International Space Elevator Consortium
April 2015 Newsletter
In this Issue:
Editor’s Note
President’s Corner
ISEC Conference
Historical Files
Research Lab
Copernicus Series
Editor’s Note
Dear Friend,
Welcome to the April, 2015 edition of the ISEC eNewsletter. We have a lot of news this month!
First of all, we're very excited to announce the 2015 ISEC Space Elevator Conference! Once again, ISEC will be bringing together Engineers, Scientists, Researchers and enthusiasts to talk about and advance our understanding of the Space Elevator. Registration details are shown later on in this edition - be there or be square!
In this issue's extended President's Corner, ISEC President Dr. Peter Swan talks about volunteering for ISEC, how easy and rewarding it is to do and how you might want to start out by applying for the position of Publicity Director for ISEC.
We are also proud to announce two new columns beginning in this issue. The first one, The Historical Files, will be a report on the ongoing work of the ISEC History Committee, a Committee created to capture the history of the development of the space elevator.
The second new column is entitled "The Research Lab" and is a report on the workings of the ISEC Research Committee and its efforts to advance the nuts-and-bolts of the space elevator effort.
We hope to have one or both of these columns in future newsletters on a regular, semi-monthly basis.
We also bring news about a new, space-elevator themed "boot camp" in Hungary in July.
Please don’t forget to LIKE US on Facebook, FOLLOW US on Twitter, and enjoy the photos and videos that we’ve posted on Flickr and YouTube, all under our Social Identity of ISECdotORG.
Thank you!
ISEC
President's Corner
The process of volunteering at ISEC is simple, but so rewarding. As ISEC progresses towards a real space elevator, the organization needs volunteers to accomplish certain tasks. As such, we look for talent and enthusiasm in our volunteers. Normally, the individual becomes involved first in one aspect of ISEC, such as the history committee or the yearly conference or even the yearly study report, and then progresses inside the organization. Each volunteer would then recognize that they were enjoying the activities and the feedback from volunteering as a positive step towards the future of mankind. By helping ISEC progress, we are ensuring that the future unfolds in a positive manner. The ability to move hardware and people to GEO and beyond in a cost effective and routine manner will ensure lower cost electricity delivered across the globe and resource development from celestial bodies. Can you image space based solar power enabling electricity litterally anywhere on the surface of the Earth at almost no cost per KWH. How about mining water on the Moon to fuel flights to Mars? Where else can you impact the future so directly?
ISEC is currently looking for a volunteer in a key position:
Publicity Director - handles the social networks, press releases, and the relationship with the news media. This would include the monthly newsletter.
This step could be your first one towards ISEC leadership or just a fun activity with ties to your favorite topics: space elevators, news sources, global publicity, social networks, newsletters and speaking engagements.
Keep Climbing my Friends -- Pete Swan
Registration now open for the 2015 ISEC Space Elevator Conference
ISEC is very pleased to announce that Registration is now OPEN for the 2015 ISEC Space Elevator Conference.
The Conference will be held from Friday, August 21st, through Sunday, August 23rd.
The Venue will the same place we've had the conference the past three years, Seattle's Museum of Flight. This has turned out to be a wonderful venue for the Conference and we are thrilled to be able to host the Conference here again.
Mark you calendars now - be there or be square!
The Historical Files
The Space Elevator History Committee is aggressively pursuing three activities at the present time: capturing oral histories, recording our history as we make it, and presenting our past. The current effort in capturing oral histories started last year at our conference where we successfully interviewed quite a few individuals. The purpose of the interviews it to capture their views of the "real history" of space elevators. It is amazing how much has not been recorded with respect to the early days of our industry.
The second effort is to record the current activities. This is presently focused around the conferences and their presentations. Both video/audio and power point / paper approaches are being taken. It is important to be able to reference back to something said three years ago. The conference archieves are slowly being put on our website.
The third effort is multifaceted. The first is the desire to write a complete book on the history of a space elevator from Tsilokovsky through 2014. There are so many sources and so much history that the task is broken down into major phases and activities. This process should be fun and rewarding - recording the achievements of so many players. In addition, there are articles dealing with history for several magazines or journals. If you would like to participate in any one of these efforts, please contact -- info(at)isec dot org.
The Research Lab
The main area of research needed for the space elevator is on high-strength materials. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are the favorite material, although there are other variations on carbon that look interesting, including carbon nanothreads and graphene sheets. Theoretically, polymers such as polyethylene are also strong and light enough to fit the bill. With all these materials, the challenge is to make long fibers or sheets that are without flaws right down to the atomic level. A single flaw seriously compromises the strength, following the old adage: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
ISEC would like to be able to give grants to researchers who are addressing the requirement of creating strong materials of low weight and extensive length. Many researchers working on CNTs are examining their exciting electrical properties, but we need to encourage some teams to concentrate on techniques to achieve high strength combined with substantial length.
We measure strength using the unit MegaYuri (MYuri) in honor of Yuri Artsutanov, who wrote a key paper on the space elevator in 1961. This is a unit of specific strength, that is, tensile strength divided by the density of the material. For example, Kevlar has many uses, including kite strings; its specific strength is 2.4 MYuri. CNTs have been reported in China as strong as 17 MYuri but only 1 mm in length. Allowing for a safety margin of 40%, the space elevator needs a material strength of 38 MYuri and lengths of meters leading on to kilometers and eventually thousands of kilometers.
The Copernicus Series
We'd like to inform you about an exciting new project from Exosphere, a "...a learning and problem-solving community, dedicated to leading a new generation of pioneers to bring positive change to the world through technology and social innovation."
This Chilean-based organization is hosting a "Boot Camp" in Budapest, Hungary from July 13-31, 2015 on the theme “An Endogenously-Powered Space Elevator.”
From the list of Objectives:
The goal of the program is to design, build, and test virtual models and software libraries that model the technical development and surrounding economic environment of an Endogenously-Powered Space Elevator, which would utilize the energy generated by gravity using materials brought back to earth by space mining companies. This process would create an electrical loop, allowing satellites, scientific equipment, and other materials to be taken to space at near zero marginal cost. Split into two teams, the Technical Team and the Economics Team, the participants will further build mathematical models for an architecture capable of delivering these payloads into orbit.
You can read more about it here.