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I finally<\/a> have my copy of the new Marvel release, Iron Man – The End<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 It’s been one busy week, so I didn’t have a chance to read it until tonight.<\/p>\n The issue is about 98% Iron Man and 2% Space Elevator, but hey, 2% of a Marvel Iron Man issue is nothing to sneeze at.\u00a0 I was initially going to do a review of\u00a0the storyline, but\u00a0decided\u00a0against it\u00a0because a) I am not competent to do so as I really know nothing about the comic book genre and b) I thought it would be more interesting to tease out the 2% Space Elevator bits to see how\u00a0they stack up against the ‘currently accepted\u00a0model’.<\/p>\n To begin with, the earthport of the\u00a0Stark Space Elevator (Tony Stark = aka Iron Man)\u00a0is based on a tiny island.\u00a0 This does not fit the currently proposed model, which calls for an an ocean-based, movable platform.\u00a0 The Edwards-Westling book<\/a> gives eight reasons why we would want to have a movable base;<\/p>\n Some difficulties of a ocean-based earth-port vs. a land-based earth-port are also mentioned in this book;<\/p>\n Personally, I’ve never liked the idea of an ocean-going earth-port – the idea has always seemed a bit dodgy to me.\u00a0 When I first read The Space Elevator, everything\u00a0proposed made sense EXCEPT for the earth-port.\u00a0 Having to move the earth-port itself to induce a wave in the tether in order to make it miss a bit of debris (or a satellite) is really inefficient.\u00a0 Why not have lasers zap the 99.99% of the debris that no one cares about\u00a0and have thrusters mounted on the ribbon every 1,000 Km or so and let them move the ribbon as necessary for the rare bit (live satellite or whatever) which cannot be zapped?\u00a0 Just find the\u00a0thruster that’s closest and use it.\u00a0 And, with the portion of the tether which is in the atmosphere now probably going to be a cable rather than a ribbon, it will be minimally affected by the wind.<\/p>\n So, my heart is with Stark on this one, though the ‘prevailing wisdom’ says otherwise…<\/p>\n Again, the current model says that the baseline tether will be shipped to GEO, assembled,\u00a0and then simultaneously\u00a0deployed downwards (towards earth)\u00a0and upwards (away from earth), this to keep it stable.\u00a0 If\u00a0the tether is only\u00a0‘grown downwards’, as is shown in the comic book, pretty soon (very soon, in fact), gravity will have its say and will pull everything down.\u00a0 Yes, you can have a counterweight at GEO (with nothing above it) to hold the tether in place, but it would have to be ginormous, far bigger than the space station shown in the comic.\u00a0 Also, later on in the issue, there is a picture of the tether in the clouds, looking like it’s being ‘grown downwards’, but it’s not a tether at all, but rather a very large structure.\u00a0 This is reminiscent of the ‘Clarke model’ from his Fountains of Paradise<\/a> novel.<\/p>\n So, IMHO, I don’t think the tether scenario in the comic would work at all…<\/p>\n The next Space Elevator item was, well, there was no ‘next item’ – that was it.\u00a0 Like I said, 98% Iron Man, 2% Space Elevator.<\/p>\n If you want to find out if Tony Stark succeeds in building his Space Elevator, you’ll just have to go out and buy the issue \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n When this issue was first announced, I emailed one of the storyline artists, Bob Layton, and asked if he would be willing to answer a few questions for us.\u00a0 He graciously consented and below, is our short interview with Bob.<\/p>\n [Space Elevator Blog – SEB]<\/strong>\u00a0Have you been following the evolution in thought regarding the development of a Space Elevator? Do you consider it to be a realistic possibility or just a crazy idea? [SEB]<\/strong>Why did you pick a Space Elevator as Tony Stark’s “Ultimate Project”? Were you at all influenced by author Arthur C. Clarke and his fictional engineer (Vannevar Morgan) building a Space Elevator as his ‘ultimate project’ or was there another inspiration behind this? [SEB]<\/strong>If it’s not revealing a plot line you’d rather keep secret for now, does Tony Stark use the ‘Edwards model’ for building a Space Elevator (a carbon nanotube ribbon as the climber cable, anchored in the ocean at the earth-end) or the ‘Clarke model’ (a more solid structure anchored on land) or some other model? [SEB]<\/strong> Reading your Bio on your website (<\/em>http:\/\/www.boblayton.com<\/em><\/a> <<\/em>http:\/\/www.boblayton.com\/<\/em><\/a>>), it’s obvious that, to date, you have had a long and successful career in the comic book industry as well as in film and television. During your career, have you used the concept of a Space Elevator in any other project? If so, could you tell us a little bit about those projects? [SEB]<\/strong> There is support building for a Space Elevator in both Europe and Japan and I think they would be very interested in this issue. Are Marvel Comics available in other languages? [SEB]<\/strong> Finally, if you had a chance to ride on a real Space Elevator, would you do it? Thank you Bob!\u00a0 And, please keep us updated on the “Jett’s Way” project you mentioned.\u00a0 It sounds fascinating.<\/p>\n Go out and buy this issue, dear readers.\u00a0 More than most comic books, I think this could become a ‘Collector’s Item’.<\/p>\n (Cover Text\/Graphic and frame from this issue)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" . . . . I finally have my copy of the new Marvel release, Iron Man – The End.\u00a0 It’s been one busy week, so I didn’t have a chance to read it until tonight. The issue is about 98% Iron Man and 2% Space Elevator, but hey, 2% of a Marvel Iron Man issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews-presentations","category-pictures-drawings-animations-music-humor-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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![](\"\/media\/IronMan-TheEnd0002_150.png\")
The next item\u00a0mentioned is the tether itself.\u00a0 To quote from the relevant frame; “Basically a giant nanotube ‘grown’ from a geostationary Space Station.<\/em>”\u00a0 Travel on this tether will be by (again quoting); “…magnetically levitated shuttles (which) will carry passengers and cargo at less than two percent of current costs making the stars accessible to the common man<\/em>.”\u00a0 Hmmmm.<\/p>\n
\n[Bob Layton – BL]<\/strong>\u00a0I believe that it’s a totally realistic concept and I hope that we eventually apply our energies as a society to make this science into a reality.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n[BL]<\/strong>When David Michelinie and I were originally concocting the plot to Iron Man: The End back in 1999, I had just finished reading Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Songs of Distant Earth’.\u00a0 The scientific theory around the Space Elevator in that story served as an inspiration.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n[BL]<\/strong> We use a little bit of the “Edwards Model” and the “Clarke Model” in IRON MAN:The End.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n[BL]<\/strong> No. But I have a proposed TV series in the works entitled “Jett’s Way” that revolves around the first commercial Space Agency. In the premise, the lead character is trying to get permits to construct the space elevator and encounters political and corporate opposition from every imaginable source.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n[BL]<\/strong> Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n[BL ]<\/strong> In a HEARTBEAT!! YOU BET!!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n