Space Elevator Journal

The Right Way to Get to Space

Cassini Spacecraft Images Seas of Fuel on Saturn's Moon Titan

Titan's lake compared to Lake Superior

Source: NASA JPL

In keeping with the Space Elevator Journal's mission of showing what a post space elevator reality might look like I search out stories about resources in space that will be even more accessible and better researched after the space elevator is built.

"Instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft have found evidence [of] seas, likely filled with liquid methane or ethane, in the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan. One such feature is larger than any of the Great Lakes of North America and is about the same size as several seas on Earth."

Even after doing article after article on this I still get blown away by what's out there. The science fiction writer in me envisions convoys of robot tankers flying to Titan and filling up with fuel for a thirsty space community. Is it possible space elevator economics will make it profitable to return the fuel to Earth and we can stop draining our own planet?

I wonder how long it will be before there's a Dunkin' Donuts and a convenience store in orbit around Titan? "Thank you very much. Come again." --PB--

View Full News Release

"Source: NASA JPL - [These movies], comprised of several detailed images taken by Cassini's radar instrument, shows bodies of liquid near Titan's north pole. [They] show many of the features commonly associated with lakes on Earth, such as islands, bays, inlets and channels, are also present on this cold Saturnian moon. ... Strong evidence that larger bodies seen in infrared images are, in fact, seas [that] are most likely liquid methane and ethane."

View QuickTime Video (lg, no audio) (70.9 MB)

View QuickTime Video (sm, no audio) (56.1 MB)

Labels: Space commerce, space commercialisation, Space elevator, space habitat

How will space chickens sit on their eggs?

Space food has come a long way since John Glenn choked down bite-sized cubes, freeze dried foods, and semi-liquids in aluminum toothpaste-type tubes to become the first human to eat a meal in space*. Hopefully, by the time the space elevator is built, there will be space farms and zero-gravity food preparation technology that better approximate eating on Earth (except for that floating thing).

A recent European Space Agency (Quicktime/WMP) video "gives an overview of the meals served on the ISS on normal days and at special occasions [and] also outlines the underlying nutritional and psychological factors that determine what astronauts [eat] in orbit."

These guys are eating "a Sicilian starter followed by roast quail in a wine sauce and rice pudding with dried fruit." It sounds better than my menu for today but, due to the stress of the small environment and work they do, food is the main source of relaxation and joy for International Space Station crew according to ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter who moderates a report about food for some experts on the ground in this video.

Oh, and the answer to the question posed in the headline? Velcro, baby, Velcro.

--PB--

*Yuri Gagarin did test food and water samples experimentally but his single-orbit flight did not require a meal.

Labels: Space commerce, space commercialisation, Space elevator, Space Food, space habitat

Lift Port Group Out There Pitching the Space Elevator Concept

I love to see this because, where participation in rocketry is somewhat elitist by necessity, the space elevator will open space to a much larger segment of businesses and allow individual participation at a grassroots level. Space elevators hold the potential for the average person to get to space.

LiftPort Group (LPG) founder and President Michael Laine recently told the Kiwanis Club of Seattle how "the Space Elevator will be at the heart of [a] revolutionary transportation service, ... opening up broad-based access to Earth orbits and the inner solar system, LPG will help bring about the creation of entire new [space commerce] markets[that] can only become viable through safe, inexpensive, routine access to the inner solar system.

"In short, we at LiftPort Group believe that development of the space elevator is a crucial step in the future of Earth and space."

Labels: Space commerce, Space elevator

McGill Space Elevator Team

Andrew J.Higgins

The McGill Space Elevator Team (MSET), led by Associate Professor Andrew Higgins and team captain Cyrus Foster MSET has already made significant progress towards their goal of claiming the US$500K first prize in the Climber (Power Beaming) segment of the Spaceward Foundation's 2007 Space Elevator Competition (SEC2K7)

"Our design philosophy is to make something small,simplistic and lightweight. Ideally we want our climber to weigh 10kg, the minimum weight allowed by the rules," explains Foster via email.

MSET Climber Prototype

"We are indeed a first-year team [but] we studied photos and videos of the 2006 competition as we were designing our climber. The biggest pointer we picked up was to account for wind drag. We're going to have a cone over the flat photo-voltaic array to minimize drag."

MSET's 22-person roster is made up of students from the venerable Montreal university's mechanical, electrical and computing departments and is composed of three sub-teams; Beam, Climber and Driving/Braking that will try to get up the tether faster than the other teams within their proposed budget of $30,450.

