If he was still with us, Sir Arthur C. Clarke would have been 92 today, December 16th.  I assume that most readers of this blog know who Sir Clarke is, but, if by some chance you’re not, then you’re missing a treat.  Sir Clarke was one of the most prolific and one of the very best SciFi authors we have ever had the good fortune to enjoy.

His novel The Fountains of Paradise was the book that inspired me and many others to dream about a Space Elevator – and now many of us are working towards making that dream a reality through the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC).

The Planetary society recently had a program celebrating their own Planetary Radio’s 7th anniversary.  The bulk of the show was replaying a March, 2003 interview they had with Sir Clarke shortly after they began broadcasting.  This is a fascinating interview and well worth your time…  One of the items from the interview that I found very interesting was Sir Clarke’s revelation about how at lunch one day with JR Tolkien (of Lord of the Rings fame), Mr. Tolkien revealed to him how he came up with the idea of the “Hobbits” – funny stuff…

They also briefly discuss the Space Elevator and The Fountains of Paradise.

Incidentally, the host of the Planetary Society’s Radio Show, Mat Kaplan, shows that he’s always had ‘the touch’ when it comes to conducting interviews – Mat, you’re the best…

This YouTube Video is of Sir Clarke talking about the Space Elevator.

I was just able to locate the vinyl record of “Selected Readings” of The Fountains of Paradise that is shown and referenced in this video.  I’ve been looking for it for over a year – I love ebay…

The three photographs of Sir Clarke I’ve included in this post have been, in previous posts of mine about Sir Clarke, but for new readers they should prove interesting.  The first picture is of Yuri Artsutanov (on the left), one of the modern day ‘fathers’ of the concept of the Space Elevator, and Sir Clarke.  It is undated and I found it online (and, alas, the original location of it no longer exists so I can’t reference it or give credit to anyone for it).  The second is also a picture of Mr. Artsutanov and Sir Clarke from 1980 (the other “modern father” of the Space Elevator, Jerome Pearson, kindly emailed it to me).  The third picture is of Soviet (yes, at the time it was “Soviet”) cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and Sir Clarke at Sir Clarke’s 90th Birthday party.  I found this picture on Thilna Heenatigala’s blog.

Listen to the Planetary radio interview with Sir Clarke, watch the YouTube interview with Sir Clarke and, if you haven’t read The Fountains of Paradise, do yourself a favor and find it and read it – you’ll be glad you did.

Happy birthday Sir Clarke – we miss you and your boundless optimism for the future.  Someday we will make a Space Elevator and, if there’s any justice, it will be named the “Clarke Elevator”…

(Click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture)

If you are like me and believe that humanity MUST get into space; to live, to explore, to declare our right to be an ongoing part of the Universe, then you’ll enjoy this video from Space Task Force.

“Is it me, or does it seem crazy, that even today, we have to justify sending people into space? The so-called “spinoff” argument. As we continue our series, Space 2010, we look at the most important spinoff of all — ourselves.”

As far as I know, it’s not on YouTube, so you’ll have to go to the Space Task Force site (or use my link, above, which does directly link to their video) to view/download it.

Over the past few months, I have received several emails detailing different ideas for Space Elevators, or Space Elevator translations, or general questions about Space Elevators, etc.

I’m very sorry I haven’t responded to most of them – these last few months have been very busy for me and for ISEC.  Now that the EuroSpaceward conference is completed and another project I’ve been working on will take a break starting next week, I’ll have some time to devote to these emails.

Thanks for understanding, and now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

And now for something completely different…

At last year’s EuroSpaceward Conference, Aage-Raymond Riise, ESA-ESOC (Germany) brought a demonstration of a”Longitudinal wave climber”, demonstrating how a climber could be made to go up and down a tether purely through the use of vibrating it at the proper frequency (I had blogged about it here).  At the 2008 Conference, Aage used a belt sander to vibrate the wooden tether to produce the necessary frequency.

He was back at this year’s conference with a new, improved model and I’ve included some photos (and another YouTube video) of the climb.

Rather than use a belt sander to induce the longitudinal waves in the tether (as he did last year), Aage this year used modified speakers.  This first picture shows one of the speakers (there were two), modified with a little tripold that transmitted the vibrations to the tether.

