Updates from the National Space Society (NSS) Space Elevator Team

I received this update from Bert Murray, team captain of the NSS Space Elevator Team;

Hi Ted,

This week the NSS Space Elevator Team finish up our laser absorber tests. The the heat from the absorber will be used to heat helium that in turns drives a Stirling Engine. Attach is a photo of a sample absorber heated with the laser. BTW our Test chamber is a modified army surplus ammunition case.

Cheers,
Bert

So, they are using a Stirling Engine to power their Climber.  The last team that tried that was in 2006, I think, the Fischer28 team.  Let’s hope that NSS fares better…

(Click on the thumbnail of the Absorber for a larger version of the picture)

“5 questions – cabling to Space”

Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates, sent me this link to a recent article about his appearance in front of an eighth-grade science class.  It’s clear that Brian is recruiting the next generation of engineers so that his team can enjoy continued Games dominance in the American midwest… ?

Brian sent me this explanation of his visit: “Bonner Springs is a suburb of Kansas City with a population of about 7,000. A Middle School teacher asked me to come speak to the kids. He also asked the local paper to come and see what was going on.”

Certainly his sponsors have to be very happy with the picture accompanying the story.

(Click on the picture thumbnail of Brian to see a larger version of the picture or else visit the story)

David Williams has a new book…

In June of last year, I blogged about a new book, The Mirrored Heavens, by newcomer David Williams.  I’ve only recently been able to begin reading the book and, while I’m not finished with it yet, I can safely say that the first section of the book is non-stop, pulse-pounding action.  Truly, it gets your motor running…

I bring this up now because David has a new book in his future histories series coming out, The Burning Skies.  From the book’s description:

“In his electrifying debut, The Mirrored Heavens, David J. Williams created a dark futuristic world grounded in the military rivalries, terror tactics, and political wrangling of our own time. Now he takes his masterful blend of military SF, espionage thriller, and dystopian cyberpunk one step further—to the edge of annihilation . . . .

Life as U.S. counterintelligence agent Claire Haskell once knew it is in tatters—her mission betrayed, her lover dead, and her memories of the past suspect. Worse, the defeat of the mysterious insurgent group known as Autumn Rain was not as complete as many believed. It is quickly becoming clear that the group’s ultimate goal is not simply to destroy the tenuous global alliances of the 22nd century—but to rule all of humanity. And they’re starting with the violent destruction of the Net and the assassination of the U.S. president. Now it’s up to Claire, with her ability to jack her brain into the systems of the enemy, to win this impossible war.

Battling ferociously across the Earth-Moon system, and navigating a complex world filled with both steadfast loyalists and ruthless traitors, Claire must be ready for the Rain’s next move. But the true enemy may already be one step ahead of her.”

A visit to David’s website is well worth your while.  The art is first rate and the trailer of the Mirrored Heavens ranks very high on my cool-o-meter.  In his first book, the mysterious enemy Autumn Rain successfully took out the Phoenix Space Elevator.  In his new book, Autumn Rain’s new target is the Europa Platform.

Buy both the books – I don’t think you’ll be sorry.  And, as soon as I’ve finished the first one, I’ll post a review of it.

(Hat tip to io9 – a very cool website in its own right – click on either bookcover thumbnail for a larger version)

Space Elevator Miscellany…

Here are a few Space Elevator related items which have showed up in the Search Engines over the past several days…

Google, a company which has been rumored to be interested in building a Space Elevator, has formed a new venture entitled Google Ventures.  When asked by Erick Schonfeld about their interest in Space Elevators, Bill Maris (one of the fund managers) had this to say;

“Show me one that works,” retorts Maris, “and I will invest in it.”

That will be difficult, of course, until someone actually builds one.  Over at Darnell Clayton’s most excellent Colony Worlds website, Darnell had this to say;

“Perhaps the newly founded International Space Elevator Consortium could help convince Google that a space elevator is something worth investing in, as gaining the support from a public company could go a long ways towards convincing the masses that this long term project is indeed viable.”

Good idea, Darnell.  We’ll follow up…

=================================

I found this article by James Pinkerton of the New America Foundation.  In it he talks about how investing in Space exploration would be an excellent economic driver for the US.  He also discusses the China-India Space race (an issue that I’ve opined on before as a possible impetus to get India to partner up with Dubai and build a Space Elevator) and additionally talks about building a Space Elevator ourselves.  To wit;

And so, for example, if America were to succeed in building a –in its essence a 22,000-mile cable, operating like a pulley, dangling down from a stationary satellite, a concept first put forth in the late 19th century–that would be a major driver for economic growth. Japan has plans for just such a space elevator; aren’t we getting a little tired of losing high-tech economic competitions to the Japanese?

We’ll, it’s a 60,000 mile long cable, but I like the sentiment…

=================================

Finally if you’re a fan of Halo 3, they’ve released the “Mythic Map Pack“, a new set of battlegrounds.  The “Orbital” map is contained within a Space Elevator.  From the Halopedia website;

Orbital takes place inside the docking-station for Quito Space Tether, a Space Elevator that transports cargo and people in and out of the Earths atmosphere easily…

The map is located on an “empty UNSC space platform”[3], more specifically, the station atop the Quito Space Tether. The map contains plaques dedicated to Doctors Tobias Fleming Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa, the creators of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, the map also contains a lot of aesthetical elements such as windows showing the Earth, electronic devices like display screens, escalators, and even a video phone. Overall the map has a feel of advanced technology.

There are several videos of Orbital on YouTube – I thought this one was the best;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy23_gkc32M[/youtube]

A day to celebrate and remember…

On this date last year, I wrote the following:

On this date, April 12th, in 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yury Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human to travel in space. Yuri’s Night celebrations are hosted around the world on this date each year to celebrate this event. Congratulations Comrade!

Another anniversary of note on this date was the maiden flight (in 1981) of the first Space Shuttle, Columbia.

And finally, this date (in 2018) was the initial hoped-for ‘start of service’ date for the LiftPort Space Elevator. Alas…

(Picture credits: Yuri Gagarin via Tass/Sovfoto. Columbia via NASA. Click on the thumbnails for slightly larger versions)

Reader Dan Spencer added the following comment:

In January, more than forty five years after the Evil Empire made Yuri Gagarin a hero of the Soviet Union, Pravda reported that Gagarin was not the first man in space, he was just the first man to survive a flight into space:

Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin’s famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday. According to Rudenko, spacecraft with pilots Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov at the controls were launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome (in the Astrakhan region) in 1957, 1958 and 1959. “All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published,” Rudenko said.

If this is true, and it has to be because it is from Pravda, it should in no way diminish the significance of the Gargarin’s successful flight. If Gagarin knew of the deadly attempts by Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov, we should be even more impressed with Gagarin’s courage.

As noted earlier, tonight is Yuri’s Night – if you know of a party/celebration being held in your area, go and join and spend some time with your fellow space geeks…

Reminder – 400 Years of the Telescope airs tonight

As I wrote about last weekend, a very cool sounding documentary, 400 Years of the Telescope, is set to air tonight.  Here in the midwest, it’s set for 9:00PM, local time.  Check your local listings…

One note for you Tivo/DVR fans, this NOT a NOVA show.  If you have a season-pass to NOVA, it will not record this show – you need to set it up separately.

Watch and enjoy…

Why you should join ISEC – Part 3

In the continuation of the series “Why you should join ISEC” (Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here), I present to you what David Letterman might say if he was asked “Why should someone join ISEC?”:

.

David Letterman’s* Top Five Reasons to join ISEC

#5]  You want to know where your mother’s yarn has gone.
#4]  Bragging rights – be the first on your block to be a card carrying member
#3]  Great Pick-up lines at Cocktail Party
#2]  Develops your unassailable credibility as a rocket scientist
and
#1]  Self Satisfaction at furthering space exploration – Actually you ARE!

