Several university, private industry, and government groups are developing an innovative approach to accessing the inner solar system via robotic elevator cars that move up and down a ribbon, which is anchored to earth, and a small man-made counterweight in space. The elevator would potentially carry satellites, solar power systems, exploration probes, factories, and eventually people into space.
In October, there was a space elevator competition at Moffit Field in Silicon Valley. The competition was run by the Spaceward Foundation, a non-profit group, and had a $50,000 prize money furnished by NASA. No group won, and the preliminary elevator technology is believed to be at least two years off.
According to Siliconbeat, there have also been secretive demonstrations of a Space Elevator project by the Foresight Nanotech Institute. The project apparently also involves Liftport Group, which has received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use airspace to conduct preliminary tests.
Liftport has a launch date set: April 12, 2018.
[Thanks, Liftport Group, Siliconbeat, San Jose Mercury News]
[Update: The March 1, 2006 issue of Business2.0 Magazine has an excellent and detailed description of the space elevator concept.]
January 12th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Interesting article, but I wonder how the counter weight stay in space. How much will the elevator itself weigh?
January 12th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
The first SHARKRIDE comment!! Thanks! I assume - because space has no gravity - that the counter-weight just floats up there. I don’t know how much the elevator would weigh - several different prototypes are being developed. I’ve read that Sergey Brin and Larry Page have an avid interest in the concept. Google is building a research center at NASA/Ames, but no official word from Google about any involvement in the elevator concept.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:45 am
I’m not sure you’d call our test secretive - we’re certainly not shy about letting people know it happened. The test in question was kept close-held before the fact to keep the press and curious public away for good reasons. Those included but were not limited to insurance reasons. If the aerostat got away from us or something fell off and hit someone we’d have no end of insurance hassles - basically we were covered by our insurer but only if civilians were kept far far out of harms way. It was felt that ‘back in town’ was a good safety distance.
As for what keeps it up .. why gravity. Kinda sorta. The genuine explanation can be found on our website under FAQ, or use the Wikiepedia Space Elevator entry for a good grounding in things space elevator. But in a nutshell ..
An SE is a structure under balanced tension. By contrast a building (think the Sears Tower in Chicago) is under compression. The midpoint of an SE is at GEO - a point in orbit around earth that apears fromt he ground to be fixed in the sky. Half of the SE hangs down (in) from that point and touches the earth. Half hangs up (out).
If you will - think of a satellite dragging a long antenna both up and down as it circles the earth. What keeps the counterweight out there is centripital force - think string and rubber ball and slinging it around your head where your head is the earth and the ball is the counterweight.
All of this is simplyfying greatly of course, but you should get the basic idea.
I myself know of no involvement with Google. But that would be keen - maybe I’d get a tour of their data center …