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Space Elevator Company LiftPort In Trouble
TropicalCoder writes "The LiftPort Group, founded four years ago with the lofty dream of building a stairway to heaven, has seemingly reached the end the line. The dream was to develop a ribbon of carbon nanotubes 100,000 km long, anchored to the Earth's surface and with a counterweight in space, providing a permanent bridge to orbit. Elevator cars would be robotic 'lifters' which would climb the ribbon to deliver cargo and eventually people to orbit or beyond. Now LiftPort has all but run out of funds, and the State of Washington's Securities Division has entered a Statement of Charges (PDF) against LiftPort Inc. dba LiftPort Group and founder Michael Laine."
who needs a space elevator when there's plenty of reefer down here?
just when i was dreaming of saying Beam (lift) Me up Scottie!
The dream was to develop a ribbon of carbon nanotubes 100,000 km long, anchored to the Earth's surface and with a counterweight in space, providing a permanent bridge to orbit
And it didn't work?!?!?! No S... Sherlock!
Tell me about feasible goals.
how long until
They're suing because the space elevator company failed.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Lesson: You don't offer "common stock" to people without following detailed securities regulations and laws. In fact, you don't mention that at all until you've consulted with people that know of these things. The president of Liftport obviously never took an Economics class where you would have learned at least that the whole stock system is very complicated and very regulated.
Good call, Washington (state). Sucks for the idea, though.
Well I would be interested to know how the State of Washinton came to these conclusions and charges. Blue Sky laws are put into place to protect un-savy investors from being taken by kinky investment opportunities, but the charges don't seem to translate into a direct blue sky violation, and at worst, seems to stem from his lack of registering with the State that he would be selling securities.
They mention that he sold to un-accredited investors, but this is allowable under Regulation D, assuming he didn't take more then $1M and that the people he took money from were previous business associates, friends, or family.
I think this boils down to an angry Washington resident that put money into this 'venture' and lost it, and now is angry.
A major plot point of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars is a space elevator's outer anchor being destroyed, sending the tether falling down on the red planet and causing all kinds of damage as it winds around. Obviously such a scenario would be taken into account by current thinkers, so how do they expect to avoid this risk?
I hope this doesn't impede future space elevator entrepreneurs in any way.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Long LONG before you can build a space elevator you need tether materials which are several orders of magnitude stronger than what we can build today...
If you could even get 1/100th of the way there on materials, you would have a great company selling fibers for military and industrial applications.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I was pretty much convinced the space elevator was never going to happen with our current understanding of material technology anyway. There was a study in Nature a while back by Nicola Pugno who pointed out that defects in carbon nanoribbon would pretty much make it impossible. You need 62 gigapascals of tension strength for a space elevator. Carbon nanoribbon gives you 100 gigapascals. First, note how slim that margin is, and that's with PERFECT nanoribbon. But perfection is difficult to achieve in the real world, and inevitable atomic defects reduce the strength of the ribbon dramatically. Just a single atom defect in a single strand reduces strength by 30%. Bulk material consisting of many strands reduces that even further.
I can't find the original article, but here's a typical write-up at the time.
Who knows, maybe somebody will invent something better than carbon nanotubes, but even a perfect ribbon has a mighty slim margin.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a Genuine, Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car, Spacelifting Monorail!
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
...that crashed back to Earth.
In his book, High-Tech Ventures, Digital Equipment Corporation pioneer Gordon Bell analyzed various factors in the potential success of startups.
As I recall, one of his great big red flags was any product whose development entailed more than two technology breakthrough.
Yeah, here it is (PDF). He says, flatly, "A successful startup cannot be based on more than two breakthroughs in the state of the art. And for each area requiring a breakthrough, an alternative technology should be available as a backup."
So, by this measure, the Wright Brothers needed breakthroughs in engines and airframe design... so success was possible.
As for LiftPort, I think I've lost count of the number of breakthroughs they need.