(*With thanks to Peter Swan and apologies to Mr. Letterman…)

More Space Elevator music

This is starting to become very cool – more and more people / groups are releasing music about the Space Elevator.  With the recent find of the song by Apraxis, that makes at least 4 Space Elevator songs I’ve found so far.  Maybe I’ll put up a poll at some point and let people vote for their favorite – we can ask Simon Cowell to host a “Space Elevator Idol” show…

From the website:

Click the play button above to listen. This is now at version 1.0 and its not fully mastered.. etc. 

It’s not totally done but we don’t like to keep the fans waiting!  Stuart T joins me on this track as well and it’s a joy working with him. For more info on the concept keep reading.

There is a Play Button, of course, for the music, and also a description of the Space Elevator concept in ‘500 words or less’.  They also link to the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC – come join us!), so they’re keeping the website up-to-date.

Why you should join ISEC – Part 2

On Monday of this week, I gave you my take on why you should join ISEC, the International Space Elevator Consortium.  Today, I present Ben Shelef’s reasoning as to why he thinks that you should join ISEC.

Ben is the CEO of the Spaceward Foundation, the host of the Space Elevator Games.  Ben has done just a great job with this; sheparding the games from a starting point of climbers trying to ascend a 50 meter tether, powered by searchlights provided by Spaceward, to what he is planning to do today; having laser-powered climbers ascend/descend a cable a full kilometer into the sky.  The increase in skill level demonstrated by the teams is nothing short of amazing.  And, lest we forget, there are TWO Space Elevator Games, the other being the Strong Tether Competition.  Though overshadowed by the more showy Climber / Power-Beaming competition, the Strong Tether competition is arguably even more important.  After all, if the tether isn’t strong enough, there won’t be a Space Elevator.

Anyway, here is Ben’s take on why YOU should join the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC):

Consider these points:

• ISEC is the only organization fully dedicated to building a Space Elevator.
• The Space Elevator is the only approach we know of to creating a space-faring, interplanetary civilization.
• Creating a space-faring, interplanetary civilization is the only way to guarantee mankind’s continued prosperity through the 21st century and prevent us from going through another cycle of cultural collapse and loss of knowledge.

Bold claims, to be sure, but true nonetheless. Let’s go over them, starting with the boldest one.  The renowned physicist Stephen Hawkings recently asked: “How can the human race survive the next hundred years?”  The human race faces many challenges, some old, and some new – between wars, natural disasters, climate change, and just plain stagnation, there is no lack of credible threats to our society. What is new and unprecedented is that our immune system is shot.

Throughout our history, mankind was composed of many separate civilizations, interconnected through relatively limited trade routes. Interaction between the civilizations was mostly through commerce, and sometimes through war. This was a good thing, since it allowed different cultures to participate in a Darwinian process – bits and pieces were exchanged, sometimes cultures were merged, and most importantly, the failure of any single civilization through any of the reasons mentioned above did not bring about the end of mankind.

This mechanism has ceased to function now, since our civilization has become a single tightly interconnected culture. We can communicate between any two points on the globe in mere fractions of a second, and we can hurl our bombs at each other across the oceans in less than 30 minutes. Our industry is at the point where it has the potency to affect the environment of the whole planet, not just of the local pond, and our manufacturing and financial systems are completely interdependent.

This adds up to the old adage of having all of our eggs in one basket.  When our current civilization, just like many before it, succumbs to any of the challenges mentioned above, there will be no other civilization to prop it up. We have no backups.  The only way to solve this problem is to expand our habitat into the solar system. Mars is a comparatively easy first step, but even Mars habitation will take decades to become self sufficient, and so we need to start as soon as possible.
—
Enter the Space Elevator. While it is conceivable that Mars habitation can be undertaken using rocket systems alone, it will be a very slow process. The Space Elevator will allow us to transfer huge amounts of mass to Mars, enabling the creation of a self-sustaining infrastructure almost instantaneously.

With an independent Mars civilization in place, we will have our first insurance policy, and having an insurance policy will have a stabilizing effect on Earth.  With Mars in place, we can turn our attention to the vast resources of the asteroids, and form a true spacefaring civilizations.
—
Enter ISEC. The Space Elevator is not a short-term project, which makes it a very difficult endeavor to pursue. Neil Armstrong once said “We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10”.

ISEC is not distracted by “low hanging fruit” that can be achieved soon.  We’re looking to create the kind of space-transportation infrastructure that will get us to space 1000 tons at a time. We think this is the most important pursuit mankind has to engage in – we do not have many generations left to keep idle.

Thank you Ben.  And I say again to all of my readers, if you want a Space Elevator to happen, you should join ISEC.  We are the ones who are pushing the relevant technologies forward, but we need your help to do it.  Please join us and participate in what promises to be one of the defining projects of this century.

San Diego Science Festival features working model of Space Elevator

Reader Chris Radcliff has sent me links to photos of a Space Elevator model which is being displayed at the San Diego Science Festival.  It looks like a lot of work has been put into this and I congratulate the builders on their effort.

Chris has this to say:

Here are a few early iPhone photos of the space elevator model at the Expo:

 
   
     
     

It was an incredibly busy day, with over 60,000 people estimated at the park. We had continuous crowds around the space elevator model, and Adrian talked about it continuously from 10:00am to 6:00pm. It was quite a hit!

I’ll send more photos (and a better write-up) when I’ve had some time to collect them up.

Cheers,
~chris

Thanks Chris!  And, on a personal note, having just shoveled out my driveway (again), the weather sure looks nice there!

(Click on any of the picture thumbnails to see the full-size version that Chris has hosted on Flickr)

Reminder – next Space Elevator chat coming Tuesday, April 7th

The fourth in the series of the Space Elevator Spring Chats, hosted by Marc Boucher at the Space Elevator Reference site, will be Tuesday, April 7th at 2:30pm – Eastern Time. This week I am honored to be Marc’s guest.

The topic: The International Space Elevator Consortium & other news.

You’ll have a chance to read my answers to Marc’s questions and you will have an opportunity to ask me questions yourself.  Find out what it’s like to be the Space Elevator Blogger! ?

I look forward to seeing all of you on Marc’s chat!

ISEC needs you!

This is a Press Release which was sent out this morning:

International Space Elevator Consortium Announces New Membership Drive

Program Aimed at Unifying Space Elevator Community Worldwide, Help Fund Research

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. (April 6, 2009) – The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), a new group designed to globally promote outreach and foster research relating to the construction of an Elevator to Space, today announced details of its membership program.

Proceeds from membership will be used to further the development of an Elevator to Space, such as funding of research and engaging the public at large. According to ISEC, membership is designed to help provide funding for research necessary to build an Elevator to Space, connect people around the world interested in the project, keep them up to date on its progress and provide the public with ways they can help get involved in the program.

“We are looking to make ISEC the single premier authoritative source on the effort worldwide and a way to encourage people at all levels – teachers, students, hobbyists and enthusiasts as well as scientists and researchers – in participating in its development,” said Ted Semon, president of ISEC. “This makes us unique among all Space Elevator organizations.”

Several levels of membership are being offered, including standard, student and premium. Membership includes incentives, discounts and member-only activities at ISEC events such as the Space Elevator Conference and Space Elevator games. All members will receive a complimentary subscription to the ISEC E-Journal, the authoritative voice on Space Elevator activities worldwide.

“In addition, we’re providing unique incentives at each level of membership, with collector’s items at the premium levels,” said Semon. “These include an author-autographed collector’s edition of the “The New Explorers” CD, as well as presentation copies of the original papers about the Space Elevator signed by their authors, Jerome Pearson and Yuri Artsutanov, the “Fathers of the Space Elevator Program.”

Headquartered in the greater Los Angeles area, the center of the aerospace industry, the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) is a non-profit organization devoted to the research and construction of an Elevator to Space. For more information please visit www.isec.info.

