Only six more days until the “Early Bird” registrations for the 2012 Space Elevator Conference, with significant reductions over the standard registration rates, expire.

As noted earlier, this year’s Conference is being held, for the first time, at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.  This venue should be a great backdrop for the conference and the Conference organizing committee has done a great job in getting everything ready.

The program is full and contains many relevant and insightful presentations.  The second issue of CLIMB should also be ready in time to present (and sell!) at the Conference.

So, get your registrations in by July 9th, or pay the full price – see you there!

Veterans of the Spaceward’s Foundation Space Elevator Games have the pleasure of knowing Vern McGeorge.  He’s one of those guys who works tirelessly behind the scenes getting stuff done, getting stuff made, getting stuff fixed, so that the competitions can go on.  I have blogged about Vern’s contributions before, and that didn’t do him justice – he’s one of the good guys that just makes things happen.

Several weeks ago, I stumbled across his first novel, All Fall Down, a story about (in Vern’s words):

When Col. Roberto di Vincente, driven to avenge the shooting of his wife by U.S. Marines, leads a paramilitary attack on the Space Elevator’s base platform anchored off the coast of Brazil, Marcus Gant, the deputy chief of security, is taken hostage along with most of Port Sheffield’s crew. Gant had hoped to live peacefully, far from the streets of Boston where his on-duty shooting of a child tore his family apart. When his boss is executed following a failed escape attempt, he is thrust into leadership of Port Sheffield’s nascent resistance movement.

Stephanie Petersen and the visiting VIPs, including the man di Vincente blames for the death of his wife, escape up the elevator during the attack. An enemy force, led by Major Eduardo Vieira, di Vincente’s ruthless second-in-command, follows in close pursuit. At Clarke Station, Stephanie is reunited with her estranged husband, Tom. Together they will make their stand.

Col. di Vincente intends to use the Space Elevator to lift small missiles high above the earth, giving his nuclear and biological weapons global reach. His goal is to coerce social justice from the temperate “haves” for the tropical “have-nots” who have been reduced to pariah status following a world-wide plague.

His financial backer, Daniel Falcao, and Major Vieira, plan to betray him and launch the missiles against major cities in the developed world so that Brazil can emerge from the resulting chaos as a world power.

Learning this, the President of the United States has set in motion Slam Dunk; simultaneous preemptive nuclear strikes against Port Sheffield and Clarke Station. Marcus, Stephanie, and Tom must race against time to prevent the destruction of the Space Elevator, the sacrifice of its crew, and the possible slaughter of two-billion people. 

Intrigued, I purchased the book on my Kindle (I love my Kindle – thank you wife!) and devoured it in two late-night sittings.  It’s a great read and I highly recommend it.

And, to make things even better, Vern will be ‘selling’ All Fall Down for free, at Amazon, on the Kindle, from July 4th through July 8th.

The book’s Amazon website is here.  Vern’s blog, Spark of Ideation can be found here.

Just a note about the content – the Space Elevator in this story is not a tensile structure (which current thinking dictates it must be) but rather more in the mold of the one described by Sir Arthur C. Clarke in his Fountains of Paradise.  Vern talks about why he chose this model and many other considerations in the book’s Afterword.  Vern does have some additional Space Elevator novels in the pipeline and, well, that’s a story for another post.

While reviewing some of the older Space Elevator Conference programs and trying to see if some of the presenters were still active in the SE arena, I ran across this 2007 paper by Major Jason Kent.

This paper, entitled “Getting to Space on a Thread – Space Elevator as an Alternative Access to Space” was a “Blue Horizons paper” written for the Center for Strategy and Technology for the Air War College.

Major Kent presented a couple of papers at the 2008 Space Elevator Conference and I remember having some very interesting discussions with him during one of the lunches.

Because a Space Elevator will allow such scalable, reliable (and relatively inexpensive) access to space, there is no question that it will be a very significant military asset to whoever controls it.  There is a viewpoint that if the world cooperatively builds a Space Elevator, then, perhaps, we can make it a ‘universal good’, much like, say, the Internet is.  Others (including me) are not so optimistic.

Regardless, it is very interesting to see a military evaluation of the Space Elevator and the article is (IMHO) well worth the read.

Hot off the press is the April, 2012 SEC eNewsletter.  Stories covered include the Space Elevator Conferences’s move to the Museum of Flight, ISEC’s new schedule of yearly events, announcements regarding the Call for Papers for both the Space Elevator Conference and the second issue of CLIMB, ISEC’s move to its new website address and announcements about the upcoming European and Japanese space elevator competitions.

So, check it out and, if you want to be put on the ISEC email list so that you will not miss any future issues (it’s free!), just visit the ISEC website and sign up.

An electronic, pdf version of CLIMB, the Space Elevator Journal, is now available.  For those of you who didn’t want to pay for the print version, you can purchase an electronic version for only $1.99.

Just visit the ISEC store and click on the PayPal button.

