Space Elevator Consortium: stimulation and alignment of SE research activities By Ted Semon President – 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 ( 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