Free Republic

The push for a space elevator took a step forward this week when a team of researchers from Shizuoka University in Japan announced that they will launch an experiment to the International Space Station next week. In the experiment, which will be the first of its kind in space, two ultrasmall cubic satellites, or "cubesats," will be released into space from the station. They will be connected by a steel cable, where a small container — acting like an elevator car — will move along the cable using its own motor. A camera attached to the satellites will record the...

One of the most futuristic and far-fetched is the space elevator....simple enough on paper – extend a 22,000 mile set of cables from a space station in geostationary orbit to a corresponding structure somewhere at Earth's equator. ... The problem...is that the cable system must be constructed from a material far stronger than anything known. Carbon nanotubes have been hypothesized to fill this niche, but they aren't ready yet. … Another potential rocket replacement is StarTram…. Magnetically-levitated spacecraft will be propelled inside a curved tube aimed skyward. All air will be evacuated from the tube in order to eliminate drag....

A New York architecture firm has unveiled designs for a skyscraper that is out of this world. Deemed the ‘world’s tallest building ever’, Analemma Tower will be suspended from an orbiting asteroid 31,068 miles (50,000 km) above the Earth– and the only way to leave is by parachute.

An artist's impression of how the proposed asteroid-suspended Analemma Tower would look. The building will be suspended from an asteroid orbiting 50,000kms from the earth A New York-based firm is proposing that Dubai be the site of a futuristic, asteroid-suspended skyscraper that orbits around the world. The speculative Analemma Tower - which is being proposed by the Clouds Architecture Office - is designed to be suspended downward on an asteroid orbiting 50,000km from earth. It would orbit in a figure-eight pattern across the northern and southern hemispheres in a 24-hour cycle each day. A design close-up of the asteroid from...

Radical skyscraper design from a New York City firm will be built from the sky down instead of the ground up Analemma Tower is set to be suspended from an orbiting asteroid 31,068 miles (50,000 km) above the Earth Tower will move in a figure eight pattern between the northern and southern hemispheres each day Solar panels will generate power and water will be collected from cloud condensation and rain water Building will be broken up into sections, such as business, worship, dining, shopping and entertainment A New York architecture firm has unveiled designs for a skyscraper that is out...

SPRITES AND TROLLS AT THE EDGE OF SPACE: We all know what comes out of the bottom of thunderclouds: lightning. But rarely do we see what comes out of the top. On August 10th, astronauts onboard the International Space Station were perfectly positioned to observe red sprites dancing atop a cluster of storms in Mexico. They snapped this incredible photo: This shows just how high sprites can go. The photo shows their red forms reaching all the way from the thunderstorm below to a layer of green airglow some 100 km above Earth's surface. This means sprites touch the edge...

Thoth Technology Inc. Space Elevator ... to the stratosphere that is. As Fox News reports, the U.S. patent office granted a patent (9085897) to the Canadian company Thoth Technology Inc., for a “space elevator”, sort of an inflatable incline or similar structure for cars, that you are supposed to be able to use for driving up, all the way to a height of 12 miles (~ 20,000 m) above ground. If you aren’t dizzy enough from driving to the corner store, that really ought to make your day. 12 Miles High There used to be jokes about the “10 mile-high...

Canadian firm has been granted a patent for a ‘space elevator’ which will shoot cargo 12.4 miles into the stratosphere from where it can be launched more easily. According to Thoth Technology, the lift would cut the cost of space flight by around one third because shuttles would not need to carry enormous amounts of fuel to get themselves off the ground. “Astronauts would ascend to 12 miles by electrical elevator,” said Dr Brendan Quine, the inventor. “From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower...

A Finnish company says that it has solved a problem that has vexed the designers of ultra-tall skyscrapers such as the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai or the 509-meter Taipei 101 in Taiwan – and we'll pause for a moment to let you guess what that problem might be. Ready? It's the fact that elevators are currently limited to a maximum travel distance of around 500 meters. The Burj Khalifa, in fact, has an elevator that holds the world record for the longest travel distance: 504m (1,654 feet). And what's keeping elevators from exceeding that limit? Time for another pause...

Can Quiet, Efficient 'Space Elevators' Really Work? By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist   |   February 19, 2014 06:38am ET An electric-powered climber spacecraft rides up the space elevator.Credit: Frank Chase/Chase Design StudiosView full size image Is it time to push the "up" button on the space elevator?A space elevator consisting of an Earth-anchored tether that extends 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) into space could eventually provide routine, safe, inexpensive and quiet access to orbit, some researchers say.A new assessment of the concept has been pulled together titled "Space Elevators: An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward."...