The team has completed their design, and are testing their prototype even though they are still looking for sponsorship. Potential patrons can refer to MSET's Sponsorship Package for details.

MSET has their work cut out for them as another Canadian team from University of Saskatchewan (USST who will have their own profile on the Space Elevator Journal soon) has posted the fastest climbs the last two years in a row without surpassing the minimum speed of two metres per second required to claim the US$500K purse provided by NASA. This year USST may finally finish in the money only to have to split it with MSET or one of the other 24 teams in the race.

The 2007 McGill Space Elevator Team

Labels: power beam, power beaming, Space commerce, space commercialisation, Space Elevator Competition

Second Biennial Space Elevator Workshop

The second Biennial Space Elevator Workshop takes place at Space Exploration 2007 (SEC 2007) - a four day conference on the theme of “Humankind in Space: Competition or Collaboration.”

According to conference organizers, The Space Engineering and Science Institute, SEC 2007, held Sunday, March 25 to Wednesday, 28 March 2007 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, "will draw together an international array of scientists, engineers, educators, managers and entrepreneurs and students."

The conference offers keynote talks, planning sessions and panel discussions on a broad array of topics;

• planetary exploration,
• bases,
• habitation,
• space station,
• engineering and construction in space and on the Moon and Mars,
• space access,
• space transportation,
• space elevator technologies and advanced concepts,
• entrepreneurial ventures in/for space,
• space power,
• space resource development,
• NEO’s,
• space commerce, law, education

There will also be a Student Robotics Competition in the form of a space elevator (SE) climber challenge the goal of which is to design and build a climber able to climb a 30-foot ribbon with ground-based beamed power carrying a detachable payload representing SE cargo or, in the case of a moon-based SE, the command module components of a lunar base.

SEC 2007 is looking for multi-disciplinary student teams from high schools, two- and four-year colleges to participate and there are four already signed up;

• Intelligent Distributed Multi-Agent Robotics Systems Lab at the University of New Mexico
• Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN (headed by the SEC 2007 Robotics Chair Ahad Nasab)
• Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Akron (Ohio)
• Department of Advanced Technical Education (ATE), Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

Conference rates at the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North are available until February 14 by calling the hotel directly at (505) 821-3333 (Toll-free: 1-800-262-20430) or via the Marriot's online reservation system. Mention SEC 2007 or use Group Code 'spespea'.

Labels: space colonisation, Space commerce, Space elevator, space habitat, Space Law, space policy

Designing the Orbital Space Tourism Experience

Some people like art or cars. Techno-journalists are info-geeks who get excited about well-designed web sites engorged with hard information. Couple that with the desire to write about things that will happen after the space elevator is built like space tourism and solar-power satellites and the Space Future (SF) site is pure info-porn.

In a kind of logical mobius strip SF credits its own commercial consulting arm, Space Future Consulting with its genesis. In any case, it is the work of some well-ordered minds who have laid out a smörgåsbord of articles and studies about space habitat and tourism, space vehicles and space power generation.

Among those is the article mentioned in title from Spaceport Associates' Derek Webber laying out the principal parameters of a successful space tourism venture.

Webber posits that "the average potential orbital space tourist is probably male, aged mid fifties, and works full time even though being worth at least $200M" who will book his trip with a specialist space agency on a polar orbit that will provide the most diverse view of terrestrial features.

The article covers the potential medical, technical and human aspects of pre-flight, on-orbit and return phases of the journey.

Webber assumes orbit will be achieved by conventional rockets or space planes with no consideration given to a space elevator.

--PB--

Labels: Private space travel, space colonisation, Space commerce, space commercialisation, Space elevator, space habitat, space tourism

The 4th (and final) in a series of excerpts of my article in;

Liftport: The Space Elevator: Opening Space To Everyone
edited by Michael J Laine, Tom Nugent, Bill Fawcett
Published 2006 - 308 pages

Limited preview - Table of Contents - About this book

[Links to previous/following excerpts are at the bottom of this post]

Solar power isn’t the only industry that would be transformed by inexpensive space platforms hoisted into orbit on the SE.

Delbert E. Day, the Curators' Professor of Ceramic Engineering and Senior Research Investigator at the Graduate Center for Materials Research, University of Missouri-Rolla knows who will be happiest when the SE comes on line.

“In the ceramics field it would be those people who are making objects that are difficult to nearly impossible to make on earth,” says Professor Day. “In other words, people in the electronics and optical communications fields who know that there are materials out there, which, if they could be made, would find some immediate application.”