This second picture shows the overall view of the setup.  There were two poles, supported at the floor and ceiling.  The two speakers were mounted on the poles, one above the wooden tether and one below.  The tether was directly attached to the speakers so that when they “played”, the tether would vibrate.  If I understood Aage’s presentation correctly, he said that the speaker on top was controlled so that it was 180 degrees out of phase with the one on the bottom, thus creating a sawtooth wave that could be used to control the climber (if I’ve got this wrong, I’m sure I’ll be corrected and then I’ll update this post).

The last picture shows the ‘climber’ itself, attached to the tether.  The amount of force used to hold this climber to the tether was a very tricky adjustment.  They tried to make it work numerous times, adjusting the screws holding the climber clamps after each run.  They finally did get it to work and this is shown in the YouTube video, below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScyrorE2uHM[/youtube]

At the 2008 Space Elevator Conference, a large contingent from the then newly-formed Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) showed up.  They blew us away with how much they had accomplished in so little time and wowed us with videos, TV-show recordings and Anime from Japan – all showing how well-accepted the idea of a Space Elevator (aka the “Space Train”) is in Japan.

At this year’s EuroSpaceward conference, the Japanese are again here in force and are, again, wowing all of us with how successful they have been.  This past year, they have run two Space Elevator competitions (JSETEC and LASER ’09) and next week will be hosting their second conference (in Japanese only – no translators this year).  Shuichi Ohno, the President of JSEA gave a presentation about what JSEA has been doing this year and brought with him a sample climber made out of LEGO’s.  You can actually buy a Space Elevator LEGO kit in Japan now from JSEA – now THAT’s organized).  I’ll have to see if we can do this in the US too – I can’t think of a better way to get children interested in the concept of a Space Elevator (except, perhaps, to have a Family Guy or South Park episode based on a Space Elevator – actually, that’s not a bad idea…).

They have also published a Space Elevator introductory pamphlet and Shuichi showed a video made summarizing JSEA and it’s activities and it was marvelously well done.  I’m working on getting permission to upload it to YouTube and then I can share it with all of you.

The first picture is of Shuichi while the second is of the LEGO Climber.

I’m very glad the Japanese are here, but they sure set the bar high…

(Again, click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a larger version of the picture)

And, some pictures from the conference.  I’m not going to be posting pictures of everyone who spoke – that will be for later on the Space Elevator Blog photo album.  But there were a couple of note that I want to post now.

The first picture is of Dr. Jordin Kare, co-founder of the LaserMotive team that just won a cool $900K at the recently held Space Elevator Games at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.  He spoke about his team’s experiences in getting ready for the Games and their experience at the Games.  It’s always a pleasure to listen to an expert speak in his/her area of expertise and Jordin is a good guy.

One of the Games anecdotes he related was that, at the end of the first day and their team had just completed two successful climbs, one of the team members (Steve Beland) asked “Test” (Mike Kapitzke at the NASA Control group) if it was “OK to breathe”.  “Test” was in charge of all activities (and did a fantastic job) and so the request to “breathe” was jokingly asked, of course.  Without missing a beat, “Test” responded “Yes, but shallow breaths only”…

And, one other anecdote I want to relate about Jordin (and his wife Mary Kay – aka “Team mom”).  At Domingo’s restaurant where we all gathered Friday night to celebrate (I blogged about this here), I sat across the table from Jordin and Mary Kay.  Mary Kay had a drink waiting for Jordin when he arrived and Jordin looked at her and said “Dear, you are the light of my life“.  I then heard him mutter “Actually, the light of my life is 808 nanometers” (the wavelength of the LaserMotive laser)…

This next picture is of Dr. Martin Lades, team member (albeit long distance as he is now living in his native Germany) of the Kansas City Space Pirates.  Martin gave his perspective on the good and the bad of the KCSP performance and made the interesting comment that the only reason they didn’t climb the full kilometer is that they were not able to fully collimate (dial-in) their beam to that distance because they didn’t have sufficient time to do so (the Laser Clearing House had called a halt to testing the previous day).  If that’s true (and I have no reason to doubt that it is), then KCSP should have even more reason to be optimistic for the next Games – they were pretty close as it was.