And I'm not sure what their backup technology would have been if, by any chance, the carbon nanotube strategy turned out to be unfeasible.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I don't think you need to take an economics course to learn this. Anybody who forms a corporation should have an attorney and a CPA. Oneof those two people, if not both, should have said, "If you want to raise money that way, you need to follow certain rules, or you need to factor jail time for the corporate officers into the business plan."
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Austin: "I guess they had trouble getting the business ... off the ground." ... ups and downs." ... never fly."
Vanessa: "Ha."
Austin: "The elevator business does have its
Vanessa: "Heh."
Austin: "I knew that idea would
Vanessa: "That's enough."
Austin: "Ok."
Their business model was akin to counting on the rental income from office space in the Empire State building...in the year 1400 BC .
"Hey, we've just invented this new material, let's build this fantastically tall thing that is far beyond our present technological limits and make money from those who will use it.
They have a website that looks as if it's been knocked together by a 13-year-old kid who wants to be a rocket scientist. If what's on display there is anything to go by the company seems to be going nowhere. "Primarily targeting the hardware of the space elevator, the LiftPort Group member companies are researching and designing the nuts and bolts in the fields of carbon nanotube production, robotics, photo voltaics, power beaming and targeting, and permanent floating structures for the ocean. Outside of that, we also are responsible for project management, web design, public relation, accounting, and legal issues for each member company of the group." So we need to do all this... we're not really sure how to do it... but give us some money and we'll work it out. If it wasn't in the news I'd have assumed it was a scam. Somebody really didn't do their homework before they made an investment.
mention, "Heh, if this works, we'll be really, really, really rich. In about three decades."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
No stairway. Denied!
In Arthur Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise" the cable was made of monocrystalline diamond. I don't know how the tensile strength of compares to that of other carbon structures, but this paper (PDF) mentions values of over 1200 GPa at certain orientations, much better than what's needed for a space elevator. So, the real breakthrough needed is how to manufacture enough monocrystalline diamond fiber at a reasonable price.
Man, have I got a bridge to sell you right here in San Francisco. It doesn't go space, but it's the best thing to it.
Leave my elevator alone!
At least if it stops working, I can walk the rest of the way.
"founded four years ago with the lofty dream of building a stairway to heaven" :-)
I guess no one would have wanted to walk up there anyway
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It seems that a good place to try something like this would be the moon. It's relatively close, it has no wind to complicate things, it's gravity is dramatically less, so we could probably build it with today's materials science, and it would make getting on and off the moon dramatically easier.
After all, if your goal is to swim the English Channel, you might want to try swimming across a pool first.
the best thing is their "store". I like how they sell tickets i cant use till 2038. you think they would atleast take it down since they already in trouble.
Today...
Financial. A fund specifically for the purpose. Invest now and in 20-40 years there might be enough cash to pay for construction.
Deleted
I can just imagine the PHB at Dilbert's cube announcing that he's come up with plans for a space elevator.
... if you had a fledgling company focusing on an extremely fledging idea, would you put your money into renting or buying buildings like that? Or would you perhaps start of with something smaller, like Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard?
... I just wish *I* had an action matrix!
From their Wiki page:
Our goal is a significant return on investment - whether or not - the Space Elevator is ultimately successful. We do this by concentrating on 2 things: generating profits through spin-off technologies, and learning what we need to learn, in order to achieve our long-term goals.
The Four Pillars dictate how the rest of the world interacts with us; while the Five-C's are examples of how we interact with the world. Collectively these are referred to as The Nine and are used when considering the action matrix for building our elevator to space."
Four Pillars? Five Cs? The Nine?
Who are these kids, and how did they get access to enough money in the first place that now some government entity finds them worth investigating?
Looking through page after page of their gallery section, I ask myself what photograph after photograph of empty rooms and open spaces across a very large piece of real estate says about how they're handling money. Take a look through yourself. (Try not to stumble over the poor grammar and poorly written comments.)
Honestly
But whatever
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
Carbon nanotubes were not a problem, but the investors just could not understand how humans could endure several hours of elevator music.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
I remember how excited all the nerds on /. were around 1998 about this, and then every subsequent year thereafter when another "breakthrough" on the path to the ultimate breakthrough was announce. If I recall correctly, the space elevator was supposed to be functional in 10 years from 1998.