Ceramics and glasses are made by high-temperature melting of raw materials taken directly from the earth (clay, sand, etc.) and processed materials into inorganic, nonmetallic solids. They are made into everything from spark plugs, glass, electronic components and nuclear materials to abrasives, rocket components, and tableware.

Making any kind of glass means cooling the melted raw material with minimal crystal formation.

“There’s been lots and lots of research that hasn’t gone anywhere because many of the compositions that have desirable properties tend to crystallize,” says Professor Day.

“There are fluoride glasses people know have very good optical transmission qualities which are very difficult, in fact almost impossible, to make here on earth.”

An optical fiber made from fluoride glass transmits light over far greater distances than convention optical fiber without the degradation of the light signal found in silicon-based optical fibers. This could have the practical effect of reducing or even eliminating the installation and maintenance of expensive networking hardware enroute.

“One of the advantages of space is, at least from the very limited experiments we‘ve done, everybody’s reported that the crystallization tendencies of a melt are lower,” says Professor Day. “[If it did’t crystallize] that would be a major stride forward.

“Part of the problem is that we have done so few experiments because of the high cost [of going into space] and limited time available [once there]. I’m confident that if the SE was operational and [transport] cost a hundred dollars per pound, people would do experiments and we would find things we can’t even dream of [today].”

Permanently extending Earth’s economy into space in an economically and environmentally sustainable way is inspired by dreams but it will have to be achieved by political, business and technical realities that are harsher, colder and as unforgiving as space itself.

The ROI is out there if we can master and marshal our own mental and emotional universes so as to find the courage to change our ways and not simply repeat the mistakes of the past that have cost so much to learn.

--PB--


Space Elevator (Excerpt I)

Space Elevator (Excerpt II)

Space Elevator (Excerpt III)

Labels: "Space Elevator" "Solar Power Satellite", Space commerce, space commercialisation, space tourism

Space Elevator ROI Excerpt II

The second in a series of excerpts from an article I contributed to;

Liftport: The Space Elevator: Opening Space To Everyone
edited by Michael J Laine, Tom Nugent, Bill Fawcett
Published 2006 - 308 pages

Limited preview - Table of Contents - About this book

[Links to previous/following posts in this series listed below]

In the first excerpt (see below or in the archives) Jim Benson of SpaceDev explained the fundamentals of space industry economics.

Benson draws on his decades of experience to delineate one of the problems of making an SE project sustainable - ”keeping [the SE] from being destroyed by [space] junk” and in doing so comes out as one of the first space environmentalists.

“I think it’s inevitable [that we have to] vacuum the vacuum. We’ve got to stop generating [space debris] and clean up what exists,” Benson explains. “People thought the ocean was so big that that it just didn’t matter and here we are not only polluting it but depopulating it.

“Most of the satellites and therefore debris are at LEO. [Debris] is a huge consideration. One I don’t think they have a good answer for yet.”

Benson has but to ask the author of his inspiration, Dr. John S. Lewis, Planetary Sciences Professor at the University of Arizona about the space debris problem. Dr. Lewis sees not only a danger but also a recycling opportunity in the man-made space flotsam orbiting our globe.

“They’re not only threatening debris they are a fairly substantial source of solar cells and metals. You can assume that any spacecraft that’s died up there has exhausted its attitude control fuel so you don’t really expect to retrieve volatiles,” explains Dr. Lewis. “On the other hand you do have the structural metals and solar cells. I’m sure that if you do have a source of any kind of mass up there you’d think of a way to use it if only for radiation shielding.”

Dr. Lewis points out that gravitational geographies preclude a geosynchronous SE from use as a launch platform for all but a scant few asteroid mining expeditions but an SE still has practical benefits over blasting into space.

“If you’re talking about a geosynchronous tether, it has two main functions as I see it,” says Dr. Lewis. “It has the ability to put large masses in GEO and launch science payloads at very high speeds to a wide range of destinations. Those are the clear-cut advantages.”

He has no trouble listing several commercial satellite applications.

“Solar Power Satellites (SPS) number one … a constellation of [manufacturing] stations girdling the earth … and orbital hotels,” outlines Dr. Lewis. “[The potential of] orbital hotels should not be under-rated. This is a real cheap way to get to GEO and you should be thinking of having tourists up there.

“If you’re talking about launching one or more communications or surveillance platforms in geosynchronous orbit this is a great way to do it,” Dr. Lewis concludes.

