Space Elevator History
Space Elevator painting by Andrei Konstantinovich Sokolov, 1967, courtesy Alexei Sokolov. Larger version.
Introduction
The vision of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) is to have a world with inexpensive, safe, routine, Earth-friendly and efficient access to space for the benefit of all mankind. As its name suggests, one of the principle elements of the ISEC action plan is to promote the development, construction and operation of a space elevator infrastructure as a revolutionary and efficient way of getting from Earth into space.
Eighth Architecture: But first, lets recognize that the development of the Space Elevator concept is now into its Eighth Systems Architecture as described in David Raitt’s 2021 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Quest, the History of Spaceflight Quarterly. The idea of a space elevator has captured the imagination of scientists and engineers (as well as writers and artists) for some 125 years and been the subject of studies by Russians, Americans, Europeans, and Japanese. The concept has been extensively refined and developed over the last few decades, and is currently conceived as a 100,000-km long, thin, strong ribbon or tether extending into space, up which climbers will travel to release payloads in different orbits, as well as to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere. The Eighth Architecture incorporates the Galactic Harbour as permanent space access infrastructures with a dual architecture with rocketry to combine the strengths of each.
ISEC is made up of organizations and individuals from around the world who share this vision of mankind in space. In their desire to record the progress of space elevator thinking over time, a number of these individuals formed the ISEC History Committee, whose task includes archiving historical documents, interviewing key figures in space elevator development and publication of space elevator histories.
The History Committee’s ideas and discussions to date have culminated into three main activities: one - a book which attempts to document the history of the space elevator concept; two - oral interviews with major players, past and present, in space elevator research and development; three - a History Corner column in the ISEC Newsletter; and four - this space elevator history page.
The definition of History is the study (and documenting) of past events relating to a particular person or thing. It is, of course, usually considered to be ‘old’, but, in fact, history is really anything before today! Hence the History Committee is continuing to document recent developments, publications and events around the world as they relate to the space elevator with a view to bringing out a second edition of the space elevator history book.
The ISEC History Committee currently consists of the following active members:
Douglas Ahlquist
A. J. Burke
Matthew Farrell (Chair)
Bruce Mackenzie
David Raitt (ISEC Chief Historian)
Evan Smith
Peter Swan (ISEC President)
Jerome Pearson, a long-time, active, regular attendee of the Committee, passed away early in 2021. A Tribute to him can be read in the March 2021 Newsletter.
Members of the History Committee exchange views regularly by email and also meet on the second Tuesday of every month in a videoconference call. Other ISEC Members are always welcome to join. Please contact Matthew Farrell at mrfarrell86@gmail.com with your Skype ID to be added to the monthly call.
Yuri Artsutanov and Jerome Pearson, St Petersburg, Russia, 2006
Yuri Artsutanov with Arthur C. Clarke, 1982
Space Elevators:
A History
In 2017 the then History Committee completed the compilation of a history of the space elevator from 1895 to the present under the general editorship of David Raitt. The book is laid out in ten chapters which are nearly chronological and the major topics are separated out such that the reader can look at the history in stages. These stages fall into three categories: Dreamers and Creators; Initiation of the Modern Era; and the Move Towards Development.
The chapters cover the early conceptualizations of the Russians Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and his Celestial Castle, and Yuri Artsutanov and his Cosmic Railway, and the American Jerome Pearson and his Orbital Tower; how writers and artists imaginatively seized the concept for their science fiction tales; the initial interest of NASA and the contribution of Brad Edwards to the space elevator baseline concept and carbon nanotubes; associations and organizations around the world established to further study and promote the concept; the importance of conferences and sessions devoted to space elevators; and non-Earth space elevator concepts. The book is completed with biographies of the contributors, a chronology of the space elevator, and selected oral interview transcripts conducted with space elevator pioneers.
Since other historical material pertaining to the space elevator is still being uncovered and new activities and developments are happening all the time, it is the intention of the History Committee to bring out a new edition of the book in due course.
A PDF of the book can be downloaded at no cost, or a hard copy version can be purchased at Lulu.com or Amazon.
Historical Space Elevator Documents
EIGHT SPACE ELEVATOR ARCHITECTURES: Space elevator historian David Raitt has described the evolution of the space elevator concept through eight different architectures in the peer-reviewed journal Quest, the History of Spaceflight Quarterly, Volume 28, Number 1, 2021. Read the full Quest article here. The historical documents on this page form the basis for the first four architectures of the eight described by Raitt.
