For four years now LiftPort has been researching, testing and documenting our efforts toward establishing the Space Elevator. Our goal has been to do this in an open manner, sharing our research with the world in hopes that we can both increase awareness and increase the possibility that we will see it built in our lifetimes. We've been less concerned with being the only ones as we have with igniting the spark that changes the world. As we continually re-analyze our focus, it has come to our attention that as an open project, we're not completely embracing the tools available for open collaboration.
We propose that as an open project, following the tenets of open-source, we should allow the community a greater opportunity to participate. To that end, we have begun migrating our collections to a Wiki format.
By employing an open-source method to development, we open the field to anybody who wants to contribute. This will have both benefits and problems. There is a lot of misinformation about space elevators in general, and the LiftPort Space Elevator specifically. Not the least of which is the wikipedia image which still shows a captured meteor as the counterweight. As Michael Laine, president and founder of LiftPort, is fond of saying, “We don't even have all the questions yet, let alone all the answers.” We started trying to address that problem with our questions database (http://questions.liftport.com) with mixed results. There are a lot of questions left to be answered, and the need to be quantified, qualified, and categorized before they can be researched. The collaboration allowed by a wiki, we feel, will be a better tool to develop those questions.
We have a significant amount of content that can be added, a portion of which can be gleaned from our past newsletters (found in our forums). Other examples of collaborative works show that a large portion of our content is likely to come from individuals who know their specific subject. Frequently, those people know the information but not how to format it, or make it easily understood. Thankfully, that's part of the process. Wiki's are works in progress and the collaboration will continually improve the content.
Typically, the content is edited by individuals internal to a wiki project. With our current lack of funding, we will not be able to hire full time editors. We will need to ask for volunteers to edit the pages and keep them organized and readable.
This wiki is intended to be specific to the LiftPort Space Elevator plan. As such, LiftPort management will have the final word on any disputed content. We will encourage discussion and will allow for alternative concepts. We will judge design improvements based on the Pillars Of Infrastructure. Only when an improvement has a balanced increase in the four pillars will it be considered.
As we cannot, at this time, assign a full time manager to this project, questions or disputes should be sent to wiki@liftport.com.
In the spirit of open source, this too is a working document. It is not fixed in stone. This wiki plan will be posted on our wiki site. It will be open to discussion and updating like every other document on our wiki.
We have opened our new wiki on our web site (http://www.liftport.com). This wiki will serve as the company resource for any further development or research on the LiftPort Space Elevator. With the help of the international community, we hope this resource helps the world get closer to inexpensive, reliable, and frequent access to space.