For more information please contact:

Ted Semon
ISEC
1-630-240-4797
ted-public@isec.info

Belinda Young
BYPR
1-206-932-3145
byoung@bypr.com

============================================

So, why should you join ISEC?  Why should you become a member and give us some of your hard-earned money, especially in these economic times?  What’s in it for you?  These are all good questions, but I’d like to answer them by asking you some questions; Do you think that humanity should expand beyond earth?  Do you think that humanity should have a transportation system to space which is safe and reliable and scalable?  Do you agree with Robert Heinlein when he wrote; “The earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in.”  Are you a supporter of the idea of Space-based Solar Power Satellites?  If you answered ‘yes’ to any or all of these questions, you should support the concept of a Space Elevator!  A Space Elevator is THE transportation system which can make our race a truly spacefaring one.

ISEC was formed to make a Space Elevator happen.  The money you give us by joining ISEC will be used to fund research into technologies necessary to build a Space Elevator and to ‘spread the word’.  For example, one of the first projects we want to tackle is research into how a carbon nanotube (CNT) tether will actually perform outside the earth’s atmosphere and protective magnetic field.  Atomic oxygen, radiation, space debris and just normal wear-and-tear from Climber traffic will all be hazards the ribbon has to endure.  We’d like to partner with a university or lab and set up earth-based experiments to get some preliminary answers.  At some point, however, we’ll need to actually test a CNT tether in space and that may mean a CubeSat mission.  All of this will take money and focus.  We can provide the focus but we need YOU to provide the money.  Without your support, efforts to build a Space Elevator will continue to be disjointed, unfocused and uncoordinated.

Those of us who have come together to create ISEC (and you can find out who we are by checking out the Team and Partner pages on our website) passionately believe that building a Space Elevator should be considered a high priority by everyone who has an interest in the future of our species.  Please join us by becoming a member of ISEC and participating in what promises to be one of the defining projects of this century.

Updates at the Space Elevator Wiki

Two months ago, I introduced my readers to the Space Elevator Wiki, a project put together and run by Keith Curtis.  From the Mission Statement; “This wiki is intended to be a repository of information and a baseline for research of the space elevator. The general purpose is to provide a structure for collaborative work on the space elevator.”

In the last few weeks, Markus Landgraf has posted a review of current / relevant Carbon Nanotube (CNT) literature.  This is a long-overdue task and I’m very glad to see that Markus has taken the time and effort to put this data together.  There are some very cool articles in his review including;

“In situ Observations of Catalyst Dynamics during Surface-Bound Carbon Nanotube Nucleation” where you can see pictures of carbon nanotubes actually being created and

“Strong and Ductile Colossal Carbon Tubes withWalls of Rectangular Macropores” where Markus describes a material (Colossal Carbon Tubes) which might, today, be strong enough to build a space elevator with. (I’m from Chicagoland – it’s OK for me to end my sentences with a preposition ?).

The Space Elevator Wiki is becoming THE repository for Space Elevator documents and research.  Do yourself a favor and check it out and, if you have anything to contribute, do so…

400 Years of the Telescope

While this isn’t exactly a Space-Elevator related post, it ranks pretty high on my cool-o-meter and I thought I would pass it along to my readers…

One week from today, on April 10th, your local PBS outlet should be showing a documentary entitled “400 Years of the Telescope“.  From the Press Release:

400 YEARS OF THE TELESCOPE, a beautiful new film airing on PBS April 10 (local airdates may vary), is the first PBS documentary to be filmed on 35mm RED technology. Recorded at 4520 X 2540 pixels per frame, the output is RAW format, over five times the resolution of HD. This visually stunning 60 minute film takes viewers on a breathtaking journey back to Galileo’s momentous discoveries, through the leaps of knowledge since then, and into the future of colossal telescopes both here on earth, and floating in the cosmos. The cinematography is extraordinary, as we travel across five continents and through space to view the world’s leading observatories and the majestic visions of space they capture. Leading astrophysicists describe, with warmth and humor, their startling breakthroughs and near failures. With narration by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a musical score by the London Symphony Orchestra, the film makes accessible the exciting future ahead of us.

The show is tied to the International Year of Astronomy 2009, with events worldwide celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first look at the heavens. The airdate specifically coincides with 100 Hours of Astronomy in early April. Astronomy clubs, planetariums and observatories around the world will be hosting star gazing events, with the hope that everyone will take a moment to look up and see what Galileo saw.

If you visit the website, you’ll see a very neat trailer of the show.  This sounds way-cool and I will certainly have my DVR programmed to record this.  As they say, check your local listings…

Space Elevator Blog celebrates its 3 Year Anniversary

Once again, all together now;

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

Yes, I know it’s April Fools day, but again this is no joke – three years ago today, I started this blog. It’s been yet another exciting year. In keeping with my tradition of writing an ‘anniversary post’ (first year summary and second year summary), the following is a list of, IMHO, the more significant happenings in the past 12 months that I was privileged to cover:

The highlights for this past year include:

The creation of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC).  This is the culmination of efforts by most of the ‘leading luminaries’ in the Space Elevator community to create an organization dedicated to actually getting a Space Elevator built.  All of the existing Space Elevator organizations that I know about are part of this effort; the Spaceward Foundation, EuroSpaceward, the Japan Space Elevator Association, the Space Elevator Reference, the Space Elevator Wiki and my own Space Elevator Blog.  In addition, other individuals who have had a long history within the Space Elevator effort have also joined in this effort.   I am very honored to be the President of this organization and pledge to do whatever I can to make a Space Elevator happen within my lifetime.

Attending and blogging on the Space Elevator Conference in Redmond, Washington.  The Space Engineering and Science Institute did an outstanding job in organizing this conference.  The arrangements, facilities and speakers were first-rate.  I truly enjoyed all of the presentations I heard and also presented my own paper on who, IMHO, might be the first entity to actually create a Space Elevator.

Watching the traffic at this site continue to grow.  This post is number 1,172 for this blog so I’m averaging nearly 400 posts per year.  In it’s first year, the Space Elevator blog had approximately 28,000 hits.  In it’s second year, this blog had about 68,000 hits.  In this third year, we’ve had nearly 80,000 hits.  While the growth rate looks like it has slowed, this is actually not the case – the average daily traffic has increased significantly.  In the blog’s first and second years, traffic spiked during my coverage of the Space Elevator Games.  I put up many posts during the Games and nearly 40% of the website hits in year 1 and year 2 were generated during that 10-12 day period.  Even though there were no Space Elevator Games in this past 12 months, traffic at this site still increased over 15%.  I fully expect our traffic numbers to double in the coming year with a) coverage of the Space Elevator games and b) coverage of the activity by the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC).

Watching the preparations for the next Space Elevator Games.  Even though the Games were not held at the hoped for time, it still has been an absolutely fascinating experience watching Spaceward and the competition teams get ready for the next Games.  I don’t think the scope of the next Games has been really appreciated by most people.  To win this competition, teams will now have to use a laser to power a climber that will ascend/descend a 1 kilometer-long tether.  This is freaking awesome!  Spaceward, the organization that hosts these games, now has to deal with entities like the Laser Clearing House to ensure that there are no satellites passing overhead which might be temporarily ‘blinded’ by a competitors laser beam.  A full two million US Dollars is on the line, available to a team that can do this climb at an average of 5 meters/second.  It really is magnificent and I can’t wait for it to happen.

The release of a paper by Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation entitled “The Space Elevator Feasability Condition“.  This paper represents, IMHO, the first serious review of what it will take to build a Space Elevator since the Edwards-Westling Space Elevator book.  In his paper, Ben argues that a tether as weak as 25-30 MYuris may be strong enough to build a useful Space Elevator tether.  He discusses the various parameters which make up his calculations and shows how they relate to each other.  Reading and understanding this document should be a requirement for anyone who is interested in Space Elevators.

And finally, getting a professional-looking masthead for this blog.  I want to thank Susan Seichrist once again for doing an outstanding job with this.