FIRST ARCHITECTURE: In 1895 in the book Dreams of Earth and Sky, Russian space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote of an imaginary tower extending 36,000 kilometers high, where weightlessness would be achieved. But he fell short of inventing the concept of a space elevator and did not calculate the stresses involved. Image is from a 1959 Russian paperback reprint. For more information, see Jerome Pearson’s 1997 IAF paper “Konstantin Tsiolkovski and the Origin of the Space Elevator.”
SECOND ARCHITECTURE: Co-inventor of the space elevator, Yuri Artsutanov, was the first to conceive of building a “space tower” by using a geosynchronous satellite as the base from which to construct it. A cable would be lowered from the satellite to the surface of the Earth while a counterweight was extended from the satellite away from Earth. His article was published in the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda on 31 July 1960 under the title “To the Cosmos by Electric Train.” Read the article here, translated into English.
THIRD ARCHITECTURE: The other co-inventor of the space elevator, Jerome Pearson, was an aerospace engineer for both NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory. He was unaware of Artsutanov and came up with the idea independently, but his mathematical analysis went well beyond Artsutanov. Pearson backed up his explanations with countless numerical calculations by which he thoroughly accounted for every technical aspect of the elevator’s design and operation. His paper “The Orbital Tower: A Spacecraft Launcher Using the Earth’s Rotational Energy” was published in 1975 in the journal Acta Astronautica and became the definitive piece that heralded the space elevator’s entry into the scientific community. Read the full paper here.
NASA’s interest in space elevators began with a workshop orchestrated by David Smitherman at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama from 8-10 June 1999. From this “Advanced Space Infrastructure Workshop on Geostationary Orbiting Tether Space Elevator Concepts” came one of the first major space elevator documents. However, it ended with a design that was not feasible in the foreseeable future. Download the document here.
FOURTH ARCHITECTURE: Considered the father of the space elevator, Dr. Bradley Edwards’ body of work developed the space elevator concept further than anyone before him. He first published the results of a six-month study considering the feasibility of a space elevator (May-October 2000), financed by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). Titled simply “The Space Elevator,” this NIAC study report contained the results of his investigation into all aspects of the design, construction, deployment and operation of a space elevator. Download the full report here.
Bradley Edwards’ second NIAC study, which started in March 2001 and continued until January 2003, had the objective of producing an initial design for a space elevator using then-current or near-term technology and evaluate the effort yet required prior to construction of the first space elevator. Download the full report here.
Dr. Bradley Edwards’ 2003 book The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System (co-authored with Eric A. Westling) was a major turning point in the history of the development of the space elevator. This book was based on the work Edwards completed during the two studies funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). Subsequent space elevator architectures have been largely based on his work. You can get this book from Amazon.
The FIFTH ARCHITECTURE through the EIGHTH ARCHITECTURE are represented in the ISEC studies and books and are described in Raitt’s Quest paper. A less comprehensive account is also available in the October 2022 History Corner of the ISEC Newsletter.
The space elevator has also been treated in numerous works of science fiction. Here are a couple of the finest. There are some more science fiction book covers in the July 2022 History Corner.
Oral Interviews
In the effort to document the history of the space elevator, the History Committee believes it would be useful to capture the memories and recollections of especially those involved in the origin and development of the space elevator from the early beginnings. Accordingly, a list of potential individuals has been drawn up and they have been and are still being approached to see if they would be amenable to being interviewed. The Space Elevator: A History book contains transcripts of the oral interviews from seven people who were involved to a greater or lesser extent from the start. These people are: Yuri Artsutanov; Bradley Edwards; Yoji Ishikawa; Bryan Laubscher; David Raitt; Ben Shelef; and Peter Swan. The interviews were based on a set of questions sent to the interviewees in advance and were recorded mainly by Mark Dodrill. From each recording a transcript and summary was made by Mark, Mike Hall and others. A further sixteen transcripts have been made of oral interviews recorded since the initial interviews contained in the book and eight interviews are still awaiting transcripts. All the transcripts, summaries, and their audio files, will eventually be made available on the ISEC website.
History Corner
The History Committee is endeavouring to have occasional articles in issues of the ISEC Newsletter under the heading History Corner. While much of the text is extracted from throughout the Space Elevators: A History book, the material is reworked and consolidated in a different way that brings together diverse mentions and strands. The articles also try to incorporate new historical information that has recently come to light and which is thus not included in the book.
