5595 Days and Counting

Kris_J writes "Seattle PI appear to have been the first to pickup the story that a former member of Highlift ("Space Elevator") Systems has split off to form Liftport. The new company has the impressive aim of a space lift by July 1st, 2018. Competition is supposed to be good, right? If you want to know more they've got a messageboard where you can ask questions."

Comments

OK, Bill, here's your chance

[oren]

I'll be willing to forgive it all if you make this your pet project and provide cheap space access, by the pound, to everyone. Just... please... don't use Windows NT to control the ground station boat, OK?

Re:OK, Bill, here's your chance

[Simon Field]

In 2018, Bill will be 63 years old, by which time he says he will have given away most of his money. Windows NT will exist in the Smithsonian, next to your own favorite operating system, but it is unlikely that either one will be used for projects of this type.

Also, I would hope that by that time, we will pay by the kilogram instead of the pound (hey, I'm an optimist...).

One of the cited uses for the elevator is to build solar power satellites to beam power back down to earth. I wonder if it will be necessary by then? At current rates of improvement, solar panels will be cheap enough to paint on roofs, and efficient enough to produce a house's requirements on a cloudy day. Too bad doping the carbon nanotubes to conduct, and using the cable to generate power like the shuttle's tether is not compatible with using it as an elevator.

Re:I'm willing to bet $$$ it will never work

[Psion]

The gist of the article is that the carbon ribbon material they'll be using is strong enough for the 62,000 miles length needed to reach geosynch and the counterbalance beyond.

Of course, the article also points out that the exact material has yet to be made...

Re:I'm willing to bet $$$ it will never work

[LMCBoy]

You should really read about the system, before you denounce it as impossible and ridiculous with statements that demonstrate clearly that you don't understand the concept.

you still have to accelerate to orbital velocity after the lift, unless they plan to build it all the way out to the distance of a geosynchronous orbit.

They are going way past the geosynchronous point; they *have* to because the lift's center-of-mass has to be at the geosynchronous altitude.

Nothing is strong enough to support that kind of weight. With today's best engineering, they haven't even managed to build a building 1/2 of a mile high.

You shouldn't think of it in terms of a weight-bearing structure like a building. The lift ribbon will not need to support the weight of the whole system; on the contrary, centrifugal force will hold it aloft (i.e., the whole thing is effectively in orbit).

So, the material needs tensile strength, not weight-bearing capacity. Think carbon nanotubes, not "diamond beams".

But right now it's ridiculous and any venture capitalist who gives them money would have to be borderline retarded.

Ignorance has a cure: RTFA

Re:I'm willing to bet $$$ it will never work

[arvindn]

Of course, the article also points out that the exact material has yet to be made...

You're missing something here: the difference between science and engineering. Space elevator advocates often point out that most of the remaining problems are not in the realm of science but instead tech and financing. So progress is not dependent on some long haired genius in a basement lab having a brainwave. You can make confident predictions that technology will improve and that the material with the required tensile strength will be constructed soon in the future. And hey, considering that these guys are trying to accomplish the mind-boggling, optimism is the only way.

possible, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies that are more interested in attracting attention than in getting tangible results are usually interested either in attracting investments or overcoming opposition. Since there is no widescale opposition to a high lift operation yet, they are probably at the investment stage.

Seeing as they are going to the general public, I guess that they don't have stable long term institutional investors for their long term project. That means they are searching for lots of piece-meal investments to keep a capital intensive project going for fifteen years. That sounds pretty hopeless to me.

I'd guess that what they're really after is money, in the name of the project. Perhaps the other partners saw this and that is why they left the original coalition.

It's Official

[coaxial]

It's official. Microsoft is a country.

"I don't plan to stand in the way of anybody building the elevator," he said. "I want to see somebody build a space elevator in the long term for the benefit of everybody. If Michael does it first, or Australia, Japan, U.S., Microsoft, whoever, that's fine."

Re:I'm willing to bet $$$ it will never work

[Christopher Thomas]

You're missing something here: the difference between science and engineering. Space elevator advocates often point out that most of the remaining problems are not in the realm of science but instead tech and financing. So progress is not dependent on some long haired genius in a basement lab having a brainwave. You can make confident predictions that technology will improve and that the material with the required tensile strength will be constructed soon in the future.

I agree except for the "soon" part.

You can make exactly the same arguments about whisker fibers, which have been around for quite some time and would be a wonderful material if we could solve the degradation and production problems.

You can also make the same argument about controlled fusion. Few doubt that it's possible; there's just been a history of very optimistic estimates for when we'll finally have all of the engineering problems solved.

If we have nanotubes in quantity tomorrow, I'll be the first to cheer, because you can do many interesting things with them on a smaller scale than building space elevators. However, I'm not holding my breath.

Even predicting the recent past can be tricky.

[MarkusQ]

If we have nanotubes in quantity tomorrow, I'll be the first to cheer, because you can do many interesting things with them on a smaller scale than building space elevators. However, I'm not holding my breath.

Start cheering then. We have the means to manufacture them in quantity now. (Basically, continious process vapor deposition, with a few tricks to it).

The present problem is the old "how do they stick the teflon to the pan" problem; getting them to play nicely in composites, and finding ways to manufacture the composites.

-- MarkusQ