So, the 2010 EuroSpaceward conference is over – it sure went by quickly.  It was a very enjoyable conference and Markus Klettner, the Executive Director of EuroSpaceward deserves a lot of credit for the work he did in organizing this event.  Dr. Vessilin Shanov remarked to me at the end of the first day that this conference “keeps getting better each year” and I can only agree.  Saturday’s presentations were all about CNTs and the state-of-the-art in their development while Sunday was focused specifically on Space Elevator topics.  The synergy between the two sessions and their speakers was wonderful to see.  Space Elevator people are obviously critically interested in the status of CNT development while the CNT theorists and developers were able to see what “the dreamers” (and I include myself in that group) want to do with the fruits of their efforts.

I enjoyed all of the presentations, but a couple stood out in my mind.  First was the presentation by Dr. Yakobsen.  I think his theoretical insights as to how/why CNTs actually start growing and continue growing is crucial in understanding how to make them long/strong enough for our needs.  A second particularly noteworthy presentation (IMHO, of course) was Dr. Martin Lades’ presentation on Project CLAVIS – a new, European initiative on the study of CNTs.  One can only hope that they succeed in getting this project off the ground.  Third was Dr. Nicola Pugno’s presentation on ‘self-healing’ CNT tethers.  Being able to actually build this self-healing capability into a Space Elevator tether may prove to be critical to it actually succeeding.  The final presentation which I thought particularly noteworthy was ISEC’s own Dr. Peter Swan’s summarization of his group’s study of Space Debris and the mitigation strategies that must be built into the design of Space Elevator to deal with this hazard.  Dr. Swan’s efforts are not only important for the Space Elevator community in general, of course, but this study was the very first “Red Team” study produced by ISEC – giving our “official position” on this topic.  It’s something we all can refer to in the future when the naysayers and other skeptics throw questions/comments such as “Well, what are you going to do about space junk?”  “It’s going to blow your Space Elevator to hell!”  “You can’t avoid it!” at us.  We can now refer to this study and definitively say to them; “Look, it appears that one, small segment (LEO) will be subject to debris strikes every 10 days.  We’ll build in repair capabilities to deal with it.  It’s not a critical problem.”  If they still argue, we can show them the figures that Dr. Swan’s team came up with.  His team’s study satisfies an overall goal of ISEC – taking away reasons people can say “No” to the Space Elevator.

You did us proud, Dr. Swan, thank you!

One last picture thumbnail to share with you.  On the left is Akira Tsuchida and on the right is Dr. Martin Lades.  Both are well know in the Space Elevator community.  Akira gave Sunday’s presentation on a Japan roadmap for building the Space Elevator.  They now have their ‘estimated operational date’ as 2050 (twenty years later than they had previously predicted – mostly due to their opinion as to the state-of-the-art of CNT development).  This roadmap is going to be updated every year until 2017.  It’s too long to go into now, but part of his presentation was about toilets on a Space Elevator Space station and how they are being tested out in an orphanage in Mongolia (really!).  The discussion about this initiative was absolutely priceless – you had to be here to really appreciate it.  Akira also headed up the E-T-C team that competed in the 2007 Space Elevator Games and is famous for, among other things, selling his car (a Mercedes, no less) to help finance the project.  He is definitely a true believer and is a genuinely nice guy.

And on the right is Dr. Martin Lades.  Martin is one of those ‘behind-the scenes’ guys that just helps makes things work.  He was part of the Kansas City Space Pirates team that competed in the Space Elevator Games.  He is on the Board of Directors for ISEC and is also a key member in trying to get Project CLAVIS up and running.

So, if you weren’t here this year, you definitely missed a very worthwhile event.  I have tried to summarize the presentations in this blog, but I know that it is only a poor representation of what actually went on.  I would urge all of my readers to consider coming to the 2011 EuroSpaceward Conference – thank you again Markus!

(As always, click on the photo thumbnail to see a full size version of the picture)

First up is Akira Tsuchida from Japan (here in person!).  Akira headed up the E-T-C (Earth-Track-Controllers) Climber / Power-Beaming team that was in the 2007 competition in Salt Lake City.  He is a long-time believer in the concept of the Space Elevator and has done much to popularize the concept.  He is a member of JSEA – the Japan Space Elevator Association.  His talk is on a roadmap to building a Space Elevator that he and some collaborators have created.

I’m up next – I’ll post my presentation for all to see.  It contains an important announcement which I’ll cover in a separate post.

Markus wrap-up.

Finis…

First up is Andreas Hein from WARR.  Andreas is a long-time contributor in the Space Elevator field.  His talk today uses the Brad Edwards model of constructing a Space Elevator and where he believes it must be changed / updated.  The upshot of his presentation is that, in his opinion, CNTs may not be strong enough to feasibly build a space elevator and that we should investigate an alternative material – colossal carbon tubes.  Andreas also believes an alternative method of deployment, reeling, will be needed along with a round cable in the atmosphere, rather than a ribbon.

Next up is Nelson Semino, the designer of the Space Shaft; an inflatable, atmospherically bouyant structure that allows one to haul up large amounts of cargo to low-space.  He proposes a 100km tall structure built out of Hypercubes – boxed-shape bladders that are filled with Helium.

The next talk was by ISEC Board Member, Peter Swan.  His talk is “Space environment for space elevators: new insights on space elevator and debris collision probabilities.”  Peter headed up the ISEC “Red Team” that has produced a definitive study of the problem of space debris as it relates to a space elevator.  Right now, this paper is in peer review.  The details (and calculations behind them) are in this report and I recommend that you read it when it comes up, but the upshot is that only at LEO do we have an issue and then, only from the untrackable pieces.  It is estimated that the Space Elevator at LEO (200-2000km above earth) will be hit on average every 10 days by a piece of this untrackable debris.  A self-repair mechanism must be built into the Space Elevator system, but if that is done, and the design is correct, there should not be a concern that a piece of space debris will ‘take out’ the Space Elevator.

Break…

First up is Dr. Pugno of the Laboratory of Bio-inspired Nanomechanics at the polytechnic Institute of Torino, Italy.  Dr. Pugno originally came tot he notice of the Space Elevator community when he began to discuss defects and other potential problems with making a tether suitable for a Space Elevator.  I remember Brad Edwards being somewhat dismissive of Dr. Pugno’s work, but I think time has proven him correct.  Dr. Pugno has been turning his attention to making these cables as strong as possible and today’s talk was on the same theme.  He drew parallels to the organic world; if bones, for instance, can heal themselves, why can’t CNTs?  If some sort of self-healing capability could be introduced into a cable, then it could become more robust.  This was a very interesting presentation and I think there is a real future in this work.  The SE community had always postulated repairing the tether, but from macro-size breaks (introduced by space debris, etc.).  Dr. Pugno brings this down to the atomic level and his idea may turn out to be vital.  He still believes that the maximum strength possible for a cable is 38 GPa…

Next up is Sourabh Kaushal and Nishant Arora from India, presenting via Skype.  Sourabh and Nishant prepared a paper, entering the 2010 Pearson prize and also presented at the 2010 Space Elevator conference in Redmond, Washington.  Their presentation was general in nature, discussing Space Elevator concepts.  We had technical difficulties with Skype and so their presentation was abbreviated.  I believe they were proposing using graphene as an alternative to CNTs, but I’ll have to review their presentation slides to be sure.  All of us at the conference were very happy to have a presentation from India.

Break…

Professor Kai from Japan then presented his talk; “Who can establish the space elevator?”.  Dr. Kai presented the case that only an international organization would be allowed by the world community to build & operate a space elevator.  He uses Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty as his justification.  This organization would initially be modeled on the existing treaty for the International Space Station, but must be open-ended so that any country can join it.  Professor Kai presented his paper via Skype – no technical issues this time.

Professor Kai was followed by Shuichi Ohno, the president of the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA).  Ohno-san talked about the 2010  JSETEC (Japan Space Elevator Technical & Engineering Competition) event hosted by JSEA, including summarizing the teams that competed and the results of the competition.  Ohno-san included several very interesting pictures from the competition in his presentation.  Next year, JSEA plans to double the height the climbers must ascend from 300 meters to 600 meters – it will be interesting to see what they use to hold the tether aloft.  Ohno-san said that there will be teams from Japan competing in the upcoming EuSEC (European Space Elevator Competition).  The JSEA-sponsored LASER competition was also discussed.

Next up was a presentation by Franciska Volgyi (from the Technical University of Munich – TUM) on EuSEC, Europe’s first Space Elevator Challenge.  This is targeted towards student teams and the goals are to establish a European Space Elevator Community, to introduce the Space Elevator concept to he European public and to increase the understanding of the Space Elevator System.  They have set up four categories of team entries, starting with remote-controlled, battery powered systems working their way up to autonomous, beamed-power systems.

The last presentation before lunch was by Mikhail Schwarzbart from the Institute of Mechanics and Mechatronics on the stability of the Space Elevator.  This presentation had the most equations of any of them ? but I think the upshot of his presentation was that the modern day concept of a Space Elevator is long enough and has enough mass to be inherently a stable system.  His model was a simple one, including only the earth and the tether – climbers were not included.

Lunch…