Volume 2 of CLIMB is well underway and we’re on track to release it at the upcoming Space Elevator Conference (August 25-27).  And, speaking of the Space Elevator Conference, stay tuned because a major announcement about it is imminent!

Once again, all together now;

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Space Elevator Blog!
Happy birthday to you!

Really, six years.  I remember when I started this blog.  I was recovering from some fairly major surgery and was sitting at my computer, just poking around the ‘net, looking for something interesting to read.  I had just re-read Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise and wanted to know what was going on in the “Space Elevator Community”.  I found a few sites and several postings, but nothing that seemed to bring everything together.  I had authored a blog before, and so wasn’t new to the field, so I decided to start a “Space Elevator Blog”.  Being the creative guy that I am, I named it “The Space Elevator Blog”.

The idea of a Space Elevator continues to grow and I’m proud to say that the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) is playing a leading role in this.  ISEC, along with the Japan Space Elevator Association and EuroSpaceward, are the leading proponents of this idea; pushing it forward, introducing new concepts and working towards that day when a Space Elevator a reality.

In keeping with tradition, I would list the highlights of the last 12 months as follows:

The 2011 Space Elevator Conference.  ISEC funded the visits of several Carbon nanotube (CNT) experts to the Conference.  All of them presented papers on the current ‘state-of-the-art’ in CNT development.  We also heard our first inkling of a possible alternative to CNTs, that being Boron Nitride Nanotubes (BNNTs).  This substance, something which does not occur in nature, has 95% of the theoretical strength of CNTs.  Options are good!  The 2011 Conference also the introduction of its first ever “Family Day” where children were able to build Lego Climbers and enter them into a competition held at the Conference.  This idea was first fostered by the Japan Space Elevator Association and their annual LASER competition.

The inaugural issue of CLIMB, the Space Elevator Journal, was published.  As someone who was thoroughly immersed in all the details of this project, I have a new-found understanding and respect for Journal editors.   It’s been a goal of ISEC to publish a Space Elevator Journal ever since it was founded and I’m glad that we have finally succeeded in this effort.  It should be a great marketing tool for the Community and is another step forward for us on the road to ‘scientific respectability’ (or something like that).  The print edition can be found here and the eVersion will be available on our website in the next several days.

The Europeans held their first Space Elevator Games, 2011-EuSEC.  With these Games, we now have space-elevator related competitions being held in the United States, Japan and Europe.  Congratulations to those people at EuSEC who made this happen.  The 2012 EuSEC Games are already scheduled and will be the subject of a future post.

The Japan Space Elevator Association held another LASER and another JSETEC competition.  The Japanese are so, well, Japanese.  They start out small but continue to build and grow and, before you know it, are world leaders in the areas they decide to concentrate in.  I remember when I was on my ‘second tour’, living and working in Saudi Arabia.  There were three of us, me (an American of course), a Brit and a Japanese national that hung around together.  Our conversations often revolved around business strategies and the Japanese guy used to tell us that “We Japanese are farmers; we till and cultivate and prepare and eventually get a solid, sustainable ‘crop’.  You Americans and Europeans are ‘slash-and-burn’ guys, just looking for the quick buck and then you move on.’  There was a lot of truth in that statement…

The Space Elevator was given a two-page spread in the world-renowned publication, the National Geographic Magazine.  And, even more exciting, ISEC was mentioned as a ‘technical source’ for the article.  Their monthly circulation is in the neighborhood of 8.5 million copies, of which ~40% reside outside of the United States. This was truly a coup for ISEC – being mentioned in such a widely read and prestigious publication as National Geographic will pay us many dividends, now and down the road…

The University of Cincinnati and the Air Force Research Laboratory hosted the annual Nanotechnology Workshop on the campus of the University of Cincinnati.  I attended this workshop in 2010 and, while it was absolutely fascinating, I was disappointed to see so little emphasis placed on the specific strength properties of CNTs.  Almost all of the presentations dealt with the electrical properties of CNTs or infusing ceramics with CNTs to create novel, new materials or forming CNTs into unique structures, etc.  The 2011 Workshop, however, was a different beast altogether.  At least half of the presentations at least mentioned the specific strength properties of CNTs and a few of the presentations focused on this aspect entirely.  It seems that academia has finally turned its attention to this possibility and I think that only good things can come from it.  And, I was allowed to present the idea of a Strong Tether Competition to the attendees, something which I hope will bear fruit in the not-too-distant future…

The phoenix-like return of LiftPort.  They are now concentrating on promoting the idea of a Lunar Space Elevator.  It’s great to see that Michael Laine is still involved in the whole space elevator enterprise.  His name is the most-recognized one in the field.  Every time I put up a post which mentions his name, my readership spikes.