Look for another excerpt next week or subscribe to SEJ by clicking
here.

--PB--

Space Elevator ROI (Excerpt I)

Space Elevator ROI (Excerpt III)

Labels: "Space Elevator" "Solar Power Satellite", Space commerce, space commercialisation

Postcards To Space

Postcards To Space is developing the world's first space sculpture called STREET, a 325ft. diameter ring made of Kapton, a space-rated plastic film. In flight the craft will digitally display postcards printed on it during construction against the backdrop of Low Earth Orbit.

The design, building and flying of these inflatable space sculptures are funded by postcard sales.

According to their site "Postcards To Space exists to develop space-media opportunities for individuals, promote scientific knowledge and create public art in the new frontier."

Somebody had to be first. Purchase postcard kits here.

--PB--

Labels: Space commerce, space commercialisation, Space Culture

Space Elevator ROI

This is an excerpt from an article I contributed to Liftport Opening Space to Everyone Copyright © 2006 Liftport Inc.

In economic terms, a Space Elevator (SE) is to rocketry what railways and public transit systems are to automobiles. The technologies to move massive amounts of people and cargo into space inexpensively are coming on stream but the possibility still exists for space to be rendered inaccessible by economics.

There’s no question SE’s will lower the cost of going to space by orders of magnitude. The question is will the cost threshold be low enough to make a profit for the existing terrestrial industries that will pioneer the space economy and bootstrap whole new industries we haven’t thought of yet.

Return On Investment (ROI) will determine when (and possibly whether)
humanity will be able to bolster Earth’s economy and environment with space
resources.

It’s clear to Jim Benson, CEO of California satellite manufacturer SpaceDev why the human race needs to get into space in a permanent, economically viable way. After selling off his software companies Benson was looking for new challenges. He read Mining the Sky by Dr. John Lewis of Arizona University and it resonated with his Bachelor of Science degree in geology. His life was changed.

“I was so excited about the book I bought 50 copies and for the next two or three years gave copies away to people I was trying to educate about the abundance of natural resources in space and how easy they are to get to,” says Benson. “That was one of my main reasons for founding SpaceDev.

“We don’t want to go the Moon or Mars. We want to be going to Near Earth Objects. That’s where the wealth and life support and water is. I’ve been saying for a long time that water is the white gold of space.”

The problem is getting to those resources in a cost-effective way. A new technology like a Space Elevator (SE) will lower the cost of going to space but Benson believes before it can get off the ground we also need a new way of doing things here on earth. ROI begins in the business model.


“My favorite slogan is ‘if we want to go to space to stay, space has to pay’,” says Benson. “Everybody knows it costs from US$5K to US$40K per pound [to bring something to space] today. That’s just a given.”

The reasons for the high cost of leaving Earth are as much systemic as they are practical. Benson is working to change the existing system from within by “bringing the microcomputer way of thinking into space.” SpaceDev turns out what it calls micro and nano-satellites designed to reduce the cost of manufacturing and launch.

“When SpaceDev designed ChipSat for NASA there was definitely requirements for the ability to withstand g-forces during launch. I believe it was 10g’s in all three axes. That’s pretty ridiculous,” he exclaims.

“No launch vehicle today generates those kinds of forces. That’s typical government fear of failure. There are some expenses to meeting unrealistic requirements like that but it doesn’t add that much to the cost. The big cost is simply the launch vehicles [and] the cost of launching itself. That’s the heart of the problem.”

An SE will shift existing economic paradigms and create whole new ones by making the ride to orbit mundane. Achieving that requires a perceptual shift in those that would build it of a similar or greater extent.

"If a project like this is going to be undertaken it needs to be undertaken by a new company. I really think this has got to be done by a private sector company that’s not one of the usual suspects," contends Benson.

“Boeing and Lockheed feel like they’re entitled to their share of the military and NASA space budgets.

"They don’t know and don’t care about doing things in innovative, lower-cost ways because almost everything they do is on a cost-plus, fixed fee contract basis.

“The higher the cost, the bigger the fee so they have no interest whatsoever in doing anything that’s innovative or cost-effective.”

Benson feels it’s time for an entrepreneurial revolution. “We have to look at everything [and ask] is it profitable? If it’s profitable then it’s sustainable. Until this point, almost everything in space, except communications satellites, has been government-financed,” he says. “There’s been no thought given to profitability therefore no thought given to sustainability.”

==== Space Elevator ROI Excerpt II ====

Labels: "Space Elevator" "Solar Power Satellite", Space commerce, space commercialisation