I do wonder where all the money went. Will this be on one of those specials on Discovery Channel?
/comedy
/comedy off
/. these days" Yeah. A plane barely manages gets a third of the way to orbit, and thus wins a "commercial" contest -- they sure showed that Yuri Gagarin prick a thing or two!
Hey, now! Everyone knows government can't do anything right! That's why governments have never put anyone into space! Especially big bloated socialist governments!*
* Actually had a libertard on slashdot tell me once that the X-Prize proved the free market was the "future" of space exploration, unlike the "socialism that gets promoted on
A government effort would get it done but it would cost several orders of magnitude more than what the free market could do it for. The difference is that the free market will do it when the technology is made available and it becomes economical, neither of which is currently the case.
I wonder why no one ever thinks about a lunar space elevator. With much lower gravity, no atmosphere or weather, or other problems like planes, birds or lighting to worry about it looks like an interesting test case. Would a lunar space elevator be feasible with currently available materials?
They were caught by police while trying to escape in a prototype elevator by hitting the "Bang Zoom to the Moon, Alice!" button.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
WILLIAMSBURG DOESN'T NEED A SPACE ELEVATOR! The Space Elevator Will Mean: Less Parking, Weird Ribbon Thing, Constant Loud Whirring Noise, Increased Space Elevator Truck Traffic. Developers have submitted plans to build a massive space elevator in Williamsburg! This monstrosity, completely out of context with existing development in the neighborhood, will be accessible only to the wealthy, forcing thousands of average Williamsburgers from their homes and live-work spaces! Jobs the elevator will generate (operators, repairmen, astronauts) are certain to go to non-residents! Don't sit idly by and let this elevator cast its impossibly long, cold, and very narrow shadow over our homes! CALL 311 AND TELL THEM 'I JUST DON'T NEED THIS SPACE ELEVATOR!'
I was thinking of mars myself--- after the moon, we should build one on mars-- although one on mars would be more handy sooner rather than later.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Seems to come from the owner of the company, although it's hard to be sure.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
I don't know if anybody noticed, but we seem to have some feedback from Michael Laine of LiftPort himself. Since he logged on as Anonymous Coward, his remarks are coming out at 0, below the radar of most readers. It seems no moderator has considered elevating his comments, or is not convinced that the writer is indeed Michael Laine of LiftPort.
Mr. Laine - if that is really you, I would suggest that you log on, so that your comments will at least start out at 1 and thereby become visible. If you wish, drop me a note, and I will interview you (via email or Skype) on behalf of Slashdot. (Click the contact-me link on my web page). Of course you can expect to be properly authenticated in the process.
It's a shame. It's actually worse than the article indicates. Michael just lost a building in downtown Bremerton that was providing some income to the firm. This also had the offices of Liftport. He's now in his parent's garage. One of the risk factors he always said was that of the regulatory bodies, and that's what got him this time. The guy had a vision and was trying to go for it. I feel kind of sorry for him. (I worked in Bremerton for years and am very familiar with the area. I've been on his mailing list awhile--even sent him a resume. I'm retired, thought it would be a fun gig to promote.)
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Amazingly small world. I used to live in Bremerton, and worked for TEKnology-Laine LLC back in 1997. Michael is a nice guy, smart and well-spoken, but kinda of a dreamer. He tried a bunch of stuff- yellowwweb, site hosting, owning an office building. None of it went anywhere that I know of.
I see you posting, Michael... Dave C here, the Mac guy... I'm sure you remember me. How is everyone from there doing? I'm in Michigan now, moved in 2001.
Agreed. at least for a lunarsynchronous elevator. However, there is a proposal for an elevator that reaches from a fixed point on the lunar surface to the L-1 point located between the Earth and the Moon. Such an elevator wouldn't be lunarsynchronous, but because it would terminate at L-1, very little station-keeping fuel would be needed to keep it lunarstationary. Best of all, it could be built from off-the-shelf materials like Kevlar. Using M5 fiber, an elevator with a 200 kg payload would mass only 6800 kg, which is well within the capacity of a single Delta IV launch. All in all, a feasible solution. Now we just need a problem for it. :)
The main reason for building a space elevator in the first place is to avoid the irreversabilitys due to atmospheric drag. The moon has no atmosphere so this is not a problem.
