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Space Elevator Prizes Proposed
colonist writes "Space elevator proponents are planning competitions for space elevator technologies, similar to the Ansari X Prize. Elevator:2010 will organize annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems. In other space elevator news, researcher Bradley C. Edwards recently left the Institute for Scientific Research to work at two companies on materials and technology. Also, the space elevator has caught the interest of Google's founders: 'At a space camp in Alabama last year, Brin talked about creating a space elevator to transport cargo up a special tether attached to earth. Also last year, Brin joined Page in proclaiming they should found a nanotech lab at Google.'"
No link to pursue, but one feels that if it's at Google that would be more like a discussion forum than a lab. Unless, of course, they are proposing that Google starts funding a research center. If they follow, for instance, IBM's and ATT's footsteps, that would be a Great Thing(TM).
And in other news, The RIAA has donated a large collection of hit music tracks to the prize pool.
Seriously, these guys must be developing some sort of messiah complex if they think space elevators and nanotech have anything to do with their core skills. I met Brin in 2000 and he was getting full of himself then. The last few years of success and money must have convinced these two they're invincible and that any field could benefit from their presence. It's the same "I'm rich because I'm the smartest" attitude that too-young Wall Street traders get after they get rich at the first thing they try.
The real test if Google is any different from any other flash-in-the-pan will be when they hit some real adversity. Until then, they're just the latest Lycos/Altavista/Inktomi fair-haired boy to make a splash with VC funding and a slightly better idea. The truth is, no search engine has substantially improved once it's been deployed on a large scale. If no one's passed Google on quality, it's mainly because they were the last to get funded before the crash.
Flame away
I wouldn't suggest that reducing the total cost to low earth orbit is a bad idea --it's a great idea, that needs to be considered very carefully. I don't think raising a valid criticism or reasonable doubt constitutes jumping to conclusions either.
I was stationed at NORAD in the early eighties and junk in low earth orbit was a major concern as the shuttle program transitioned from idea to reality. I expect the problem is much worse now. I think "cloud" is a more apt description of the debris field. Yes, stuff re-enters the atmosphere all day every day, so I guess you could say it's a self healing process, but it's a long process.
The trouble with ideas is that they cost taxpayer dollars even if it turns out to be a bust.
I don't think most people have any idea what it would take to successfully swing a cable through maybe 20,000 objects at various altitudes, all travelling at 17,000 MPH or so, all day every day without hitting anything.
There's a long ugly road between this idea and reality.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if NASA didn't fund the programs. It would be O.K. with me if someone with an idea wanted to fund the research themselves or recruit funding from corporate types.
MADMEN is a similar boondoggle. But, don't take my word for it, ask Duncan Steele, PhD. In 1995 Steele published a book called "Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets" addressing this particular option (throwing material off an dangerous asteroid using a mass driver). Thomas Ahrens and Alan Harris at the California Institute of Technology looked at this very system (page 229). They dismissed it in 1992 because the ejection requirement was "...many thousands of tons..." over a lot of years. What did they come up with in answer to that? A "fleet" of mass drivers throwing stuff off. MADMEN indeed.