Other highlights include ISEC becoming an officially recognized 501c3 corporation, the initial release of Maurice Franklin’s Space Elevator Analysis Spreadsheet, the porting of the Space Elevator Pocketbook to the iPhone, being mentioned in the new coffee-table book The Cult of Lego, Jerome Pearson’s EDDE project finally getting some government funding, Japan’s Obayashi Corporation announcing their intention to build a Space Elevator by the year 2050 and the release of the 2011 ISEC Theme Poster.

Disappointments include the lack of progress in the Strong Tether Competition, no ISEC report for 2011 (although the 2012 report on Operating and Maintaining a Space Elevator is well on its way) and the very sad passing of Gaylen Hinton, the first ever recipient of an Honorable Mention in the Artsutanov Prize competition.

What will the next 12 months bring?  Well, it’s fairly safe to say that there will be a 2012 Space Elevator Conference, we will have Space Elevator related competitions in the US, Japan and Europe, we should see the second issue of CLIMB and the 2012 ISEC Report.  And, I’m sure that there will be many other developments that will be a surprise…

Stay tuned!

(5 year anniversary post here.  4 year anniversary post here.  3 year anniversary post here.  2 year anniversary post here.  1 year anniversary post here.)

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.

When the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) was first formed, the only website available with the ISEC acronym was http://www.isec.info.  Much later on, http://www.isec.org became available and we snatched it up.  You can visit either URL and see the ISEC website, but our internal/external email addresses have always been isec.info, not isec.org.  This has been due to the vagaries of Google email and our own internal procrastination to ‘bite the bullet’ to favor one URL over the other.

We are now finally transitioning our email to the isec.org address.  These new email addresses are now active and the isec.info email addresses we have used in the past are being phased out.

So, the upshot of this all is this – if you want to contact ISEC or anyone in ISEC, you will need to start using the following email addresses:

• Ted Semon – President and Director (ted.semon@isec.org)
• Peter Swan – Vice-President and Director (pete.swan@isec.org)
• Martin Lades – Secretary and Director (martin.lades@isec.org)
• Skip Penny – Treasurer and Director (skip.penny@isec.org)
• Ben Shelef – Director and Technical Pillar lead (ben.shelef@isec.org)
• Markus Klettner – Director (markus.klettner@isec.org)
• Bryan Laubscher – Director (bryan.laubscher@isec.org)
• Ben Jarrell – Legal Pillar lead (ben.jarrell@isec.org)
• Matt Gjertsen – Public Relations Pillar lead (matt.gjertsen@isec.org)
• David Horn – Conferences Chairman (david.horn@isec.org)
• CLIMB – The Space Elevator Journal (climb@isec.org)
• Membership services (membership@isec.org)
• Customer Service (customerservice@isec.org)

All other ISEC email addresses are going to be phased out in the next few weeks, so please, update your address books.  If you try to send an email to an isec.info email address after that time, you’ll get a polite email informing you that the old addresses no longer work and that you have to use the new ones…

And, if you want to talk about something related to ISEC, please feel free to email me at ted.semon@isec.org.

Thank you!

I have just found out that Gaylen Hinton, the first person to be awarded an “Honorable Mention” in the Artsutanov Prize competition and a contributor to Volume 1 of CLIMB, has recently passed away after a long bout with cancer. Gaylen’s online Obituary can be found here.  It’s fascinating reading and just goes to show how so many times we know so little about our fellow human beings…

The last time I heard from Gaylen was several months ago; we were working on the final edits to one of his contributions to CLIMB.  He apologized to me for being tardy in his response saying that he had been diagnosed with “terminal cancer”.  As a cancer survivor myself, I do have some small understanding of what he was going through, though I’ve been much luckier than he was.

Gaylen was never afraid to ruffle feathers – indeed, his Honorable Mention paper talked about his take on ‘misconceptions’ regarding Space Elevator thought and development.  Gaylen passed away before Volume 1 of CLIMB was published so he never saw the final product, but he did know that two of his articles had been included, so we have that as a small consolation.

RIP Gaylen – you will be sorely missed by our community.

(Picture thumbnaiil is of Gaylen being congratulated by Yuri Artsutanov on being awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Artsutanov Prize competition.  This picture was taken at the 2010 Space Elevator Conference held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington.  Click on the thumbnail to see a full-size version of the picture.)

I’m a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor (not so sure about the person) and one of my favorite movies of his was Total Recall.  Futuristic, lots of mind-twists, unseen aliens, etc., all things which appeal to a science fiction geeks like me.

In a recent posting on io9, David Hughes tells us how a sequel of Total Recall nearly came into being several times – and, in one of the possible versions, Arnold Schwarzenegger (playing Quaid), goes to work on a construction site for a Seattle-based Space Elevator.  From the article:

Dejected and financially dependent on Rekall, Quaid finds a job on the construction site of a Seattle-based ‘space elevator’ — one of Arthur C. Clarke’s proposed constructs tethering an orbital space station to the Earth, allowing payloads to be transported cheaply to and from space.