Actually, the main reason for a space elevator is to avoid the need for fuel. To lift a payload with an elevator, just input energy. To lift the same payload with a rocket, you need to burn some fuel, plus the fuel needed to lift the fuel, plus the fuel needed to lift the fuel that lifts the fuel, et cetera. The amount of fuel required scales exponentially with the mass of the payload.
Worse, while oxygen is abundant on the Moon, hydrogen is almost nonexistent. So it will be difficult to make fuel on the moon. Lifting the fuel from Earth would be prohibitively costly.
So the payback period for an elevator, even on the Moon, should be pretty short -- assuming, of course, that the Moon has something we want to export.
You mean that selling access to a device no one even knows how to begin building ISN'T a great way to make money?
You can do it. (think Happy Madison Productions) :)
I just got off the phone with Michael J. Laine, President of the LiftPort Group. In a previous comment, I had noted that there was some direct feedback from Mr. Laine, but his comments came out at 0 because he logged on as AC. Since I felt no one had noticed his comments, I offered to interview him on behalf of Slashdot, and he contacted me and accepted my offer. I was able to authenticate that indeed I was in touch with the real Michael J. Laine. I must say it was very interesting conversation. In the end it was agreed that I will prepare a list of questions for Michael, mostly based on Slashdot comments posted here, giving him a chance to respond to each in his own words. If you wish to add to the that list, pose your question here and now. I hope to be able to submit the completed interview within 24 hours, and then it will be up to Slashdot editors if and when to post it.
TropicalCoder
But plenty of people have started businesses which, in retrospect, don't make a great deal of sense. That doesn't in itself make them frauds. Most are honest people who either weren't as smart as they thought, or were unlucky, or some combination of the two.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The current problem is increased absorption of solar energy due to CO2 output from electric and transporation energy production. If the CO2 component were eliminated, absorption would drop off drastically. Until we were using enough more energy than we use today to create a thermal problem despite the increased ability to get rid of heat the elimination of greenhouse gas production would create, we're still better off getting our power through orbital solar.
Tech Public Policy stuff
calls into question that ability of a company to get anything right.
Regulation D isn't THAT hard to comply with.
Tech Public Policy stuff
This "company" has got a lot of coverage over the last few years on Slashdot. This is not because of anything that they have done, but because of the type of company they are. The opportunity to go to space and participate in the creation of extra-terrestrial colonies and worlds is the dream of every nerd wishing to escape the mundane realities facing them.
Anyway, the first time I saw the website for Liftport, they had pictures of LEGO MODELS laying on carpet taken with a cheap digital camera, and poorly drawn visualizations that looked like pictures out of books about the future that I read when I was in the 3rd grade. These guys have built a toy that can climb ropes, and that's about it.
When I was 10 years old, I started a spy company and opened up shop in my bedroom. This was fantasy mind you, but I don't see how it's any different from Liftport. Follow your dreams, yes, but don't be a fool either. Seriously, these guys have done nothing more advanced than your average high school science project, but because they surround themselves with the vernier of a registered corporation that somehow legitimizes them?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
When I saw the name "Michael Laine", I didn't really think anything - it's a plain and potentially common enough name. Then I read the linked PDF and saw the adress, and realised that I know this particular "Michael Laine" personally.
.com era he spent quite a while trying to get people (including me) to invest in a variety of web based businesses without so much as formal business plan. The accomplishements of TEKnology-Laine largely exist in Michael's vivid imagination. (Even back then it struck me that his main source of income was business grants and investors - with little in the way of actual customers.)
He's been floating around the Bremerton business scene for around fifteen years involved in/shilling for one dubious business idea after another. Back in the
I'm not surprised he's finally fallen afoul of the law. He's been in a bit of trouble off and on because the building he bought back in the 90's was partially paid for by a grant based on his claims to already have a viable technology business and his promises to expand it and bring jobs to the city. A promise not entirely broken - but also one on which he's not expended much actual energy on fulfilling.