Other highlights occuring the past year the announcement of the first Japan Space Elevator Games, attending ISDC2008 and seeing Ben Shelef’s absolutely awesome model of a hypothetical Space Elevator Games held at Meteor Crater in Arizona, the captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates, Brian Turner, appearing on the Conan O’Brien show, the release of the Iron Man comic book where the chief protagonist, Tony Stark, successfully manages the construction of a Space Elevator, Dr. Who and his cohorts using a Space Elevator to help thwart the bad guys, acknowledging NASA’s 50th Anniversary, the release of Ropewalk, installing DSL for my Mother, and beer-pouring robots.

Downers for the year include my inability to attend either the EuroSpaceward conference or the Japan Space Elevator Association conference due to reasons which are beyond bizarre and the disappointment of Arthur C. Clarke’s last book, The Last Theorem (released posthumously).

So, what’s coming up this year?  Well, first and foremost should be the Space Elevator Games.  As you are reading this, I should be returning home from a trip to an ‘undisclosed location’ with Ben Shelef of the Spaceward Foundation (hosts of the Space Elevator Games), trying to finalize arrangements for the Games.  Let’s hope we were successful.  Also upcoming is the next Space Elevator Conference, scheduled for August 13-16 of this year.  The inaugural Japan Space Elevator Games are scheduled for early August and I would expect either/both the Europeans and Japanese to have another Space Elevator Conference this year (which I really do want to attend?).

The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) should become a serious force for pushing the idea of someone (anyone) building a Space Elevator.  We have a lot riding on this organization and I encourage you to visit our website and JOIN us in helping make this game-changing idea a reality.

Stay tuned and, thanks again for reading!

Alien Space Elevator discovered!

Astronomers from the California Institute of Science have announced today the direct observation of a Space Elevator erected by an alien civilization outside our solar system, located around the second planet in the star system Epsilon Eridani.

Just like the great wall of China, which is the most space-visible human-made artifact on Earth, a Space Elevator is easily detected as a 100,000 km searchlight blinking on and off around the alien planet. NASA’s recently launched Kepler Space Telescope is especially designed to detect such beacons, and the detection circuits located the Eridani Space Elevator as soon as the telescope was switched on. 

When asked about the significance of the discovery, ISEC’s president Ted Semon remarked that it is only logical that an alien advanced race would build a Space Elevator as they become a space faring civilization.  “It is what I would do” he added.  “This is also another example of science fiction predicting science fact.  As is well known, the TV series Star Trek placed the planet Vulcan in the Epsilon Eridani system and now we find that there is actually an advanced civilization there.”

Scientists caution, however, that no more than 12 adults or 2000 lb (which ever is less) should be loaded onto the elevator at any given time, and that you should be careful of the closing doors.  Also, if you have small children with you, you should prevent them from pushing all of the buttons as this could extend the trip by several days.

Blog visitors from around the world

Astute readers of this blog may have noticed a new item I’ve put on the sidebar, a ‘Flag Counter’.  This little widget attempts to identify each unique visitor to the blog by country.  As may be expected, the vast majority of the visitors are from the US, but there are many visitors from around the world.  My recent favorite is this one:

 
And, if you click on the ‘Palestinian Territory, Occupied’ link, you get this:
 
 
I’m not going to go all political on you, but it is nice to see that someone in this part of the world has an interest in Space Elevators…  Incidentally, all of the information on this site about countries and territories comes from the CIA World Factbook.  Click on the “Click for More” link on the flagcounter to visit the site and see where my readers are coming from.

Reminder – Next Space Elevator chat coming Tuesday, March 31st

The third in the series of the Space Elevator Spring Chats, hosted by Marc Boucher at the Space Elevator Reference site, will be tomorrow, Tuesday, March 31st at 2:30pm – Eastern Time. This week, Marc will interview Bert Murray, the head of the National Space Society (NSS) Climber / Power-Beaming team.

The topic: Discussion on the NSS Team efforts and the Space Elevator. Bert has 30 years experience working at Lockheed Martin.

I look forward to seeing all of you on Marc’s next chat!

Transcript of Space Elevator Reference chat with Ben Shelef now available

On March 17th, the inaugural Space Elevator Reference chat was held.  This is a series of chats that is being hosted at Marc Boucher’s Space Elevator Reference site.

The first guest was Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation, host of the Space Elevator Games.

The transcript of this chat is now available.  If you missed the chat, here is your chance to get the absolute latest information on the Space Elevator Games and hear Ben’s answers to other questions that were posed to him.

Call for Papers

A “Call for Papers” has been issued for the 2009 Space Elevator Conference.  From the document;

The Space Engineering and Science Institute Presents
2009 Space Elevator Conference
Redmond, Washington, USA
Sponsored by Microsoft Corporation

Call for Presentations and Papers

The 2009 Space Elevator Conference is a four day conference to be held in Redmond, Washington at the Microsoft Conference Center on August 13-16, 2009.  The conference, focusing on all aspects of Space Elevator development, will engage an international audience of scientists, engineers, educators, managers, entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and students. This conference will feature topical discussions in all of the Four Pillars of Space Elevator Development: Science/Technical, Political/Social, Legal, and Economic. In addition, we anticipate technical and speculative presentations on the topics mentioned below. We invite you to present a paper on a topic of your interest. The evening of August 12 a public presentation on the Space Elevator will be held at the Microsoft Conference Center.

The effort to organize this conference started immediately after the conference last year ended and it promises to be the best ever.  If you have some expertise in a topic relating to the Space Elevator (it doesn’t have to be technical in nature, you can opine on the Legal, Business and/or Public Outreach matters relating to a Space Elevator), then by all means – come to the Conference and share your knowledge!

For the past two conferences, I’ve given a paper on who I thought might be the first entities to build a Space Elevator – perhaps I will do so again this year.

Even if you don’t want to present a paper, you should attend this conference if you have any interest at all in this subject.  This is THE definitive conference about building a Space Elevator and most/all of the leading figures in the field will be attending.

You can view the entire “Call for Papers” document here (it’s in pdf format).  For the latest news about this conference, visit the Conference website.

Be there or be square!

More Space Elevator stuff on YouTube

It’s been a while since I’ve inflicted shown you Space Elevator related videos I’ve found on YouTube.  No, this is not the Jay Leno version of “Videos I’ve found on YouTube”, it’s mine…

This first video is of the ‘future history’ variety, talking about Space Elevators in the 31st century: (Note – updated on 03APR09 at the request of the author of the video, Erich Stüssi.  He emailed me to tell me that the video I had posted was just the ‘rough cut’ of a school assignment.  The one below is the final version.  Thanks for the update Erich.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBB0CLzbq7I[/youtube]
This second video is of YerbY, another musician singing about a Space Elevator.  This YouTube version is the ‘solo acoustic’ version of his song, Space Elevator (on the album called “Space Elevator”). He also has a website where he has an orchestral version of this song plus some clips of other tunes on the album.  From his website:

My album Space Elevator is the culmination of the writing I did during most of 2008. On the album, I sought not to write your average pop songs. There are no repeating choruses or verses. Every word of the lyrics was stated with care. I arranged the instruments with the goal of letting each song unfold gradually from beginning to end, hopefully taking the listener through the same journey I went through in writing it. Also, there is no “filler” on the album; I worked tirelessly on each song until I felt it expressed the idea I intended to convey. I posted the few songs above to provide stylistic samples; I wrote Space Elevator hoping for it to be heard as a complete work.

And, without further ado, here ’tis…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLVJ5S7fqs8[/youtube]
Finally, saving the best for last, is the Space Elevator Games recap / teaser put together by the Chicago video production company Bitter Jester Creative, Inc.  If you were at the last Games, you undoubtedly saw this group, filming everything in sight and interviewing almost everyone in site.  They are putting together a video about the Space Elevator Games with an emphasis on the human side rather than the technical side (though that will be shown, too).I really, really like this video and I can’t wait to see their final product.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpgE0lkYWJ8[/youtube]
 

More lasers in the news…

Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates, sent me a pointer to this story.  An excerpt:

In recent test-blasts, Pentagon-researchers at Northrop Grumman managed to get its 105 kilowatts of power out of their laser — past the “100kW threshold [that] has been viewed traditionally as a proof of principle for ‘weapons grade’ power levels for high-energy lasers,” Northrop’s vice president of directed energy systems, Dan Wildt, said in a statement...