Meanwhile, an imminent presidential election draws Quaid’s attention to an electoral campaign by Gloria Palomares, the President from his dream, denounced by her opponents as a “mutant lover” for promising to hold a referendum on Mars’ independence if she is elected. Torn between his feelings for Melina (whom he now believes to be a construct of Rekall) and Renee, one of Mrs Palomares’ campaign volunteers, Quaid becomes involved with her political campaign, but is betrayed and framed for an explosion which wrecks the space elevator. Imprisoned for six months in a space prison known as the Pasternak Institute for the Criminally Insane, he manages to escape, and rejoins what remains of the rebels, who tell him of Melina’s death.

Why do they always blow up the Space Elevator?  And, a Space Elevator based in Seattle?  That’s more than 47° north of the equator.  I don’t think so – but hey, it’s Hollywood!

The article is a difficult, confusing read and, I guess it was supposed to be as it is an excerpt from Hughes’ book, Tales From Development Hell.  Reading this excerpt, it seems amazing that anything actually gets done in Hollywood.

But Arnold Schwarzenegger and a Space Elevator?  I’d definitely pay to see that…

(Picture thumbnail of Arnold as they attempt to reprogram him in Total Recall – click on it to see a larger version.)

I had several people email me today with the story that the Japanese Construction company Obayashi is making plans to build a space elevator.

The original story is in Obayashi’s Quarterly Magazine #53 and was announced in a Press Release which you can view online, in Japanese of course (you can use Google Chrome to view it and translate it into English).  The Press Release also shows a few concept drawings of the tether and Base Station.

Their general approach seems to be along the lines of the Edwards-Westling model, i.e. a 100 100,000 km long tether made out of CNTs stretching from a base station on earth (the concept drawing seems to indicate an ocean location) to a counterweight in space.  They describe Climbers, possibly powered by ‘magnetic linear motors’ traveling at ~200km/hr and a space station located at geosynchronous orbit.  They also talk about Solar panels located at the space station, beaming power back to earth.

What they DON’T say is how they will power the Climbers nor do they discuss how CNTs are going to be spun into something useful (the major sticking point right now, IMHO), etc.  From the Daily Yomiuri Online article:

Whether carbon nanotubes can be mass-produced economically enough and whether various organizations from around the world can work together are two key issues facing the development of the space elevator, according to the company.

“At this moment, we cannot estimate the cost for the project,” an Obayashi official said. “However, we’ll try to make steady progress so that it won’t end just up as simply a dream.”

The story is also on the Japan Space Elevator Assocation (JSEA) website and I hope they can work together on this project.  Right now, it’s obviously more “concept” than “engineering”, but as one of my readers put it “Good to see they are still excited in Japan.”

(Picture thumbnail of Tether and Space Station from the Obayashi Magazine Press Release.  Click on it to see a larger version or visit the article to see still more concept pictures).

Over the past several years, I have posted multiple entries on this blog about Space Elevators and Legos.  The two seem to go together like fish and chips or ham and eggs or Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries.  Oh, wait…

For several years now, the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) has had an annual competition (LASER) devoted to children building models of Space Elevators and, this past year, the American Space Elevator Conference added a similar event to its schedule.

And now a new book has been published titled The Cult of LEGO, by John Baichtal and Joe Meno.  It is an absolutely fascinating look into this whole genre, everything from the history of LEGOs, Minifigs, LEGO art, the whole robotics – Mindstorm thing (which I really would like to do one day)., etc.  The last chapter of the book, entitled “Serious LEGO” talks about LEGOs being used for Autism Therapy and “Open Prosthetics”; amputees using LEGOs to help design the next generation of prostheses – talk about being Über cool.

And, in that same chapter, Serious LEGO, is a sub-section entitled “Prototyping a Space Elevator“.  Here the authors discuss the LEGO model of a Space Elevator that the representatives from the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) brought to the 2008 Space Elevator Conference, complete with pictures (I had earlier posted about the JSEA LEGO Space Elevator here).

While not inexpensive (prices on Amazon for this book currently run from $20 on up), it is a really fine look into the whole cult of LEGO.  I’ve skimmed through the entire book and am now about 1/4 of the way through a serious read of it.

Highly, highly, recommended…

And, on a related note, there are now several pictures posted on Flickr of entries into last summer’s The Next Generation of Space Travel competition.  The winning entry was, fittingly enough, of a Space Elevator.  Shown is a picture of the winning entry.  Click on the thumbnail to view a full-size version of the picture.  You can see more pictures of this entry here.

