-making kit – these guys rock! 🙂  Finally, they mentioned another website, ElevatorGear.com, a site where you can buy such things as a “Rosenberg Tagged Elevator Oiler” and a book published in 1927, “Electric Elevators”.

In an article in Seattlepi.com, Todd Bishop points out that Microsoft’s sponsorship and hosting of the 2008 Space Elevator Conference doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re interested in building one.  Sigh, too true…

In another Seattlepi.com article, Tom Paulson discusses the recent coverage and quotes several of the attendees, including Akira Tsuchida, captain of the E-T-C (Earth-Track-Controllers) Space Elevator team and member of the Japan Space Elevator Association, who joked that a Space Elevator would be better for Japan than rockets because “…if we shoot (a) missile in Japan, North Korea might become angry”.

In itworld.com, Nancy Gohring writes about the recent conference and the idea proposed by Dr. Brad Edwards of opening a theme ride in Florida which would simulate a ride on a Space Elevator.  I think this is a fabulous idea (and blogged about it earlier, here).  This facility would also be doing research into carbon nanotubes in a facility which could be viewed by the public.  I hope this idea happens.

On the KiroTV.com site, there is a short article about the Conference along with a link to a video clip (a news report) about the Conference.  Alisa Brodkowitz, co-chair of the “Legal Pillar” committee / workshop, is quoted talking about insurance issues and how they relate to a Space Elevator.

In Kappa Alpha Iota, the “author and Susan” blogged about the conference and their thoughts on it.

And that’s about it…

29JUL08 Update – Yes, there are other sites out there with Conference related stories, but as far as I have been able to tell, they are ‘reprints’ of ones I’ve listed here.

From July 23rd to July 25th, the University of Maryland Baltimore County is holding ‘MOSS2008‘ a Symposium on the Mechanics of Slender Structures.  I think a Space Elevator would qualify, in spades, as a ‘Slender Structure’ and, to that end, Ben Shelef of the Spaceward Foundation is giving the closing lecture; ‘The Story of the Space Elevator’.

At the recently concluded 2008 Space Elevator Conference, there were several discussions about ribbon harmonics; how longitudinal and transverse waves would affect each other on a Space Elevator tether.  Dr. Blaise Gassend gave a talk on “Space Elevator Dynamics through Simple Approximations“.  At MOSS2008, this issue is also being visited in a presentation, “Analog Equation Method for coupled Axial and and Transverse vibration of Automotive Belts“.

If you’re in the Baltimore County area and this is your kind of thing, you might want to stop by.  You can find the conference program here.

26JUL08 Update – I just received this comment about the conference from Ben Shelef: “This conference is just amazing – what a find!”

Because this year’s Space Elevator Games have been moved back to sometime in mid-late October, the dates for the EuroSpaceward conference (Space Elevator and CNT Tether Design – 2nd International Conference) being held in Luxembourg has been moved back to December 6th and 7th.

You can access the conference program here (Bob Munck alert – this is a pdf file…).

The list of presentations and speakers is too extensive to go into here – see the conference program for more details.  However, I can say it is very extensive and ambitious and should be a great event to attend.  I, for one, plan on being there and I hope to see you there too!

26JUL08 Update – I just received this email from Markus Klettner, head of EuroSpaceward:

“Thanks for announcing EuroSpaceward’s conference on your blog yesterday! Almost all key note speakers have already confirmed their participation (e.g.: Prof. Charles Cockell, Open University UK, Prof. Vesselin Shanov, University of Cincinnati USA, Prof. Cécile Zakri, Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal France, Dr. Marcelo Motta, Cambridge University, Dr. David Raitt, ESA, and of course our highly appreciated US SE experts!). The only significant confirmation missing is the one from Andy Petro, NASA. I hope to be able to convince him to spend an exciting weekend in Luxembourg 🙂

Kind regards

Markus”

p.s: I am still very sorry not to have been able to participate in SEC08 due to my inline skating accident, however plan to be back to the US for the games in October.”

