International Space Elevator Consortium
March 2015 Newsletter
In this Issue:
Editor’s Note
Dear Friend,
Welcome to the March, 2015 edition of the ISEC eNewsletter.
In this issue's extended President's Corner, ISEC President Dr. Peter Swan discusses the recent Phoenix SpaceUp event which he attended and gave a presentation at.
This eNewsletter also contains an abbreviated summary of the third workshop held at the 2014 ISEC Space Elevator Conference. This workshop was on creating a Roadmap to the space elevator.
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Thank you!
ISEC
President's Corner
What fun! An unconference! The local Phoenix Mars Society, along with the local AIAA chapter, sponsored a one-day Space-Up. The methodology is:
"In general SpaceUp is a space unconference, also known as a user-generated conference or a BarCamp. Participants will decide the topics, schedule, and structure of the event. While other unconferences have been held about technology, science, transit, and, even, cupcakes, the SpaceUp series is focused solely on space exploration. There are no spectators at SpaceUp, only participants. All attendees are expected to give a demo, present a talk (without slides), present a T-5 Talk, or participate in a panel or roundtable.
SpaceUp, founded in 2010, has successfully been held in San Diego, Washington D.C., and Houston." [and now Phoenix].
The Phoenix SpaceUp involved the local community of not only space professionals, but also children, university students and all others who have a desire to learn about space. They all share their enthusiasm and gain knowledge from others. There was an astronaut [Charlie Walker - first commercial astronaut], multiple professors, many teachers, and of course myself. The way it works is that the day is split up into multiple periods [30 min discussions, 15 minute break, etc.] with multiple rooms for parallel discussions. The day starts with a blank matrix of rooms and time slots. Participants then take yellow stickies and place them into the boxes to initiate discussions of interest. A fascinating process and one that worked for Phoenix. In addition to pizza, there were fantastic discussions ranging from space elevators [of course - big crowd in that session] to mining asteroids. The day was worthwhile for me and all those who were able to Participate - no lectures, no scheduled talks, just timely discussions on topics of interest.
If you see a SpaceUp in your neck of the woods, join them and participate... with an emphasis on space elevators of course. It was rewarding at many levels.
"Keep Climbing my Friends!" -- Pete Swan
2014 Conference Mini-Workshop
A summary report of the Space Elevator Roadmap workshop
Examining the progress toward a Space Elevator Architecture
A summary report from the Space Elevator Roadmap mini-workshop at the International Space Elevator Conference in Seattle
Michael A. Fitzgerald
Workshop Leader
October 2014
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Objectives
On the last day of the 2014 Space Elevator conference in Seattle, the ISEC Roadmaps and Architecture study leads held a workshop with the attendees of the conference. The workshop had two purposes:
To define the ISEC Space Elevator Architecture in five discrete segments: Climber, Tether, Marine Node, HQ/POC and Tether Tenants. Of these, the first three, representing tether operations, were discussed in detail.
To seek feedback from the attendees regarding demonstrations and success criteria for functions within the reviewed segments.
Segments discussed and reviewed
The workshop briefer presented graphics for the three key segments within the space elevator architecture. The graphics portrayed the path along which segments must move on their way to preliminary and then detailed implementation plans. For the development engineers, these implementation plans are the needed series of design efforts to build the space elevator. To move toward these plans, each segment must demonstrate that necessary technologies and engineering solutions will be available for the design and development phases of the portrayed roadmap.
Observations and conclusions
The idea of exposing months of hard work to the public for inspection is always a little embarrassing. As it turned out I was not embarrassed; the attendees were warm and welcoming in their feedback. It was a wonderful, humbling moment and I am proud to have been a part of it. The engineering of the ISEC Space Elevator is underway!
Climber Segment
The climber segment roadmap addresses three primary functions of the climber:
* Delivery of a payload to LEO & GEO altitudes
* Repair of the tether
* Delivery of payloads above GEO
The workshop concluded that a test and demonstration taxonomy for eight required functions was needed for these functions: structure, gripping, motor, brakes, power above 40 km altitude, power below 40 km altitude, a protective box for traversing the lower 40 km, and payload support. Climber configurations may differ between LEO destinations and destinations beyond GEO.
The feedback from the attendees was spectacular. Analysis of the feedback will continue, but at first review, the attendees sought a wide range of test & demonstration events to assure our place in the competition for venture capital as well as our collection of needed, empirical engineering knowledge.
Tether Segment
The tether segment roadmap addresses three primary roles of the tether:
* Delivery of 100,000 km of tether to space
* Functional knowledge of the tether, represented in a tether simulation
* Tether control and its components
The workshop concluded that a test and demonstration taxonomy for five subjects was needed for these roles: tether dynamics; modes of tether dynamics; perturbations from the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon; climber-induced perturbations on the tether; and hazards from debris strikes on the tether.
Many conference attendees said that the set of tests, inspections and examinations needed for tether development readiness is exactly what the entire space elevator's future is all about. The tether segment comprises more unknown unknowns than the rest of the architecture.
Marine Node Segment
The marine node segment roadmap addresses four primary elements of the marine node:
* Floating operations platform
* Port facilities
* Facilities support platform
* Ocean going vessels
The workshop concluded that a test and demonstration taxonomy was needed to examine six high-priority requirements for these elements: site location for the marine node, ocean currents at that location, hazards from debris strikes on the tether, sea water status and makeup, sea floor geology and seismology, and weather in the locale.
We also sought the attendees' aid in detailing a larger and more complete set of tests needed to reach technology maturity. That information will be presented in the full version of this report on the ISEC website.
Most of these inputs from the Conference are included into the yearly report by ISEC. This report, "Space Elevators Architectures and Roadmaps," will be published and listed on the website after 1 May 2015. The report depended upon the conference attendees for an excellent review of the process and the details of those three segments of the space elevator.