Let's see what a little Googling brings to light about his recent career.
Hmm... Here's a fascinating little piece, it seems he is not repaying a loan advanced for the purpose of building a nanotube factory. In this article he admits to the failure of a business prominently mentioned in many articles about Liftport. (As well as admitting he didn't actually graduate from college as he implies in his bio.) Here we find that Liftport actually went belly up nearly two months ago. (Mostly because the investors couldn't - or wouldn't come up with the money to pay for the building he owns, but occupies less than 25% of.) This article from nine months ago shows a familiar pattern from his TEKnology-Laine days, with one scheme starting to unravel - he's off shilling for another.
"Read some Kim Stanley-Robinson books (ie, the Mars series).
/his/ ideas are being put into play by NASA, "
A lot of
Name one. Emphasis added by me.
Perpetual motion, recreational drugs, and the skyhook were topics of conversation in the sixties. People willing to invest real money in this idea either ahve too much money, or shouldn't be investing without a competant financial advisor to discuss risk factors. If this tchnique was viable, I would expect people who already have a space station to be motivated more than some startup. I read a while back about their idea to switch to ad hoc wireless relays (lighter than air) and I filed it with the meteor burst communication materials from ealier people.
Well, 62 gigapascals is quite a lot, as well. Factor of safety is critically important. The 62 GPa figure is based on a shambling pile of assumptions. They may be good assumptions, but many of the stresses experienced by a space elevator cannot be simulated. While aerospace applications often have a FoS of around 1.5, the amount of capital and potential loss of life in your average NASA mission pale in comparison to what might happen if a space elevator should fail. IMHO, a space elevator does not properly fall under aerospace and is more properly civil engineering. As such, I would consider 2.0 to be the minimum FoS (and 3.0 a far more reasonable figure for such a critical component). So, until you find someone who manufactures (present tense, not "thinks they can manufacture") a material with 186 GPa tensile, stay away from snake oil^W^W space elevators.
-
No, 48 GPa is NOT "equivalent to 1,000,000 metric tons falling a metre".
The pascal is a unit of pressure (or force per unit area). "1,000,000 metric tons falling a metre" (near the earth's surface) would be an energy (or integral of force over displacement). In this case 9.8 GJ.
When I started my first business, I spent about $1500 for help from an attorney and a CPA, both specialists in corporate law and tax law, respectively. I'm not facing jail time nor massive penalties, so I'm guessing that was money well spent.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Mr. President,
Could you please tell me.... is LiftPort even capable of constructing their own elevator for a building? Could you build an elevator that takes you to your suite without hiring contractors to build it for you?? Think about that before you go telling the world you can make an elevator that reaches into orbit!
Okay guys, this is absurd. LiftPort's plan, while certainly speculative, is not as infeasible as the non-article-reading Slashdot crowd seems to think, and LiftPort's approach to it makes perfect sense for a small startup company.
The space elevator basically has two components- the lifter and the tether. The tether is the tricky materials science component, but it's also the part receiving the most research interest worldwide. There's a LOT of money being poured into manufacturing long chain carbon nanotubes because the practical applications are literally world changing. Every major research lab on the planet is at least dabbling in it, and bit by bit progress is being made. Really it's just a matter of time. However, a small outfit like LiftPort simply couldn't hope to have the resources to compete with the big labs (though when last I heard they were finishing up construction of a CNT fab for commercial use).
That's where the lifter comes in. While still a big engineering challenge, design of the lifter IS within the scope of a small company's R&D, and aside from LiftPort there's nobody even working on it. LiftPort's very sensible approach is therefore to concentrate on what they *can* do, so that when the CNT manufacturing challenges get worked out they have an enormously profitable application all ready to go.