The next step is to start trying out the ray gun, outside of the lab. The Army is planning to move the device to its High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range. Testing is supposed to begin by this time, next year.

Brian says that this laser should “…take care of whatever Ben has in mind.  ‘Ben’, of course, is Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation, host of the Space Elevator Games.  This year’s Games are using an 8-kW laser to propel climbers a full kilometer high.  A 105 kW laser like the one in the story should do considerably better.

In a post I put up in June of last year, I wrote how Brad Edwards said that passing the 100kW threshold for solid-state lasers was an important step in having the technology in place to build a Space Elevator.  That makes this story potentially very significant.

And, in other laser news, it looks like they now may now have another use.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Jordin Kare, the ‘laser guy’ behind the LaserMotive team is trying to use lasers as a weapon against mosquitoes.  The real target here, of course, is malaria, a deadly disease carried by mosquitoes.  From the article:

In a lab in this Seattle suburb, researchers in long white coats recently stood watching a small glass box of bugs. Every few seconds, a contraption 100 feet away shot a beam that hit the buzzing mosquitoes, one by one, with a spot of red light…

“We’d be delighted if we destabilize the human-mosquito balance of power,” says Jordin Kare, an astrophysicist who once worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the birthplace of some of the deadliest weapons known to man. More recently he worked on the mosquito laser, built from parts bought on eBay.

If mosquitoes ever develop immunity to lasers, like they have to DDT, then we’ll all be in trouble…

(Picture thumbnails are from their respective articles.  Click on them for a larger version.  There are several pictures on the ‘Mosquito Laser’ story page.)

Reminder – Next Space Elevator chat coming Tuesday, March 24th

The second in the series of the Space Elevator Spring Chats, hosted by Marc Boucher at the Space Elevator Reference site, will be tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24th at 2:30pm – Eastern Time.  Last week, Marc interviewed Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation.  This week, Marc himself will be on the hotseat as he talks about his Space Elevator Open Wiki & Developer Wiki and how to get involved.

I look forward to seeing all of you on Marc’s next chat!

Happy birthday Captain Kirk!

All true trekkies (I’m not one, but I sure do like Star Trek and it’s offspring) know that today is William Shatner’s birthday.  The list of TV series and shows and movies that this Canadian-born actor has appeared in is truly impressive, but for I, and I suspect most people my age, he will always be “Captain Kirk”.

However, my two favorite YouTube clips of him show him outside of his Captain Kirk role.

First is his immortal rendition of ‘Rocket Man’;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lul-Y8vSr0I[/youtube]

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And, of course, here, acting in the role of Denny Crane, is his absolutely classic defense of guns and the right to self-defense;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJ7cfr9Lso&feature=related[/youtube]

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Happy Birthday Captain Kirk – live long and prosper!

Check out the new wheels for the Kansas City Space Pirates!

I received the following note from Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates team which will be competing in the upcoming Space Elevator Games.  Check out his new wheels!

We have a new ship. One of the requirements for logistics this year is a self contained system. I had put off getting a new trailer until I knew what the requirements and budget would be. I was also just trying to delay the expense. This is a used trailer but has most all the features that we were looking for. Heated, cooled, window, dual axel and v-nose. After we started putting in all of the stuff I was thinking that perhaps a bigger one would have been better. But if needed we can still take the old 20 footer in addition.

And it looks like the competition date has slipped again. We are now in that in between stage where the April date is obviously unreachable but a new date has not been set. More on that later.

Now we just need to put a real big hole in the roof of this trailer for the laser to come out. I am considering naming the trailer so feel free to send me any suggestions. Right now it goes by the ominous name of “the trailer” The old trailer is probably suffering from an inferiority complex.

Most everything else is going well. We did add Asphericon ( http://www.asphericon.net/cms/all/1/0 ) as a major new sponsor and I am quite happy about that. We will now have a complete optics system second to none.

Brian Turner
Team Captain

In the last competition, only the team from USST had a trailer like this, complete with its self-contained laser system.  This year, everyone will.

This is going to be so cool…

(Click on the picture thumbnails for an enlarged view)

Update – Brian wants a name for his new ‘Pirate ship’.  Perhaps he should visit this website and use one of its suggestions.  Personally I like “The really, really mean minnow”… 🙂

First test of the JSEA Balloon-Tether competition track is successful

Shuichi Ohno, Chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) sent me an email about their first test of the Balloon-Tether system that they will be using in their upcoming Space Elevator competition (JSETEC):

Last Monday, our first balloon-tether system experiment took place in Chiba, near Tokyo.  We used a 4.5m diameter helium balloon, 50mm seat-belt tether, battery and a climber.  The Climber successfully climbed tether up to 40m high.  We have received authority to hold the competition.

Next test is with many additional pieces of equipment ( ie. gravity tether tensioner, 3point anchor, more climbers…) and will be held in May.

Ohno-san sent these pictures for us, too.  Click on any of them to view a larger version.













Congratulations to Ohno-san and the Japan Space Elevator Assocation!

Omedetou Gozaimasu!

Weekly series of Space Elevator chats begins this Tuesday

Over at the Space Elevator Reference, THE original Space Elevator website, host Marc Boucher will be hosting a series of online chats dedicated to the topic of the Space Elevator.  Each week, Marc will have a different luminary from the Space Elevator effort on the chat.

Spring Chat Series Starting March 17 and running every Tuesday for at least 4 weeks.

Our first guest will be:

Ben Shelef, Co-founder, The Spaceward Foundation & the International Space Elevator Consortium
Join the Chat: March 17 @ 2:30 PM Eastern Time/ 11:30 AM Pacific Time

Topic: The Space Elevator concept including an update on the Space Elevator Challenges
http://www.spaceelevator.com/chat

So, join the chat and learn, first-hand, the latest goings-on in the Space Elevator effort.  You can also send questions to Marc before the show at:

Marc.Boucher [at] spaceelevator.com.

Hope to see you on the chat!

Japan Space Elevator Assocation to host its own Space Elevator Games

I received this word from Shuichi Ohno, Chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA):

We at JSEA have institutionalized from private organization to Aggregate Corporation in this month, and now, we are planning to hold a new type of space elevator climber competition in Japan on August 8-9.

This competition is focused especially on climber mechanism, a mechanism for faster climbing speeds.  We will use 12V battery for power, making it easier to join than the Power Beaming competition in USA.  Entry fee will be $100 (and insurance fee) for 1 team.

We already have started promotion of this competition in Japan, and 3-4 teams from 2 universities have already expressed their interest.  Another several universities are now considering.

We have to start small due to our limited budget, but we will try to hold a competition every 6 months. Perhaps, we will not have any prize except the honor of “The fastest climber in Japan or world”…

We will support 150-200m tether by 4.5m diameter helium balloon.  Next Monday, we are going to have the first field balloon and tether test.

So, this is great news, of course – it’s wonderful to see Japan get more involved in this type of endeavor.

An official announcement of this competition, the “1st Japan Space Elevator Technical & Engineering Competition” is on the JSEA Website.  The announcement is in Japanese of course.  An English translation is in the works and, when ready, will be posted here.  In addition, I will post any and all information I receive from the JSEA on these Games.

KC Space Pirates March, 2009 update

The latest from Brian Turner, captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates:

Well I have not been sending out updates because “next week” we were going to have a finalized date for the competition. It’s been going that way for 5 weeks now. The date is still listed as tentative. But since everyone watching closely for leaking information knows the date I figure that I can tell my friends.

But the tentative location is really rather exciting and I would hate missing having fun chatting about it. The date is the last week in April or only 7 weeks from today. We also are trying to get in some laser test time before then to give the system a final shake down so we have only a few weeks to get it all together.