This last picture in this post is of Andreas Hein, from the WARR Space Elevator team; out of the Technical University of Munich, Germany.  Andreas has been a regular at the conferences and he’s a typical Engineering guy.  Wednesday evening, several of us were at the bar discussing things in general and I happened to mention reading Michel van Pelt’s new book (I blogged about it here) and the concept of the Aerovator.  Andreas had not heard of this before and, after asking me a couple of questions about it, went silent.  When I looked at him a few minutes later, he was filling up a napkin with equations and “what ifs”, trying to understand how it worked.  I took pity on him and went back to my room and got the book for him.  I just hope he returns it before he leaves 🙂

The WARR team was the winning climber at the recently completed JSETEC games in Japan – they totally blew away the competition having a time which was nearly three times as fast as their nearest competitor.  I blogged about this before – including linking to a YouTube video of one of their climbs.

Andreas talked about this, which was very interesting, but later gave a second presentation which was, to me, even more interesting.  He made a brief financial case of how a Space Elevator could take over the satellite-to-GEO market.  This is exactly the kind of thing I have been looking for and I’m going to put Andreas together with the ISEC Business consultant (Ed Gray – are you listening?) and see if we can turn this into a formal proposal.

Good stuff all around…

(As always, you can click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a full-size version)

The 3rd annual EuroSpaceward conference is now underway.  I’m fortunate to have wireless access (at USD 30.00 per day!) during the conference so can blog during the conference.

Space Elevators are a key part of this conference but by no means the only topic which will be discussed.

The first picture is of attendees filtering into the conference this morning.  We are in the Louis conference room of the local Novotel hotel.

The second picture is of Markus Klettner, Executive Director of EuroSpaceward, giving the opening Welcome address to the attendees.

My presentation (on ISEC and efforts to unify Space Elevator efforts worldwide) is at 12:30 this afternoon.  It’s just before lunch, so I think people will be hungry and eager to leave – maybe I won’t get too many questions 🙂

Stay tuned…

Well, I’m finished judging the entries for the drawing contest and have given them to EuroSpaceward to get the certificates printed up and notify the winners.  My disguise is being delivered tomorrow morning – hopefully it will keep me out of trouble.

And, my presentation is actually finished.  Really and truly.  I’ve even been able to have time to send it off the rest of the Board Members of ISEC to get their comments.  Will wonders never cease…

So, I’m in Europe, in Luxembourg, and it’s the holiday season.  I have some free time and am told that the local “Christmas Market” is a great place to do Christmas shopping.  Also, I get a chance to walk around ‘old Europe’ and it’s always been a great pleasure of mine to do so.  I’ve done lots of walking in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Great Britain (England and Scotland) and especially the Netherlands.  I love it – it’s so different than where I live (a suburb of Chicago).  There the streets are straight and wide and (relatively) new.  You have to drive to get anywhere and the attempts to make a ‘town cente’ in the suburbs just don’t cut it.  Old Europe streets are narrow and paved in cobblestones.  You rarely can see what’s 50 yards in front of you as the streets twist in all directions – it makes walking anywhere seem like an adventure.  And town centers are vibrant with life, especially during the holiday season.

I’d been looking forward to walking around in the old part of the city in Luxembourg City and I was not disappointed.  I did get a good chunk of Christmas shopping done but, sadly, did not find anything for my wife.

I have a confession to make – I did not buy my wife a Christmas present last year.  She’s tremendously difficult to buy for and, when pressed as to what she wanted, she finally told me “A condo in Hawaii”.  I wasn’t able to come up with one last year, but did have faint hopes that I might find something while Christmas shopping today that could act as a substitute.  Alas, no…

I’ve included some pictures from today’s walking tour of Place D’Arms (the location of the Christmas market in the Luxembourg City Town Center).

The first picture might take a little explaining.  It’s an outdoor heater.  Several of these were located by the tables located in the middle of the Christmas market – tables where people ate and drank their Glühwein.  They were quite effective – I can attest to that.  Though there was no snow on the ground, it was damp and near freezing – the heaters were definitely welcomed by all who were there.  The third picture is a 4-tiered chocolate fountain – there are chocolate / confectionery stores everywhere.  The rest of the pictures are of the Christmas market.  I particularly like the last one – it really seems to capture the atmosphere I saw and felt tonight.

The conference starts tomorrow.  My internal clock is adjusting well and I should be fully functional, or at least coherent, by tomorrow morning.

Stay tuned!

