Space Elevator Consortium: stimulation and alignment of SE research activities

By Ted SemonPresident – ISEC

Author – Space Elevator Blog

December 5, 2009

Brief History

Idea of Space Elevator as a tensile structure has been around since 1960

Popularized in 1979 by Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise

Idea has now hit mainstream science fiction and been on several TV shows

Growing library of books / articles on the topic

Brief History (2)

Who discovered nanotubes remains under debate, but research accelerated after the publication of Sumio Iijima’s paper in 1991

Governments, academic institutions and private enterprise worldwide are engaged in serious nanotube research

Brief History (3)

Rocket technology is still fundamentally the same

It still costs thousands of dollars per pound to send something to LEO

Failure rate of rocket launches is in the neighborhood of 1-3% (van Pelt)

Brief History (4)

Multiple organizations are now wholly or partially devoted to the Space Elevator

Multiple conferences wholly or partially devoted to the Space Elevator are held each year

Space Elevator Games have been ongoing since 2005 – JSEA now also holding their own competition

Brief History (5)

Advantages of a Space Elevator are clear:

Scalable

Less expensive payload costs

Safer

No high-g forces

No ‘shake, rattle & roll’

Given all of this…

Why isn’t everyone demanding that a Space Elevator be built?

Why aren’t more people working on Space Elevator related research?

Why not... (1)

There is no ‘crying need’ for one as far as the public is concerned and there has been no economic case made as far as the ‘decision-makers’ are concerned

Why not… (2)

It still isn’t possible to build one – the long/strong carbon nanotubes don’t yet exist

Why not… (3)

There are many unanswered questions / issues surrounding a Space Elevator – even if/when the long/strong nanotubes become a reality, these issues remain

Space debris mitigation

Tether design, deployment & maintenance

Climber & Base Station design

Other

What can we do about it? (1-2)

Identify the ‘crying need(s)’ that only a Space Elevator can satisfy or that a Space Elevator can best satisfy and ally ourselves with organizations already working towards those goal(s)

Make the economic case where a Space Elevator can do a better job than existing technologies

What can we do about it? (3-5)

Encourage development in power-beaming, strong-tether and climber technologies

Answer the unanswered questions

Build a reference library of Space Elevator related material

What can we do about it? (6-8)

Identify those organizations working towards building a Space Elevator and align our efforts

Put ourselves on the radar screen of national and international space-related treaty-making organizations

Publicize, publicize, publicize…

Status (1)

Identify the ‘crying need(s)’ that only a Space Elevator can satisfy or that a Space Elevator can best satisfy and ally ourselves with organizations already working towards those goal(s)

Moon / Mars colonization

Space-based Solar Power

No work being done on this yet

Status (2)

Make the economic case where a Space Elevator can do a better job than existing technologies

Commercial satellite launches

Space Tourism (perhaps)

No work being done on this yet, but we (ISEC) do have a business analyst on board and hope to start work on this task shortly

Status (3)

Encourage development in power-beaming, strong-tether and climber technologies

Space Elevator Games (hosted by the Spaceward Foundation – money provided by NASA)

JSEA Climber competition

Other robotic / Lego competitions

Status (4)

Answer the unanswered questions

Space Elevator Conferences

ISEC Academic prizes - they will be named after Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson (hope to start in 2010)

ISEC Journal (yet to be started)

Sponsored research (none going on that I know of except Space Elevator Games)

Status (5)

Build a reference library of Space Elevator related material

We have the Space Elevator Wiki (www.spaceelevatorwiki.com)

It’s a good start, but we need a librarian / web researcher

We should consider asking permission from the conferences to put relevant presentations on the Wiki

Status (6)

Identify those organizations working towards building a Space Elevator and align our efforts

This is why the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) was formed

Spaceward

EuroSpaceward

The Space Elevator Reference

The Space Elevator Blog

The Space Elevator Wiki

Japan Space Elevator Association (we hope)

McGill University (possibly)

Status (7)

Put ourselves on the radar screen of national and international space-related treaty-making organizations

No work being done on this yet

Status (8)

Publicize, publicize, publicize…

The ISEC Newsletter The ISEC Journal (yet to be started) The Space Elevator Games The Space Elevator Reference The Space Elevator Blog The Space Elevator Translation Project EuroSpaceward & JSEA websites

New ideas

Get organizations to agree to identify a “topic of the year” and then devote research time / publications to that topic

Get conferences to agree to allow publication of relevant presentations on the Space Elevator Wiki

“Cross-licensing” of memberships

Biggest needs…

More ISEC Members We need membership dues to sponsor

academic research

Agreement on “Topic of the Year”

ISEC Librarian / Web Researcher

The International Space Elevator Consortium

http://www.isec.info