But the super cool site is KSC as in Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

If it were not for the trees you could see the Vehicle Assembly Building where the space shuttle gets it’s oil changed every 10 million or so miles. The site is a “for real”, high power, Kilometer long laser test range. The part where Spaceward wants to stand it on end and hook it to a helicopter is creating a lot extra paperwork and that is why it is still listed as tentative. It also happens that such a place would be used for some of the secret kind of testing and we want to drag in about a bunch people, the press, and show what we are doing to the whole world. I can understand that causing some pause.

I did get to go down and check it out first hand. It is not real spectator friendly but then the heightened laser safety standards are not real spectator friendly anyway. If you want to come watch, there is an RV/baseball park about 2 miles south. If you get bored you can hit Coco beach only a couple miles further south. But there is a rumor floating around that we might get on NASA TV or at least be streamed on the Internet.  That will make it all the way back to most of your living rooms. And if nothing else, there is always Ted’s excellent spaceelevatorblog.com. (Thanks, Brian…)

I also went to Photonics West Trade show in late January to try to pick up a sponsor to build a high dollar part that we want real bad. 

It was interesting at the show as more and more of the vendors know what I am talking about when I say I am working on the Space Elevator competition. I still mostly get the polite “Is this guy crazy?” blank smile but then that is generally what I expect. After all, it’s not like I would take us seriously at first glance either. You have to build up to this thing or it might give you whiplash.

Prior to this date announcement, the team and myself had been focusing on improving our system’s questionable weak points and kinda ignoring the stuff that was no big deal but just needed to get done. So now we are buried in grunt work. Stuff we have planned but have not actually got done. Everything from laser stops to spare parts to trailer improvements. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you say things like “Wow, this is a lot of work!” and “Wow, this is a lot of money!”

On a personal note. My neighborhood is getting sewers put in and the spring rains have turned half of my yard and most of the streets into mud. When it’s dry, there is dust everywhere. It’s tracking inside and it’s been a real pain to keep the optics clean. I also slipped on the ice a week ago and cracked a rib. Not a big deal, just hurts whenever I have to lift something.

That’s all for now. Looks like I need to go lift something that we just spent a bunch of money on. 😉

Talk to ya later

Brian Turner
Team Captain
KC Space Pirates

Yeah, what he said…

Competition team updates…

The arrangements are still progressing but not finalized for the upcoming Space Elevator Games – stay tuned to this blog or the Spaceward website for the latest, accurate information about the Space Elevator Games…

In the meantime, two teams have posted updates about their activities.

First up is the McGill Space Elevator Team.  Their blog has a short article and a picture about their new motor controller power supply.

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And the LaserMotive blog has the answer to the question; “What does duct tape, security cameras, multi-kilowatt laser sytems and Harley’s have in common?”  We can all sleep a little easier tonight…

Nothing new…

No, there’s nothing wrong with me (outside of a nasty cold that had me bed-ridden for a few days), there’s just not much going on in the “Space Elevator World” at this time.

Work still continues on finalizing arrangements for the next Space Elevator Games.  It has been reported in many places (but NOT this blog) that the Games are scheduled for April 26th-30th, or alternatively, April 27th-May1st.  This may yet happen but is NOT yet certain.  When the dates and location are set, you’ll hear about it first here on this blog and, of course, on the Spaceward website.  Several of us, including some team representatives, visited the Kennedy Space Center in late February to meet with people from ISTEF, the Kennedy Space Center, NASA, and several other groups to discuss logistical problems and find solutions.  This is no small task.  What Spaceward and the teams are attempting to accomplish this year is truly quite astonishing; creating a laser-powered climber speeding along at an average speed of 5 meters/second up a kilometer-long steel cable racetrack held up by a hovering helicopter.  Because the teams are beaming class-4 lasers essentially straight up into the air, flight restrictions must be observed so that aircraft, especially low-flying aircraft, are not allowed in the area during climbs.  Also, the actual scheduling of the runs must take into account overhead satellite passes as it is might be possible for these lasers to affect some satellite optics.  In addition, because reflections from these lasers off of the climbers can be potentially dangerous, procedures and ‘safe’ areas need be designated so that the “6 year old albino kid who never blinks and has both a 12″ Celestron telescope and a litigious mother” are taken into account and kept safe.  All these problems are solvable, but many parties are involved and all have to be satisfied that the plan is a sound one.

Speaking of lasers, LaserMotive’s Jordin Kare recently appearedon Dr. David Livingston’s Space Show.  Jordin really knows lasers and the show is quite informative – tune in and enjoy…

LaserMotive upgrades their motor…

Yes, it’s true, LaserMotive now has a spiffy new motor for their climber.

Check out their blog post for a picture of the motor and some more details…

Note that they are also looking for alternative uses for this motor.  Hmm…  I think they should use it to power a robot that automatically pumps out draft beer…

Here’s one that pours canned beer from (presumably) a mini-fridge inside of it.  I love how it pours the can in three different phases so that it (almost) doesn’t allow the head to overspill.  It would have been even cooler if they would have had a knife go across the top of the glass to knock off the excess head 🙂  Of course, one would die of thirst waiting for this thing to finish…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tXmGYk_A_c[/youtube]

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Here’s one that does bottled beer.  It has a unique (and unsanitary) way of ensuring that the head doesn’t spill over the top of the glass.  I love the little ‘swirl’ action at the end to ensure it gets every last drop…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gpnma4Rs-I&feature=related[/youtube]

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And here’s a ‘lazy robot’ – you have to hold the glass, but it will ring the bell and want a tip from you…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9rbgttrbxU[/youtube]

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And finally, for you Pownce fans (may it rest in peace), the INEBRIATOR!!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN-bOjLZLgo[/youtube]

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Draft beer, gentlemen, think DRAFT beer.  If you need help, this is the place to go…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMDYMG-wa7E[/youtube]

More space debris…

I’m sure that many/most of you have seen by now the stories about how a Russian and an America satellite collided somewhere over Siberia.  Evidently the Russian satellite (Cosmos 2251) was a ‘dead’ one while the American satellite was part of the Iridium network (Iridium satellite #33).

Just what we need, more space debris.

At some point, we, as a species, are going to have to actively go after this space debris.  It has holed the ISS on more than one occasion and presents a growing danger to satellites and astronauts.  It will also present a danger to the Space Elevator.  Right now, the mitigation strategies for a Space Elevator include shaping the Elevator tether into a curved form so that small debris would not sever the ribbon but rather poke a hole or two in it and inducing waves into the tether, timed so that the ribbon would avoid the larger debris.

I don’t like either strategy but freely admit that I don’t have a better idea.  However, as Ivan Bekey (among others) has pointed out, sooner or later, everything in orbit is going to intersect the path of the space elevator so the problem will come to us.

When we do build a space elevator, lets figure out a way to clear up the space junk, too.  It will be a public service…

This post from the Planetary Society shows the orbits of the two satellites and where they collided.  And, on a personal note, I’m bummed that an Iridium satellite was destroyed.  One of my favorite activities is watching ‘Iridium flares’, fleeting bright spots in the sky that occur when the Iridium satellite solar cells briefly reflect sunlight to where you are standing and viewing the sky.  If you haven’t seen one of these, do yourself and favor and go to the Heavens-Above website.  By entering your geographical coordinates, this incredibly cool site will tell you the time and location of all sorts of sky-stuff you can see from your geographical location.  I’ve had great fun with it and, really, seeing an Iridium flare should rank very high on your cool-o-meter.

(Conceptual picture of space debris from here – click on the thumbnail for a larger version)

The Space Elevator Wiki

The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) has a new partner; the Space Elevator Wiki. 

In July of 2008, shortly after the Space Elevator conference in Redmond, former Microsoft programmer Keith Curtis created this Wiki.