In the February 2, 2012 issue of Nature, there is an article entitled “Nonlinear material behaviour of spider silk yields robust webs”.  This article is, unfortunately, paywalled, but you can probably find a copy of the magazine at your local bookstore.  The Editor’s Summary of the article is as follows:

Spider silk is one of nature’s ‘super-materials’. Its remarkable mechanical properties include high extensibility and strength comparable to that of steel. But Markus Buehler and colleagues show that it is not just these virtues that make silk ideal for web construction. Silk’s nonlinear stress response — linear at low strain, suddenly softening as strain increases then stiffening prior to failure — is also critical. This behaviour allows webs to keep their shape when experiencing small, distributed loads such as those exerted by wind. But during strong local deformations, such as those caused by falling debris, the geometrical arrangement of the threads and the nonlinear stress response combine to limit damage to the area near the impact site, so that the web remains functional.

What does this have to do with Space Elevators?  Well, a lot actually… We all know that the tether must have a minimum specific strength in order to fulfill its function as railway line.  But it is also going to have to absorb various stresses and debris hits, etc. and not catastrophically fail.  The design of the tether will have to incorporate knowledge such as this to make it more robust.  Maybe the eventual Space Elevator tether will look like a Hoytether.

This article was written by a team of authors, one of them being Prof. Nicola Pugno of Italy.  If that name sounds familiar to longtime readers of this blog, it should, as Prof. Pugno has presented at several EuroSpaceward conferences, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2011 Artsutanov prize competition held by ISEC and is also an author of a peer-reviewed paper in ISEC’s Journal, CLIMB.

Prof. Pugno’s article in CLIMB, Modeling the Self-Healing of Biological or Bio-Inspired Nanomaterials, points to yet another possible tool/technique that can be used to make the eventual Space Elevator Tether more robust – the potential of ‘self-healing’ tethers, at least at the nano scale.

One of the biggest objections that the uninformed give to a Space Elevator is “What if it breaks”?  We can design in so many ways to handle this; Make the raw tether’s specific strength more than it needs to be, keep it out of the way of large debris objects by actively inducing oscillations as necessary, design it so that micro-debris hits don’t cause it to catastrophically fail, monitor these debris hits so that weakened portions of the tether are replaced before they fail, have the material be able to ‘heal itself’, at least at the nano-scale, and probably some others I’m not thinking of at the moment.

A very interesting article and well worth finding the magazine for…

Early last year, I posted about an iPad app developed by Mr. Shigeo Saito of the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA).  Recently I learned that he has ported this application from the iPad to the iPhone – so, if you have an iPhone (and, I think there are a few of you that do), then this is good news.

The app is only $1.99 and I’m sure it’s well worth the money.

You can find out more about the app here.

(Thumbnail is of a snapshot from an iPhone running this app.  Click on it to see a larger version or visit the app website to see more screenshots.)

David Appell, PhD and independent science journalist, has penned an article about the Space Elevator, partly based on his experience attending last year’s Space Elevator conference in Redmond.

At some point, it’s supposed to appear in the UK Magazine “Physics World” but you can read it now on his website.  It’s a fairly comprehensive article.

And the relation to ice cream?  Well, that’s in the article – supplemental reading here.

The first issue of ISEC’s Space Elevator Journal is now here!  Volume 1 / Number 1 (publication date – December, 2011) is hot off the presses and will soon be sent out to all ISEC members (past and present) and Journal contributors.

The Journal consists of 8 peer-reviewed Papers plus some additional articles that I think our readers will enjoy.  If I do say so myself, the content level of this Journal is quite high.  We’re now working on making it available in ePub format and then will begin to plan for the next volume of the Journal.

As mentioned earlier, all members of ISEC will be receiving this Journal in the mail soon.  If you are not a member of ISEC but want to purchase a copy, it will also soon be available on the ISEC website.  But rather than buy it there, why not join ISEC instead? You will get a copy of the Journal mailed to you as part of your membership benefits and you will help us move this most magnificent engineering project forward.

(The photo thumbnails are of the Journal cover and an inside view of the photo of Yuri Artsutanov and the Foreword that he graciously wrote for our Journal.  Click on either of them to see a full-size version.)

Update Feb 9, 2012 – You can now order this hard-copy publication at lulu.com.

Catching up on an older item here…

Over at the Space Elevator Reference, there was a post last November about a new product lab at Google, called Google X.  The original story referred to is here.

And, it didn’t take long to find the naysayers…  In the Times Science online edition of November 21st, columnist Jeffrey Kluger likens the Space Elevator to ‘…trickle-down economics’ – one of those ideas that ‘just won’t go away’.  He lists a long litany of reasons why a Space Elevator ‘probably never will’ exist.  He mentions the Coriolis effect, space debris, having to put the base station at sea, etc., etc., etc. and winds up estimating that the system will cost ‘$13.6 kazillion zillion’.  Sigh.

Maybe I’ll send him a copy of the ISEC Journal (real soon now, promise!) and our report on Space Debris Mitigation…

Yes, I know, it’s been a long time since I put up a post – I just needed a break from blogging for a while.

But I’m back and ready to get you up-to-date on the latest goings-on in the Space Elevator community.  Many exciting events are in the works including the imminent publishing of the first ISEC Journal, early planning on the 2012 Space Elevator Conference and much, much more.