I've been following LiftPort closely for several years, and spoken with Michael Laine one-on-one on more occasions than I could count. Hell, if I'd had money to invest I would've been one of their investors, and even now would have no gripes at all about how they've been conducting their work and using their funds. Sometimes businesses don't work out. It happens. However I think it's terribly unfair to crucify LiftPort, Laine, or the space elevator concept because this particular venture is having problems.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Perhaps EuroSpaceward is luckier. They're holding a workshop in November.
Lets review-
Earth is spinning at 17000 mph and there was/is this idea to extend some sort of appendage off of the planets surface having this appendage protrude outward and upward, through various atmospheric layers and weather and then into space and if that is not a feat in itself it was to carry a payload let alone counter the gravitational forces exerted on it by the planet.
This would have been succesful to some degree and if it ever made it to its design altitude, it ultimately would have become parallel with earths trajectory through space, sticking out like a mud flap in the wind while blowing down the celestial highway at 17k and of no use to anyone other than scrap!
Its going to be easier to bring forth time travel than make this work without extending carbon nanotubes in perpendicular directions to the vertical for miles.
DUH!
Archimedes is said to have remarked about the lever: "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth."
Except that he didnt say "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move objects to orbit, which would be a far lesser accomplishment.
That whole idea about "anchoring" cables from the orbit reaises some serious feasibility questions. Other than that, levers is all a prior art.
A normal force against the center of the ribbon (e.g. a crosswind blowing) would create a tug against the counterweight that would pull it toward earth.
If I remember my engineering mechanics correctly, the force would be:
F = W cos(A) / sin(A)
Where
W is the normal force applied by the crosswind
A is the angle between the ribbon and the vertical plane
F is the tensile force applied at the end of the ribbon
Since the ribbon would be straight and vertical, angle A would approach zero, and cos(A) / sin(A) will approach infinity. O mechanical engineers, correct me if I'm wrong here.
With high-altitude winds constantly buffetting the cable, the counterweight will be bouncing around uncontrollably. How will that be prevented?
I'm surprised WA State pulled out... this is the same state that is trying to build a monorail, though it's been proven to solve absolutely no problems regarding congestion or that it will be used sufficiently to be justified. We here in Washington like to take your money and spend it on things that never materialize. . . we're kinda like wannabe Californians... but with more rain.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
> Sometimes businesses don't work out. It happens. However I think it's terribly unfair to crucify LiftPort, Laine, or the space elevator concept because this particular venture is having problems. In fact, usually businesses don't work out. The frequently-quoted failure rate of new restaurants is something like 90%. But nobody says that restaurants in general are a bad idea or can't be profitable. But it does seem likely that the business community has not yet figured out that 99.9% of the valuable resources and energy within a light-year or so of here is offplanet. So it's an extremely difficult business climate to try this in and as such, execution is everything. I salute Liftport for their efforts, and wish them and their successor companies best of luck in the future.
Catch Your eye
But not for your memories,
Peeling leeches off my heart,
It's getting colder in this
I can sing this anymore,
Celestial skies have
And your Girl, she Love
If they think you'd save me the bullet, it's so over ya'll
Me, I'm just Jin just doing my thang
Just doing my thang, just doing my thang
Why is there beef everywhere I go?
I'm drunk skewing, can't we all get along
My I Love you
Smelling of whispering your name.
tube hole wind in my face. thunder in gentle distance.
reactor. reactor. do you mind. straighten.
this is a random feature. random feature.
this is a random feature.
name
I have never had it convincingly explained to me how we are going to link the ribbon of carbon from space to Earth. If we launch an orbital platform then try to decend a ribbon down to the planet, the ribbon will drag in the atmosphere and pull the orbital platform out of orbit. How is this obstical overcome when building the space elevator?
Apparently, someone already tried to build one of these things a while back. Not sure exactly where it is now, or why it failed -- but according to the story, when it failed, the backlash of bringing in too many lawyers and the introduction of too many legal terms to justify its creation and upkeep left everyone in a state of confusion and disillusionment.
:-)
Ultimately, the company fell apart and its name is now synonymous with 'Confusion'. The different people and technology that came out of this each had its own start-up and resulted in huge diverse industries of its era.
Here's the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel