And, to get this out of the way right away, it’s a good thing that the Bears-Seahawks games was a preseason one – ’nuff said…

The first day of the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference was outstanding.  The morning was “setting the stage”, introductory information and a fine Keynote speech from Science writer Leonard David of how the Space Elevator fits into the current space paradigm.

The afternoon sessions were all technical ones and I think it’s safe to say all attendees learned a lot.  It’s hard for me to pick a favorite, but I must comment on the final session of the day, on Weather; how it can be measured, how it can be forecast and what it means for a space elevator.  The presenter, Winifred Crawford ended her presentation with the suggestion that we start recruiting a meteorologist (or two) and freely admitted that she was hooked on the concept of the Space Elevator.

All of these sessions are being recorded and will be on our video website in the near future – watch this space for an announcement…

On to Day 2!

Winifred Crawford gave a talk about some specific aspects of weather, specifically wind and lightning and what is really known about them.

Winifred talked about the amazing power of lightning and that there are two types; natural and triggered.  She also pointed out that the areas now posited as ‘best’ locations for the Space Elevator (for example, on the equator – west of the Galapagos Islands) have much less lightning that other areas do, but that the number of lightning strikes even there is not zero – it must be planned for.  She also talked about how lightning hurt (but did not destroy) the Apollo 12 mission and that lightning did destroy an Atlas Centaur launch.

She also talked about rain and the problems it causes and noted that much less data has been captured about weather over ocean locations than it has for land locations and so satellite weather gathering will be key.  Satellites can also capture sea surface temperature and current data, knowledge of both of which will almost certainly be needed to run a Space Elevator.

Finally, she showed how all this data can be used to forecast the weather at a Space Elevator Base station, something which will be absolutely critical for a successful operation.

Peter Robinson gave a very interesting talk on how we might go about validating the design and simulating the operation of a Space Elevator.  He pointed out some famous engineer failures from history and all of them, of course, failed to accurately simulate their operation.  A common theme to many of these failures was that they were the first of their design – there was no other similar acting structure to use in validation and simulation.

This will obviously be a problem with a Space Elevator too – the first one will be, well, the first one.  Peter proposed how simulation, validation and testing can be built up step by step.  He also emphasized that MTBF for Climbers is very important – they will be very difficult, if not impossible, to service while on the tether.  Peter also posited that the building of a Lunar elevator will be a pre-requisite to building an earth-based space elevator.

“You won’t be allowed to build an earth-based space elevator unless you can convince an awful lot of people that the elevator will be safe.”

Keith Loftstrom, author of the Lofstrom Loop, gave a presentation on “Loop Technology – Increasing Throughput, Decreasing Radiation”, his take on how to improve (or even in some cases, to discover) assumptions being used in designing a space elevator.  He touched on many subjects, but one was the location of the Ground Station.  Conventional wisdom has that it should be located on the equator for efficiency reasons.  Keith posited a Ground station 8 degrees south of the equator, claiming that a) this would allow the tether to be ’tilted’ allowing things to be oriented off of the tether, b) it keeps the tether out of the way of things in orbit around the equator and c) that if the tether breaks, the mass above the break will be flung out into space along the imaginary equator line, thus missing other tethers that may be constructed.

He also talked about how to use the Space Elevator to eliminate the Van Allen Belts.

He discussed much more – this is just a brief.  His talk, like all of the others, are being recorded and will be available some weeks after the conference.

If you want to view this presentation now, visit http://www.launchloop.com/SEPulley.

One of the ISEC reports, finished a year or so ago, is entitled “Space Elevator Concept of Operations“, a fairly in-depth look as to how the operational aspects of a Space Elevator system might actually work.  This includes the land port, the ocean port, the tether itself, attaching / detaching the climber to the tether, etc., etc., etc.

Skip Penny headed up this project and gave a talk on the report and current thinking on this topic.

One of the presentations this morning was from Nick Martin and Mark Dodrill, reporting on progress with the ISEC History Committee (I wrote about the formation of this committee here).  Lots of progress has been made, but this effort is still in the early stages.  Nick and Mark are collecting both oral and written documentation about the development of the concept of the Space Elevator and all the work that has been done since.  There IS a lot of information and I applaud this effort – things get forgotten if they don’t get written down.

The picture thumbnail is of Nick – he has definitely won the “best dressed and most dapper” attendee at the conference (so far) 🙂

Click on the thumbnail for a full-size version.

Noted Science author Leonard David is now giving the Keynote speech at the ISEC 2014 Space Elevator Conference, talking about how the Space Elevator fits into the “current space environment”.

He had an interesting, and almost certainly true statement, early on in his talk.  He said the space elevator, whenever it is built, will be “very different” from what we think it might be now.  We need to keep an open mind.  One of his final remarks struck me; “Be prepared to be stunned by the future“.

Clicking on the thumbnail will display a full-size picture.

All of these presentations are being recorded so, “God willing and the creek don’t rise”, they’ll be posted on the ISEC Vimeo account in the near future.  I’ll notify you here when that happens.

It’s Friday, August 22nd, 2014 and that means it’s the first day of the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference!

I’m here attending again, as a Director of ISEC and as an enthusiast and supporter and will be documenting the conference as we go along.

I’m from Chicagoland and the conference is in Seattle.  Now, if you’re a professional football fan (and especially if you’re from Chicago or Seattle) you know that the Bears are playing the Seahawks in an exhibition football game this evening.  Now yes, this is preseason, but it’s preseason game number 3 and, if you follow football, you know that this is close to what you’re going to see during the real season as is possible in preseason.  The starters will play at least a half and maybe more.  I’m a Bears fan and, like all Bears fan, we’re really looking forward to this game – it will be a good test to see how the team might do this year.

I’m bringing all this up because when I left the hotel this morning, riding down in the elevator with me was a young couple and the lady was wearing a Chicago Blackhawks TShirt.  I commented to them that “I like your TShirt”.  They smiled and asked me if I was from Chicago.  When I said I was, they said they were too.  I asked them if they were going to watch the Bears-Seahawks game tonight and they said they were actually going – they had tickets!  I’m jealous.

So, a Chicago connection already and the conference hadn’t even started – a good omen indeed…

And, back to the conference – we’ve had the introductory remarks from Conference David Horn and now Dr. Bryan Laubscher is giving his “Space Elevator 101” talk to get everyone on the same page…

More soon…