In the meantime, please enjoy this holiday picture from Professor Pierre Rochus from the University of Liège in Belgium.  You can click on the thumbnail to see a full-size version of the picture.

Happy Holidays!

Long-time space elevator fan Maurice Franklin has created a very interesting document, the Space Elevator Analysis Spreadsheet.  He explains it as follows:

The Space Elevator Analysis Spreadsheet provides you with the ability to calculate the characteristics of a Space Elevator and vary the inputs to those calculations.  Thus the spreadsheet allows you to see the impact upon the mass, capacity, time to build and other important aspects of a Space Elevator when different strength of ribbon, type of deployment spacecraft, efficiency of climber power array or other critical choices are made.  As provided, this spreadsheet follows closely the choices and calculations made by Dr. Bradley Edwards in his NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts proposal, though the author has attempted to validate the calculations independently of his work.

The author has three goals for this spreadsheet.  First, that Space Elevator enthusiasts wishing to dig into the physics (and thus the math) behind the dynamics of a Space Elevator will find this spreadsheet a useful tool for that purpose.  Second, that individuals who have critiques of the physics of a Space Elevator as laid out by Dr. Edwards, and interpreted here by the author, will have a reference against which to make a case for different calculations.  Third, that anyone proposing alternative Space Elevator configurations will have be able to use this spreadsheet to work through the impacts of their configuration across the many aspects of the Space Elevator system in a consistent and complete manner.

The author looks forward to getting feedback from users of the spreadsheet, whether it be improvements in usability, alternative configuration scenarios, corrections to the physics and math, or anything else.  Contact information for the author can be found on the first tab of the spreadsheet.

In addition to creating this spreadsheet, Maurice is a former employee of Microsoft and is one of the chief organizers of the Space Elevator Conference.

This spreadsheet is going to have a permanent home on my blog.  At the top, in the section which used to be marked “Translation Project” is now the “SE Spreadsheet”.  As new versions are created, they will be updated here and be made available to all enthusiasts and potential collaborators (the Translation Project page is now on the ISEC website).

Thanks Maurice – this is one cool document and should prove be of great use!

It’s still not too late to register – the 2011 Space Elevator Conference, to be held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington, is only a few days away.  This year’s conference is going to be very good and somewhat different in than in year’s past – an entire day, Friday, is going to be devoted to developments in the CNT arena – developments that are crucial to building a Space Elevator.

And, the Space Elevator Conference committee has released their official 2011 SE Poster.  Please feel free to print it out, post it, send it around to your friends – be the first one on your block with this poster in your window!

See you there!

As I blogged about previously, David Horn and Maurice Franklin, two of the co-chairs of the upcoming Space Elevator Conference, appeared on KING TV on the New Day Northwest show.

David and Maurice did, IMHO, an excellent job in explaining the concept of a space elevator and talking about the upcoming Space Elevator conference and NASA/Spaceward Strong Tether Challenge.  They also explained local area (Seattle) tie-ins to the Conference and to the Space Elevator.

You can view the show online here – Great job guys!

And, it’s still not to late to register to attend the Conference – the registration link is here.  It promises to be the best conference ever.  Friday is dedicated to talking about carbon nanotubes with several invited experts attending and giving presentations.  Saturday and Sunday are devoted to talking about all aspects of the Space Elevator.  There’s a family track, a Lego competition, the NASA/Spaceward $2Million Strong Tether Challenge and much more.

Oh, and where did the title for this blog post come from?  Watch the interview and find out ?

This coming Sunday, July 24th, from noon to 1:30pm Pacific time, Dr. Bryan Laubscher will appear on Dr. David Livingstone’s The Space Show.  Bryan will talk about the Space Elevator, the upcoming Space Elevator Conference, carbon nanotubes and other related subjects.

From the Space Show website:

The Sunday, July 24, 2011 program from 12-1:30 PM PDT welcomes back Dr. Bryan Laubscher for space elevator news, updates, and conference information.

Dr. Laubscher is a PhD in Physics with a concentration in Astrophysics. After a career as a project leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory that included research and development of astronomy projects, space missions, satellite instrumentation, optics, novel electrodynamic detection techniques, high power lasers, and classified projects Bryan became interested in the Space Elevator. Bryan’s current Space Elevator activities include being the General Chairman for the annual Space Elevator Conference held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, WA. Pursuing the R&D of the Space Elevator has led him to start Odysseus Technologies, LLC a small company based in Washington state with the goal of developing high strength carbon nanotube materials. In August 2010, Odysseus Technologies competed in the NASA Centennial Strong Tether Challenge. Although the tether was not strong enough to win prize money, it was strong enough to beat the other two teams. Odysseus Technologies, LLC is planning to compete in the 2011 challenge. Bryan now lives in Olympia, WA with his wife Carla.

