Slashdot Mirror
Space Elevator Conference Wraps Up
slavitos writes "The
Space Elevator: 2nd International Conference,
organized by the
Los Alamos National Lab
and the
Institute for
Scientific Research
has just finished its work in New Mexico.
To be sure, most people still think
it's absolutely ridiculous to even consider building
such a thing.
However, that's exactly what organizers
wanted - an open discussion on the issue, plus
some free PR."
It's the same way with the current space program. We're always putting world hunger second :P
Anyhow, the benefits are obvious. If taking stuff to space doesn't require the shuttle (an outdated extremely costly concept that is extremely error prone), not to mention cheaper, then eventually ordinary people will get into space as well.
But the same question applies. What's the current space program have to do for ordinary people? Can you answer that? Good, now imagine all those satellites were far cheaper. Yeah, global communication does kick ass doesn't it?
Cheaper space exploration will benefit us as science takes advantage. It's just a matter of time.
Well, once you have cheap access to space, a whole bunch of things suddenly become much more profitable.
Example: most near-Earth asteroids contain very high quantities of heavy metals. There are all sorts of things you can do with iridium, platinum or gold alloys. How would you like a car that ran off ordinary petrol but used a fuel cell instead of an IC engine? Quieter, lighter, cheaper, more reliable --- provided you can get the palladium catalysts required to make it work.
Example: it would be possible to start mass producing things in microgravity. Defect-free crystal growth would lead to much cheaper electronics among other things. If you can get the cost of access cheap enough, even mundane things like steel refining will change: vacuum foam steel girders would be cheaper, lighter and stronger than conventional rolled girders.
Example: Outside geostationary orbit is a great place to be if you want to do something hazardous. Want to build a really messy experimental nuclear power reactor? Now you can do it and it won't be in anyone's back yard.
Example: there's more you can do with a space elevator than get to orbit. They provide an ideal anchoring point for telecommunications systems, among other things: put a communications complex 500km up and you've got LEO-quality satellite communications while still able to use fixed position dishes. Plus it's repairable. Cheaper satellite TV, anyone?
Example: low gee hospitals .
Example: Tourism!
These are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head --- I'm sure that given a few minutes thought I could come up with some more. The great thing about a space elevator is not that it's directly profitable, but that it's an enabler. It makes a whole bunch of other things become profitable, and opens up the possibility for a whole variety of other industries, currently unthought of, that would be even more profitable. It provides new wealth to the economy, which produces long-term gains in the same way that feeding starving children (although an admirable goal in itself) or building aircraft carriers just don't do. It's the old teach-a-starving-man-to-fish argument: invest, don't spend.
With modern farming methods, food is extraordinarily cheap to create. The space program can be pretty expensive and not make a difference to how many people we have starving in the world. Additionally, two of the absolute benefits of the space program has been improvements to communications infrastructure and the ability to monitor the world's weather systems and planetary features, both of which have actively helped in food production, the former by allowing better planned and coordinated food creation, the latter by providing warnings allowing potentially disasterous damage to be minimised.
Long term, hey, may be we can move people off this planet - that should improve things too!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"I think I am a fallen star. I should wish on myself."
Who's we?
How much of your money do you give to starving people as food instead of buying a nice car, nice house, nice clothes?
As you are free to use your own property as you see fit, so are people with more property, and that includes talking about building a space elevator.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Cities have their vulnerabilities and invulnerabilities. Theres lots of people gathered in one place, for example. They have certain vulnerable systems, such as power and especially water.
On the other hand, cities are extremely robust. Certainly high tech assualts such as bioterrorism could be a great concern, but proven terrorist methods are low tech -- typically delivering a large quantity of explosive in front of a highly populated building. The World Trade Center attack was undoubtedly the most spectacular terrorist "success", but as catastrophic as they were for the structures, if you look at them as an attack on the city, they were remarkably ineffective.As disruptive as they were, NYC basically continued to function even through 9/11, and today it runs more or less the same as it did on 9/10/2001.
The Space Elevator would be a tempting target for terrorists, since it could be attacked using low tech weapons, if they could be delivered. We shouldn't underestimate their creativity in doing this.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'll bet you didn't like the war in Iraq (going on a limb here, you might have). Would you approve of the US/UN going to war and knocking out several other "innocent" goverments? (for some definition of innocent?) Most starvation is caused by goverments not allowing the food, of which there is more than enough, to get to the people who need it. Generally they have a political gain of some sort to doing so. (you might not see it as a gain, but they do)
As for a space elevator. Well I think private eneterprize should do it, which means get NASA out of the way and loosten up the laws preventing private companies from going to space. (Okay, it isn't exactly illegal, but it is nearly impossible to get the permits) At least in the US this is a problem.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"While the space elevator visionaries gathered in Santa Fe I feel it falls to me to point out a glaring hypocricy in the way that that conference was organised.
Despite the cost saving benifits of the elevator approach to accessing space, they are still advocating the ongoing use of shuttles as can be seen at the bottom of their about page.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
Eat at Joe's.
The space elevator makes so much sense it's amazing we even made a space shuttle at all.
The way I look at it is this. We have been shooting humans into space atop monolithic, ubelievably dangerous explosive devices. A rocket is an explosive device.
If space were a cliff and we wanted to get on top, the current way we are doing it is by laying a board over a fulcrum, sitting a guy on one end and dropping a volkswagen on the other. Boing! he flys through the air and rolls to a stop atop the cliff. How does he get down? he jumps and hopes to land on a soft spot. Lots, LOTS can go wrong, and death is almosts as likely as success.
The space elevator is the equivalent of (rather than launching someone up) throwing a rope and hook up the cliff face, securing it, and then weaving a rope ladder.
Higher success, cheaper (no volkswagen involved), and safer (though less exciting and dramatice albeit).