“This wiki is intended to be a repository of information and a baseline for research of the space elevator.“

With the formation of ISEC and a new emphasis on coordinated research into all aspects of developing a Space Elevator, this Wiki promises to be a great tool to move this project forward.  Much/most of the early technical information on this Wiki has been provided by Brad Edwards, but others are now beginning to contribute.  For example, Spaceward‘s CEO Ben Shelef has contributed his Solar Power presentation.  In addition, NASA veteran Dave Lang has been uploading his research into issues surrounding the actual deployment of a Space Elevator Ribbon.  More topics will be added/updated in the near future.

Keith also has his own blog and in its most recent post, guest author Dave Lang (see how nicely this all ties together? 🙂 ) laments about the current state of affairs at NASA and why (in his opinion) things are the way they are there.  His writeup is a more detailed explanation than the one I heard; “The Germans are dead and that’s all she wrote”…

Finally, Keith is also an author and his book “Software Wars” is available for hard-cover or download purchase.  I just downloaded this a few days ago and am now in the process of converting it so I can read it on my Kindle (you don’t have to do that, of course, but I’m quickly getting addicted to my new ebook reader).  Purchase details for Keith’s book are available on his website.

Team LaserMotive’s new laser…

The latest post on the LaserMotive blog gives an impressive indication of how powerful the laser they will be using this year is.  From the blog:

“These images just reinforce that the level of power we’re using for power beaming is beyond “just” eye danger and well into the realm of immediate skin danger – at the peak in the center of the beam, the power density was probably greater than 300 normal solar intensity. Our lasers from 2006 were powerful but the brightness was not as high as the new laser. Dilas has done an impressive job in increasing the brightness of the laser, and as a result the beam is much better collimated, so it stays very intense over a much longer distance. That is part of what enables us to beam adequate power over a kilometer away.”

Check out the post on the LaserMotive blog.  It just reinforces the fact that this year’s competition at the Space Elevator Games is going to be truly exciting.  And, just as an aside, why do hardware engineers always like to break things?  In the software world, we liked to make things work… 🙂

(Picture from the LaserMotive blog.  Click on it for a slightly larger version or visit the LaserMotive blog post)

Reminder – Bryan Laubscher to be on The Space Show tonight

As I posted a few days ago, Bryan Laubscher will be on The Space Show tonight, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm Pacific time, to talk about all things Space Elevator.

From the show bio:

Bryan E. Laubscher received his Ph.D. in physics in 1994 from the University of New Mexico with a concentration in astrophysics. Bryan has just returned to Los Alamos National Laboratory from a year-long Entrepreneurial Leave to Seattle. There he started a company to develop the strongest materials ever created. These materials are based upon carbon nanotubes – the strongest structures known in nature and the first material identified with sufficient strength-to-weight properties to build a space elevator. At LANL he is a project leader and has worked in various capacities for 16 years. His past projects include LANL’s portion of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey , Magdalena Ridge Observatory and a project developing concepts and technologies for space situational awareness. Over the years Bryan has participated in research in astronomy, lidar, non-linear optics, space mission design, space-borne instrumentation design and construction, spacecraft design, novel electromagnetic detection concepts and technologies, detector/receiver system development, spectrometer development, interferometry and participated in many field experiments. Bryan led space elevator development at LANL until going on entrepreneurial leave in late 2005.

I should note that Bryan is also a founding member of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) and is on the ISEC Board of Directors as well as being head of the ISEC Technical Pillar Committee.

Listen to Bryan tonight and phone/email/chat in your questions. Listeners can talk to Dr. Laubscher or the host by calling toll free 1 (866) 687-7223, by sending e-mail during the program using dmlivings [at] yahoo.com, drspace [at] thespaceshow.com, thespaceshow [at] gmail.com, or chatting on AOL/ICQ/CompuServe Chat using the screen name “spaceshowchat.

“Ten-X Stimulus Projects”

The DaVinci Institute’s Thomas Frey has given his opinion on “What projects can the U.S. government invest in to provide at least 10 times return on Investment?“.

One of the projects he supports is the Space Elevator;

“The space elevator is a proposed system to transport material from the earth’s surface into space.  Many variations of this idea have been proposed, but the primary idea involves an elevator-type car that travels along a fixed cabling system held in place by a geostationary satellite orbiting the earth.  The space elevator is intended to replace our present system of using rockets to transport people and equipment outside of the earth’s atmosphere.  Current technology is not capable of manufacturing a cabling system that is both strong enough and light enough to make this connection.  Most of the recent efforts have focused on the use of carbon nanotube-based materials for the tether design, since the strength of microscopic carbon nanotubes appears great enough to make this possible.  A functional space elevator will become a primary driver of space commerce, enabling travel beyond earth’s gravitational pull for a fraction of today’s cost.”

Nice to know we’re on the list but he’s not emphasizing the main advantage of a Space Elevator, it’s scalability.  There is really no limit to how big you can build this thing and thus how much capacity it can carry.  Yes, the price per kilo has to be reasonable, but if you can’t carry hundreds or thousands of tons per day into space, the commercialization of space will be a very slow and painful process, no matter how inexpensive it is.

Freight cars, think freight cars to space…

(Picture of Freight Car from here – click on the thumbnail for a larger version)

Balloon-evator

And now on Flickr, we have a picture of;

“The Space Elevator’s temporary low altitude support balloons, photographed here looking down from the construction shuttle at 15 miles above the Earth. The ballons provide additional stability/lift to the carbon nanotube ribbons in the lower 20 miles as they are unreeled from the international space colony transit station, sitting in geo syncronous orbit at approximately 200 miles above ground. The carbon nanotube material was first used commercially in the first decade of the 2000’s for DVD shrink wrapping….proving it’s worth then as a virtually impregnable material and frustrating thousands of consumers.After damage from several incidents involving homemade comets the Space Elevator program is currently stalled pending litigation against ‘Sprockley Space Toys’ and their ‘Comet Creation Kit’.”

The ‘author’ of this picture (Bruce Lemon) also goes on to tell us that;

“The elevators run 24 hrs Mon-Sun Jumahl, as long as it’s not too cloudy..(clouds interfere w/ the laser powered shuttle cars). Fee is $35,000 US dollars per 20 pound/1 cf payload, with a 50% discount for elevator construction consortium governments. 2 buttons currently, w/ an additional planned for the moon at an unknown future date. No smoking, and meals are an extra $10.”

So this is way cool – when can I book a ride?

(Click on the picture thumbnail for a larger version, or visit Bruce Lemon’s photostream on Flickr.  He has several hundred pictures loaded, the last one, as of the writing of this post, was of one scary looking goose…)

Upcoming AIAA Space conference to have a “Space Tethers” track

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) hosts several conferences each year.  In this year’s Space 2009 Conference and Exposition, being held in Pasadena, California in September of this year,they are having a track on ‘Space Tethers and Technology’.  From the conference flyer:

Space Tethers and Technology

Space tethers show great promise for enabling a variety of future space missions, both as engineering components and as scientific components. Applications of space tethers include propulsion, space structures, remote sensing, and artificial gravity, to name a few. To date, several tethered missions have flown and many more have been proposed for flight. This track will focus on the missions enabled and the technologies necessary for exploiting the use of space tethers.

Technical topics include:

  • Missions Enabled by Space Tethers
  • Technologies to Support Space Tether Missions

For questions, please contact:
Sven G. Bilén
AIAA Space Tethers Technical Committee (STETC)
The Pennsylvania State University
E-mail: sbilen [at] psu.edu

The track is mentioned on Page 7 of the conference flyer.

While this is not specifically a ‘Space Elevator track’, any research/work done with Space Tethers will directly or indirectly benefit the concept of a Space Elevator.

One other note: The former NASA liason to the Space Elevator Games, Ken Davidian, is a co-chair of the Commercial Space Track in this conference.

(hat tip to @marckboucher)

Bryan Laubscher to appear on The Space Show

In today’s ISEC board meeting, we learned that Bryan Laubscher will be appearing on The Space Show this coming Thursday, January 29th, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm Pacific time.

Bryan will be talking about the latest developments in the Space Elevator ‘world’, the upcoming conference and answering questions from listeners.