Listeners can talk to Dr. Bryan Laubscher or the host using toll free 1 (866) 687-7223. Listeners can also send short email questions or comments during the discussing using by sending e-mail during the program using drspace@thespaceshow.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com or dmlivings@yahoo.com.

Tune in and get the latest news and don’t hesitate to call in if you have a question or comment.

Tomorrow, Sunday, July 10th, is the last day for the “Early Bird” special rates for the Space Elevator Conference.  After that date, the prices will go up.

This is going to be a dynamite conference, as you can see from the Conference Program.  Experts from the University of Cincinnati and Rice University will be joining us on Friday to talk about strength possibilities (and limitations) of carbon nanotubes.  We have the NASA / Spaceward Strong Tether competition (with a $2 Million prize!) also coming up on Friday.  On Saturday and Sunday, we have presentations on the current state-of-the-art thinking about this most wonderful of concepts.

So, register early and save some bucks (and then you can use those dollars to purchase a membership in ISEC!)

See you there!

(Note – this appearance has been moved to the following day, July 14th, still at 11:00am (US Pacific time)

Next Wednesday, July 13th Thursday, July 14th, at 11:00am (US Pacific time), Space Elevator Conference organizers David Horn and Maurice Franklin are scheduled to appear on the New Day Northwest show on KING TV (Channel 5) in the Seattle Area.

David and Maurice will be talking about the conference and all the activities scheduled for it.  Every year, this conference gets better and better and they will have a lot to talk about.

With the truly high-powered lineup we have assembled for this year’s conference, we are sure that we will exceed the publicity generated last year (here’s a link to a KING TV story from last year’s conference).

So, if you can access this channel, tune in and get a sneak preview as to what you will see when you attend the conference.

Remember, only three more days for the Early Bird special rate – visit the conference website for more details.

See you there!

If you take a look at the latest issue (July, 2011) of the National Geographic Magazine, you will find a short, 2-page article about the Space Elevator, complete with a custom-drawn, concept diagram.

A few of us (Ben Shelef, Dr. Peter Swan and myself) have been working with the National Geographic team over the past several weeks to try and make this drawing and the explanation of it as technically accurate as possible.  Andy Petro of NASA, the Space Elevator Games (Centennial Challenge) and the Space Elevator Conference were also mentioned.

National Geographic was kind enough to give credit to the 3 of us and the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), so the word about the Space Elevator and ISEC continues to spread…

You can also view an interactive version of the article online here.

National Geographic!  Way cool…

A few updates for you…

Over at Marc Boucher’s Space Elevator Reference (THE original Space Elevator website), Marc tells us that “The European Spaceward Association has made available a summary report from the recent 4th Luxembourg Carbon Nanotechnology and Space Elevator Systems as well as the book of abstracts.”  Full details and links can be found at his posting here.

A new book (Triads, The Gradient Stone) themed around a Space Elevator is now available.  From the abstract;

The Gradient Stone, an unidentifiable purple comet, collides with the space elevator creating the first disaster of spacetime mankind has ever faced, what’s even worse is that the hero Alex also seems to be the cause.  The greatest military killers are converging at the world’s first space elevator to form a new branch of military; Primary Resistance and Offensive Tactical Officer’s or PROTO’s are interplanetary paratroopers who possess not only the most advanced weapons and black ops technology but who rely on the ability to kill without emotion. This story follows the cocky and quick-tempered Alex Amador who is intrigued by the calm and collected Evelyn Artwright as they struggle to uncover the reasons why strange global events seem to be centered around Alex and his 19th century relative.

It’s available, it seems, only in Kindle eBook format for $.99.  You can learn more about it here and buy it directly from Amazon here.

Mr. Uche Ogbuji (follow his Tweets at @uogbuji) Tweets that “Also I’m honored my poem “Sendai Space Elevator” will appear in the “New Sun Rising” anthology to benefit Japan http://booksthathelp.org/.  From the website:

On March 11, 2011 a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the north of Japan. In the wake of one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in the history of Japan, a state of nuclear emergency was declared, forcing the evacuation of thousands more.

The world watched, stunned.

We wanted to help. Just giving money didn’t seem like enough.

The idea for New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan was born.

Thanks to your overwhelming generosity, we’ve received amazing stories, poems, and art from around the world. Enough for half a dozen books.

Right now, we’re going through all the wonderful work you’ve sent, making some really difficult decisions. And we’re really excited about how amazing this book is going to be.

And we’re going to give one hundred percent of the proceeds to the Red Cross to aid the relief effort in Japan.

This sounds like a very cool project.

On a related note, I had previously blogged that there was now a Space Elevator app for the iPad.  The author of the app, Mr. Shigeo Saito sent me this update about it:

As you pointed out, this digital book is a revised version of the one you saw two years ago.  I added 4 pages of writing to the old one, changed all of background illustration and attached a movie file of the SE-technology competition held in Japan 2009.

This “Pocketbook” is a digest for beginners who will learn about the Space Elevator for the first time.  I hope this book will become a help in this topic for them.