REDMOND, Wash. & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), an independent coalition designed to promote outreach and foster research relating to the construction of an Elevator to Space, announced today that Russian engineer Yuri Artsutanov and American engineer Jerome Pearson, pioneers of the modern Space Elevator concept, will appear at the 2010 Space Elevator Conference.

Going up? Space elevator wins support U.S. company builds on Russian idea Dan Rowe National Post Tuesday, August 13, 2002 The fantastic notion of a space elevator -- a concept that first appeared in a Russian technical journal in the early 1960s and then crept into the works of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in the 1970s -- could be a reality before long.Seattle-based HighLift Systems is hosting a conference this week to meet with investors and other parties potentially interested in a device that could open the final frontier to the masses within 15 years because of the...

Going Up? Private Group Begins Work on Space Elevator By Leonard DavidSenior Space Writerposted: 07:00 am ET19 August 2002 SEATTLE, WASHINGTON -- The world's space programs are vertically challenged. What's needed is a revolutionary low-cost way to move payloads and people into Earth orbit and then outward to the asteroids, Mars and beyond.Now an upstart company of enterprising engineers and investment strategists want to tackle the ultimate high-rise project for the 21st century: the space elevator. They are on the ground floor of putting calculations to paper and wrestling with the toughest challenges. The message from the First International Space...

Space Elevators Maybe Closer To Reality Than Imagined by Richard Perry Los Angeles - Jul 22, 2003 Space elevators have an image problem, mainly due to two prominent science fiction novels. They appear either ungainly impossible, or so potentially dangerous to the planet itself you would never dream of building one. With the science now indicating that they are potentially near-term transport systems, it's time to review the fiction in relation to the possible reality. Three publications by Pearson in 1975/6/7 and work done by Moravec and published in the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences in 1977 were enough to...

The Spaceward Foundation announces details for 2006 Space Elevator Challenge PRESS RELEASEDate Released: Wednesday, November 16, 2005Source: Spaceward Foundation Prize money to triple for 2006 Space Elevator competition. Following the success of the recent 2005 Space Elevator competition held at NASA's Ames Research Center, the Spaceward Foundation announced today the details for the 2006 event, to be held on August 4th in Mountain View California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. "The 2005 challenge was a great event for us" said Ben Shelef, founder of the Spaceward Foundation who is organizing the competitions, "and with 30 teams on the...

Is it possible to make a cable for a space elevator out of carbon nanotubes? Not anytime soon, if ever, says Nicola Pugno of the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy. Pugno's calculations show that inevitable defects in the nanotubes mean that such a cable simply wouldn't be strong enough. The idea of a space elevator was popularized in science fiction, where writers envisioned a 100,000-kilometre-long cable stretching straight up from the Earth's surface and fixed in a geosynchronous orbit. Payloads, or tourists, would simply ascend the cable into low-Earth orbit, eliminating the need for rocket launches.

Tensions rise at space elevator challenge 21:40 22 October 2006 NewScientist.com news service Kelly Young, Las Cruces An emotionally charged, late-night competition to test the strength of tethers designed for use in space elevators ended with no one walking home with the $200,000 first prize on Saturday. Designs for future space elevators call for robotic platforms to carry payloads into space on 100,000-kilometre-long tethers. Proponents of the idea say the method would be cheaper than launching rockets, but the requisite technology still needs to be developed. So in 2005, NASA began sponsoring the Tether Challenge to spur breakthroughs in building...

As pointed out in my recently published paper "Kinetically Strengthened Transportation Structures" in the proceedings of ASCE's Space 2000 and Robotics 2000 conference in Albuquerque NM, we need to start the development of what could be called "Sliding Armature Energy Transfer Technology", using it to centrifugally strengthen and stiffen a masive transportation structure (KESTS) physically connecting the earth's equator with earth's synchronous orbit, then using that transportation system to raise huge solar-electric power satellites up to there, to power that transportation sytem thereafter and to provide electric power to the world's electric power utility grids, thus enabling the preservation of...

Pull me up, Scotty. At least one team has qualified for part of a $2 million prize up for grabs in this year's Space Elevator Games, a NASA-sponsored contest to build machines that can climb a cable in the sky – precursors for a futuristic transit system to space. On Wednesday, an entry by the Washington state-based team LaserMotive climbed a 3,000-foot (900-meter) tether suspended by a helicopter at a speed of about 8 mph (13 kph). The feat was the best performance yet of a miniature space elevator prototype, though still a long shot away from what would be...