Take this advantage to listen to what Bryan has to say and ask him questions.  All of the shows are kept as podcasts so if you miss it, you’ll be able to listen to it later on.

(Click on the picture of Bryan for a larger version)

“Space elevators needed for space solar power?”

In Short Sharp Science*, a Science blog from New Scientist, Paul Marks discusses using a Space Elevator to facilitate the creation of Space Solar power satellites.

Peter Swan, a member of the Board of Directors of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) is quoted:

“Half the cost of everything you put in space is down to the launch cost,” former spaceflight engineer Peter Swan told the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, UK, in October 2008. “The economics of space-based solar power don’t work with current launch costs. So we have to figure out how to do it without chemical launch.”

Long-time readers know that I’m personally skeptical of Space Solar Power (SSP) ever being more than a niche-application provider of power; there’s just too darn much stuff you have to put into space to supply more than an insignificant amount of our planet’s needs.  But if your serious about SSP, then I think you have to be a supporter of the concept of a Space Elevator; nothing else has a chance of being scalable to the order of magnitude necessary to make the idea of Space Solar Power feasible (IMHO, of course)…

Vibrating your way to space?

I’m sure many of you saw the BBC News Article about using vibrations to power a Space Elevator Climber (along with a very short video clip demonstrating the effect via using a broomstick).

On YouTube now, there is a longer video where the engineer who has proposed the idea at the recent EuroSpaceward conference, Age-Raymond Riise, talks about how this idea works and some of the problems it introduces.
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YZWKS9Yqs[/youtube]
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Frankly, I’m a bit skeptical of this idea.  There is already, IMHO, too much going on with the tether (having to move it to avoid potential collisions as well as just the natural vibrations which will already be in the tether due to the Climbers, the sun, the moon, etc.) and introducing this will just muck up the works even more.  But I’m not a physicist, perhaps I’m wrong.

One of the things we hope to do with ISEC is to launch a ‘rapid-response-team’ which will look at ideas like this and say if they are feasible or not.  It will be nice to catch the news cycle these stories appear in and give them a bit more credibility if they past muster, or point out the obvious flaws in them if they do not.

(Picture of parking space from here – click on it for a larger version)

The Times Online and Cambridge nanotube efforts

EuroSpaceward’s Markus Klettner today sent me a link to a new article about the Space Elevator in the Times Online.  The focus this article is the work being done at Cambridge University by a team headed up with Professor Alan Windle.  From the article:

“The Cambridge team is making about 1 gram of the high-tech material per day, enough to stretch to 18 miles in length. “We have Nasa on the phone asking for 144,000 miles of the stuff, but there is a difference between what can be achieved in a lab and on an industrial level,” says Alan Windle, professor of materials science at Cambridge University, who is anxious not to let the work get ahead of itself.”

I must admit to some scepticism about NASA really making enquiries about this; it’s always been my understanding that they sponsor the Space Elevator Games because of their interest in Power-Beaming and ultra-strong materials, not because they plan on building a Space Elevator.  It’s certainly not on any of NASA’s roadmaps and neither presidential candidate spoke about it – not even to win the Speculist competition! 🙂

I have emailed Professor Windle about this and will post his reply when I receive it.

I also liked the quote from Spaceward’s Ben Shelef;

“We are talking about something totally different from the conventional concept of space travel,” says Ben Shelef, chief executive officer of the Spaceward Foundation, NASA’s partner in the project. “This is not about three astronauts on a special mission, it is about hundreds of tons a day being lifted into orbit. I often say that we shouldn’t be dealing with NASA on this, we should be dealing with the US Department of Transportation.”

It’s an interesting article and worth the read…

(graphic from the Times Online article – click on it (or visit the article) to see a larger version)

News from the McGill Space Elevator Team

I guess my RSS reader (FeedDemon) has some issue with the McGill Space Elevator Team’s website – it’s not picking up the updates reliably.  Since my last update on them in October, they’ve posted a few more updates which I’ve missed and failed to pass along…

Anyway, from their three latest updates we learn that;

The composite panels have been completed for the 2 climbers we plan to make. Construction of the frame will begin shortly after we receive the proper drill bits to make the necessary holes in the composites.

and

Despite having only the smaller of the two drill bit sizes, we have drilled the necessary holes to make our first climber. The entire mechanical construction will be done in January.

and (just two days ago)

We recently discovered that our antennas aren’t synchronizing with the correct gain. Development will still progress on the communication front, but debugging will be delayed.

Spaceward to appear at the Photonics West Exhibition

I have just been informed that Spaceward, the organization hosting the Space Elevator Games, will have a booth at the Photonics West Exhibition – yet another reason to go see the show.

Ben Shelef, the CEO of Spaceward, tells me that the Photonics show people have been enormously helpful to him and Spaceward in getting things set up.

If you are in the San Jose, California area January 27th, 28th or 29th and would like to help Ben at the Spaceward booth, please contact Ben via email; ben [at] spaceward.org.

Finally, if you have any experience or knowledge about real-time mixing of video via a PC, please contact Ben at that same email address.

The 2009 Photonics West Exhibition

This year’s Photonics West Exhibition will be held in San Jose, California, from January 24th through January 29th.  The actual exhibition dates are the 27th through the 29th with seminars, courses, workshops, etc. being held on the 24th, 25th and 26th.

DILAS and TRUMPF, the laser vendors for the Climber / Power-Beaming teams in this year’s Space Elevator Games, will be exhibiting there, along with many other vendors.  From the conference website:

See the latest innovations in:

 • IR Sources and Detectors 
 • Cameras and Displays
 • Electronic Imaging Components
 • Fiber Optic Systems
 • Optics, Filters, Coatings
 • Optical Components, Detectors, Fibers, Materials
 • Optics and Photonics Manufacturing
 • Sensors and Systems

The Exhibition itself is free, but it appears from the website that you must register to attend it.

If you’re in the San Jose area at that time, this would be a great event to visit.  There’s a good chance that you’ll run into one or more members of the Climber / Power-Beaming teams attending the exhibition too.
 

Michael Laine and a short history of LiftPort

On the Liftport blog, Michael Laine put up a post detailing (in a very abbreviated fashion) his adventures (to date) with trying to get a Space Elevator built.  This post; 6 years condensed to 2 pages – LiftPort in hindsight, is very interesting and well worth your time.

Michael has also commented about his views on the Social Media; Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc…  And, as he is now in charge of Public Outreach for the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), you’ll be seeing ISEC being promulgated in many of these new web 2.0 platforms.  Michael has been nominated for a Twitter Shorty Award – if you want to vote for him, you can do so here.

Finally, it’s just nice to see the LiftPort blog active again…

Updates from LaserMotive…

On the LaserMotive blog, they have recently posted two updates.

The first is a continuation of their “Meet the team” series and introduces us to Joe Grez.

“Joe Grez has a jumble of education. It includes a BS in physics, a minor in music and art, a few years of architecture studies, half of a yacht design associates degree, coursework in various engineering disciplines, industrial design (IDEO), and manufacturing process, plus a seriously healthy dose of project management coursework, some of which stuck.“

He really does have a very interesting biography – check out the post!

The second update talks about their newest sponsor, Brion Toss Yacht Riggers.  What does a ‘Yacht Rigger’ have to offer a Space Elevator Power-Beaming / Climber team?  From the blog:

“Early on, we tried making our own continuous loop cable, but the quality was not stellar, and the cable eventually wound up fraying and breaking. After much searching, we found a local company that still practiced the old art of making long splices in steel cable. As you can see, the results are pretty nice.”

The competition racetrack in this year’s Space Elevator Games is a steel cable (as opposed to the ribbon used in previous years).  To create a cable that can run continuously on a treadmill requires that you be able to splice it into a continuous loop – something that the Brion Toss group does.  Perhaps they should also talk to DeltaX, the MIT Tether competition team, about how to splice together their tether…

Check out the posts…

(Picture of the steel cable from the LaserMotive blog – click on it for a slightly larger version)