Most anyone in the space elevator community knows who Jerome Pearson is. He’s one of the people who independently re-invented the idea of Space Elevator, wrote a seminal paper on the subject and provided much of the rigorous engineering and mathematical underpinnings that such a structure would need.
He attended the 2010 Space Elevator Conference (along with Yuri Artsutanov) and gave a presentation on his “Electro-Dynamic Debris Eliminator” (EDDE) idea, an idea for a low-cost solution to getting rid of large pieces of space debris.
I am happy to report that his idea has now received funding from NASA to begin serious studies and experimentation for this effort. You can read more about that here. And you can visit the website of his company, Star Research, here, and his page on the EDDE project here.
Finally, I would be remiss to not mention that the inaugural issue of our space elevator Journal CLIMB very proudly included a paper written by Jerome on the EDDE project.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this initial project is successful and leads ultimately to a solution for the Space Debris problem that is of increasing concern to everyone who pays attention to these things.
Great! Let’s deal with that mess sooner rather than later. Satellite communications mean money!
Pingback: 6 years? OMG, 6 years!! - The Space Elevator Blog