(Click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a full-size version)

On the plane ride over to Luxembourg (I am attending and presenting at the EuroSpaceward Conference this coming weekend), I read Michel van Pelt’s new book; Space Tethers and Space Elevators.  Michel had kindly sent me a copy some months ago, and I had been saving reading it for this trip.  I can’t sleep on airplanes and I knew I would have several uninterrupted hours that I could devote to this much-anticipated treat.

And what a treat it turned out to be.  In this book, Michel explains what the advantages of tethers in space are and the benefits they can provide, including Space debris mitigation and tether propulsion.  He gives the history and results of previous tether experiments in space, some of which I was unaware of.  He talks about the rockets and their alternatives, most especially the Space Elevator:

The space elevator concept has the potential to cause a revolution in human history.  We have been living at the bottom of a gravity well up until now, and we only recently acquired the technology to climb out once in a while at high cost.  A space elevator would provide an easy, regular, and sustainable way out of that well, allowing many people to clamber up and explore, develop, and colonize space ever further.  As will be shown in the next chapters, tether technology is a possible solution for many of the most stringent spaceflight constraints.

Michel briefly but thoroughly discusses the history of how the idea of a Space Elevator came about and how it has gradually permeated popular culture – everything from Arthur C. Clarke’s magnificent book, The Fountains of Paradise to showing up on Star Trek and even the Microsoft Xbox game Halo 3.

Other topics of discussion include problems that will need addressing in the building and operation of a Space Elevator, the current ‘state of affairs’ in Space Elevator development (including a discussion of the Space Elevator Games) and the cost to build one.

When discussing Space Elevators, much of his information is drawn from the Edwards / Westling book The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System but Michel adds updates and new material to this to bring everyone up-to-date.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned much from it. It will be very valuable to anyone who wants to learn about alternatives to using rockets to get into space or space tethers and/or space elevators in general.  Michel van Pelt’s book is a very valuable addition to the ever-growing body of literature on this subject.

Highly recommended.

Well, this was a switch.  The flight from Chicago to Zurich and then the connection between Zurich and Luxembourg were both on time and mostly empty.  I’m used to flying planes in the States – everyone packed in like sardines.  I wondered why the airfares from Chicago to Luxembourg kept getting cheaper and cheaper and now I know why – SwissAir (or whatever they’re called now – why is their airline code “LX”?) was trying to lure some more passengers.  Anyway, it was quite pleasant – well, as pleasant as 9 hours in an airplane can be…

I arrived today at the Luxembourg airport at about 2:20pm, local time.  Markus Klettner from EuroSpaceward kindly met me at the airport and drove me to the Novotel where the conference is being held at and where also I’m staying.  On the way, he gave me a little surprise – I’ve been chosen to judge a coloring contest – “How do you Imagine Life on the Moon?” – an event held as part of the EuroSpaceward conference.  The particulars:

This contest is intended for children attending school in Luxembourg from levels 1st to 9th grade to create awareness of the technological and scientific areas of space study, research and development forty years after the first human steps on the moon.

This challenge is held for the second time in Luxembourg city, encouraged and organized by the European Spaceward Association who is dedicated to the research and development of space related activities in Europe, and sponsored by MUDAM (Musee d’Art Modern) Luxembourg and Skoda, Luxembourg.

Full imagination and artistic sensitivity will be portrayed in each of the children’s drawings containing a message towards life on the moon, beyond borders and differences in their background, cultures and languages.

The Guidelines state that the “Drawings can be submitted in color or pencil” and that “The most original drawings will be considered for winning selection.”

Well.

An art critic I’m not, so this should be quite a challenge.  I think building a Space Elevator might be something easier for me to do.   I’ve got about 60 drawings to look at and I have to choose 9 of them as “...the most original...”.  To top it all, I’m the one designated to hand out the prizes, so I will be there, in person, to receive the grief for a job poorly done.

But I guess it goes with the territory.  If I’m going to be the President of such a large and prestigious organization as the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), I have to fulfill my role as a fount of wisdom 🙁

The picture thumbnail shows several of the drawings I have to judge (click on the thumbnail to see a full size version).  I have until Friday, noon, to make my decision.

I’ll let Markus publish the funeral arrangements.  Please don’t send flowers – send donations instead to “The Luxembourg Foundation for Needlessly Pissed-off School-children“.

More tomorrow…