As you know, a big earthquakes hit our country last week. This digital book was released the day after the earthquakes happened.  So I am going to pay some part of my profit of this book as contribution.

So, you can purchase this cool app and help out Japan at the same time.  Thanks Saito-san!

In the may Space Energy News eNewsletter, it references a January, 2011 article in the Japan newspaper Daily Yomiuri Online.  It talks about an experiment testing the feasibility of space-based solar power generation;

The technology would start by generating electricity from sunlight in space, convert the power into microwaves and then send it to Earth, the team said. The planned test will attempt to convert a strong electric current into microwaves and transmit them 10 meters away in a simulated outer space environment at Kyoto University.

I have blogged before about my skepticism about this technology.  I have no doubts that it is technically feasible.  No real scientific breakthroughs need to occur in order to have some sort of demonstration project set up.  But I am very doubtful about this being used to generate a significant portion of the world’s energy needs – the amount of energy we use is just too vast.  I think I calculated once that it would take solar satellites with the combined area of the country of India beaming down to an area the size of Italy, just to keep up with the forecasted increase in our energy demand.  The problem is just one of sheer bulk – an awful, awful lot of material would have to be put into geosynchronous orbit (and then maintained, perhaps an even bigger problem).

But, hope springs eternal.  Japan is certainly the ideal testing place.  They are a skilled, patient people, very technologically advanced and, with a falling birth rate (which, along with being more energy efficient, could translate to an actual drop in their energy needs).

I am waiting for the day when any proponent of space-based solar power actually ‘runs the numbers’ and states how much material (weight and size) will need to be launched into GEO to generate a significant amount of power – they seem to avoid this exercise…

No matter how efficient the energy gathering / transmission mechanism eventually is, the enormous amount of material to be launched into space to build such a system will demand a commercial earth-to-space transportation system, and that means a space elevator.  If you’re a fan of commercially available space-based solar power, you HAVE to hope that a Space Elevator is technically feasible.

On the treehugger.com website (yes, this is a real website), they allude to this by saying;

The next step will be figuring out how to reduce the cost of putting all that material in space. This will probably mean cheaper and more efficient launchers, but also lighter solar panels and equipment.

Space Elevator, space elevator, space elevator…

A couple of updates for you;

First the upcoming Space Elevator Conference (you are attending, aren’t you?) will be holding a new event; RoboQuest.

This one-day event, Saturday, August 13, also held at the Microsoft Conference Center, will provide an opportunity for young people to learn more about the Space Elevator. Although details have not yet been finalized, we’re planning on having a robotics challenge for middle and high school students, demonstrations of FIRST Tech Challenge robots on a competition field and a LEGO Build Zone for kids of all ages to engineer their own space-faring vehicle.

For more details, check out the Conference eNewsletter.

Second, Brian Turner of the Kansas City Space Pirates let me know that he found out some more information about a YouTube video I had linked to a few days ago.  I didn’t know where the video had come from, but thanks to Brian’s sleuthing, I know now that this elevator climber is the product of three guys from the Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering.  You can read more about them here.

Thanks Brian!

Two more Space Elevator themed videos I’ve found on YouTube…

The first is an interview with Jason from Team Skyhook.  I think they were going to compete in the initial Power Beaming competition, but as I wasn’t there, I’m not sure.  The video is recent (April of this year) and talks about an Engineering Expo last year and the SPACE ELEVATOR PROGRAM at the University of Idaho.  Really?  A program dedicated to this?  I will be sending him an email, for sure.  The video is basically a promo piece for the University…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeVg1IpAz20[/youtube]

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And the other video I have for you today is one from (I think) Israel.  I think this is a beam-powered climber, but I’m not sure.  It’s about a year old.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU6sxxttL10[/youtube]

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It’s amazing how many videos are on YouTube that are found by using the term Space Elevator but are not really related to what we’re interested in…

Some new videos about Space Elevators have shown up on YouTube.

The first appears to be from a German Television show.  As I don’t speak German, I don’t know how accurate the presentation was but their graphic did show a Space Elevator taking off from a land-base, probably something that is not going to happen (the Base station will probably be based at sea).  Most of the video centered around the German team that participated in the Japan Space Elevator Games.

This second video is very interesting (IMHO).  Anyone who was at the Space Elevator Conference in Redmond, Washington last year got to meet Space Elevator inventor Yuri Artsutanov and his interpreter, Eugene Schlusser.  Eugene visited Yuri in Russia and enlisted his help in trying to find his (Eugene’s) Uncle’s grave.  Eugene had this to say about the trip:

We did find my uncle’s grave the next day! He died there in 1943 in the war. This was the first time I had met Yuri, through my cousin Natalie Sherman.

She thought it was not safe for me to travel alone in these remote parts of Russia so Yuri was my well informed chaperon and delightful companion.

It’s interesting to see what the reaction is to Yuri from some of the people they ran into during the search…