We missed you in Redmond, Markus.  Get well soon and we look forward to seeing you in December…

No, this is not going to be my last post on events at this year’s Space Elevator Conference, but I wanted to let people know that the conference has ended and to summarize it a bit…

I will be doing additional posts about presentations and goings-on at the Conference over the next few weeks, interspersed with other Space Elevator-related news as it happens.

IMHO, the Conference was a big success.  The enthusiasm level of the attendees was quite high, aided especially by the Japanese contingent.  I’ve blogged about their contribution before, but want to emphasize it again.  This group is very serious about building a Space Elevator.  The Japan Elevator Association (JSEA) is holding their own Space Elevator conference this year on November 15th and 16th and I’ve all but committed to go.  I’ll be doing a separate post about some of the things they proposed.

We also had a few other non-American presenters, but not many.  This is something we have to change in the future.  We need this to be more of an international effort – and that leads me to the subject of the Four Pillars, a topic which consumed much of Saturday’s Conference proceedings.

Basically the concept of Four Pillars is this; to build a Space Elevator (or any other large infrastructure project) requires that various interest groups support and ‘sign-off’ off on the project.  There is the Technical / Scientific Pillar which has to do the work to show the project is feasible.  There is the Legal Pillar which has to show that legal, regulatory and insurance issues are dealt with.  There is the Business Pillar which is tasked with putting together a plan showing how the project can make money.  And finally, there is the Public Outreach Pillar which must create a climate among the public (which, in turn, creates a climate among Government, Special Interest groups, etc.) to support this project.

The “Four Pillar” concept is certainly not new.  It’s been used for other infrastructure projects, and it’s even been tried before for the Space Elevator.  LiftPort unsuccessfully tried to get some traction with this idea and it was also started (and then died out) at last year’s Space Elevator conference.  But the idea is too good to be discarded, even in the face of previous failures.

There was a new committment evident at this year’s conference and, for the first time, we have a very realistic possibility of enlisting international resources to help make this happen.  In addition, the technology to build a Space Elevator, especially in the carbon nanotube arena, is rapidly maturing.

If you would like to get involved with this effort, please email me at Ted [AT] SpaceElevatorBlog.com.  There will be much more information about this Four Pillar effort posted on this blog in the coming months.  This picture is of Dr. Swan, one of the co-chairs of this Pillar (along with yours truly) – I’m sorry it’s a bit blurry, but the guy never stands still! 🙂

The Conference facilities were superb – Microsoft deserves many kudos for how this conference center was set up.  Bryan Laubscher, one of the conference organizers, suggested that future US Space Elevator conferences be held here, at the same place, and I heartily concur.  Maurice Franklin, a Microsoft employee for many years (he’s retiring this year and moving to New England to study boat-building) deserves special thanks for these facilities as he is the person who organized getting these facilities for us.  He was also the guy who we all went to when we had a problem/question with any of the AV equipment or anything else.  I never saw a problem he did not handle, and handle quickly and efficiently.  Thanks Maurice – and good luck on your new endeavours…

I want to wind up this wrap-up post with a big “Thank You” to all of those who organized this year’s Conference.  Doing something like this is a huge and largely thankless task.  I’ve signed up to help organize next year’s conference and I’m sure we’re going to be leaning on the expertise of this year’s organizers.  This photo shows those six people who we can thank for making this conference a success.  From left to right they are Bryan Laubscher, Carla Sabotta, Maurice Franklin, Martin Lades, Ruth Richter and Phil Richter.  Each and every one of these people deserve a tremendous “Thank You” from all of us.

Alas, the SPS issue I talked about in the last post may still be intractible – the problem I’m running into now is just the range of data on the US Department of Energy website, and the seemingly contradictary nature of some of it.  Some graphs show energy usage in “Trillions of kilowatt hours”, others speak of “Billions of kilowatt hours” and the sum total of all this is that I JUST DON’T KNOW.

But I’m going to make it my business to find out.  Now back to conference posts.