Space Elevator Company Fission

Dag Maggot writes "Highlift Systems seems to be going through some turbulent times with cofounder Michael Laine leaving to form his own space elevator company LiftPort. Interestingly, Liftport pledges to be a "transparent" company, and as such have provided the full text of the original space elevator proposal which was made to NASA NIAC." We mentioned Liftport before, but the proposal is new and quite interesting.

Comments

..yet another tax shelter poisons the beanstalk...

[sa-thigpen]

A lot of these schemes remind me of the stuff that came out in the early/mid eighties from too many conservative, quasi libertarian real estate millionaires who used hair-brained space related come-ons as tax shelters. It is not suprising how NASA can feed this mentality -- I would put them on the same level.

It is also a sick reminder to see how they could fathom using radioactive materials for power. As the decade wears on I imagine we will see plenty more of these last gasp efforts to legitimize outdated, unsafe, 20th Century technologies and mindsets.

Again, we are seeing warped vision poisoning the the beanstalk.

A lightweight space beanstalk could be built in the near future at reliatively low cost using safe, alternative power sources, and nano-tube composites.

SA Thigpen - KL1FE - http://sthigpen.freeshell.org

how about some effort on manned space travel?

[soma8]

It was highlighted to me very strongly that we have not in truth as yet escaped the van allen belt in manned space travel. I don't know if anyone knows what I am talking about, but outside of the inner margin of the van allen belt it would take 6 inches of lead to make the radiation levels inside a spacecraft safe for a human. If you doubt this, just look it up! it seems obvious to me. we really don't need more junk in the upper atmosphere in orbital regions. We really don't even know what the huge amounts of microwave radiation being bounced back and forth from sattelites is doing to our atmosphere. I would like to see some genuine efforts made to make the propulsion systems cost effective for space travel, and then further to that to make the vehicles that can reach beyond earth's gravity safe for human transport. I'm sure my voice is going to be lost in the noise here, but It's Worth A Try...