The articles so far written for the History Corner in the Newsletter are:
Architects and Space Elevators (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, March 2024
History Corners Reviewed (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, December 2023/January 2024
Elevator:2010 - NASA Space Elevator Games Powered Beam Climber (by A J Burke), ISEC Newsletter, October 2023
Interest in Space Elevators Still Prevailing (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, September 2023
Space Propulsion Dreams (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, July 2023
On the Hunt for a Space Elevator Image (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, April 2023
Jerome Pearson Memorial Lectures (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, February 2023
The Life and Legacy of Robert “Skip” Penny (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, February 2023
Ravamped Space History Page (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, December 2022
Space Elevator Architectures: Part2 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, October 2022
Space Elevator Architectures: Part 1 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, September 2022
Soviet Space Writings (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, August 2022.
Space Elevator Book Covers (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, July 2022.
Subject Coverage of Space Elevator Sessions at the IAC (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, March 2022
Space Elevators and Space Agencies (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, February 2022
Space Elevator Sessions at the 2004 IAC - the First of Many! (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, December 2021/January 2022
A Girl on a Space Elevator (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, November 2021
The Space Elevator History Committee. Active and fun - join us! (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, October 2021
Michael Laine: Space Elevator pioneer (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, September 2021
Space elevator fun and games: Part 3, Japan (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, August 2021
Space elevator fun and games: Part 2, Europe (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, July 2021
Space elevator fun and games: Part 1B, United States (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, May 2021
Space elevator fun and games: Part 1A, United States (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, April 2021
Jerome Pearson Tribute Correction (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, April 2021
Tribute to Jerome Pearson (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter March 2021
The space elevator - a videography, Part 3 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, February 2021
A brief history of ISEC. (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, December 2020/January 2021
The space elevator - a videography, Part 2 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, October 2020
The space elevator - a videography, Part 1 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, September 2020
NASA’s Interest in and Funding of Space Elevators, Part 2 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, July 2020
NASA’s Interest in and Funding of Space Elevators, Part 1 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, June 2020
Russian influence on the space elevator - a Timeline, Part 2 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, May 2020
Russian influence on the space elevator - a Timeline, Part 1 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, April 2020
The contribution of Arthur C. Clarke to the space elevator, Part 2 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, February 2020
The contribution of Arthur C. Clarke to the space elevator, Part 1 (by David Raitt), ISEC Newsletter, December 2019
In Memoriam: A Special Issue of the ISEC Newsletter Dedicated to Yuri Artsutanov (by David Raitt and others), ISEC Newsletter, February 2019
What’s New
This section will provide a brief summary of “new” historical facts, articles, websites, documents, videos and the like that members of the History Committee have come across that pertain to the history of the space elevator. Such material will be incorporated in revised editions of the Space Elevators: A History book.
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Architect Jordan Williams Hughes has won a €10,000 Grand Prix Laureat in the 2023 Jacques Rougerie Competition for Project Ascensio which outlines the concept design of a space elevator. The February 2024 ISEC Newsletter has a short item about the project written by Jordan.
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The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society for July 2023 is a special issue devoted to Future Directions for Space Elevators. Besides an Introduction to the issue by David Raitt, there are five articles included: Building the Space Tether by Dennis Wright; Payload Design for the Space Elevator Climber by Larry Bartoszek and Dennis Wright; Innovation and Research for Space Elevators by John Knapman; Huge Fast Spacecraft Travelling our Solar System by Peter and Cathy Swan; and The Lunar Space Elevator: A Key Technology for Realising the Greater Earth Lunar Power Station (GE⊕-LPS) by Arthur Woods, Andreas Vogler and Patrick Collins.
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Korea has built a space elevator! It’s official! “Counterweight: a Novel” is a story by one of South Korea’s foremost scifi writers, Djuna, published in July 2023 by Pantheon. Translated by Anton Hur, the novel is about the race by rival forces to retrieve a load of data residing in the space junk (the counterweight) at the end of the space elevator’s cable. Part psychological thriller, part detective story, the book has some interesting reviews!
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The May 2023 issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, hot off the press, has an article by ISEC Chief Historian, David Raitt, entitled “Jerome Pearson and Space Elevators.” The paper discusses the contribution to space elevators by Jerome, who finally had his ideas published in 1975 and is recognized as the co-inventor. His conceptual design for a space elevator is described, together with his other ideas for lunar space elevators and his relationship with Arthur C. Clarke who was inspired by his work to write The Fountains of Paradise. A brief summary of what a space elevator is is included together with a summary of how advanced rockets and space elevators could work together to bring the anticipated massive tonnage requirements for future space projects to orbit and beyond.
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Space elevators are inching closer to reality according to an article by Kristin Houser on 24 June 2023 in an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. The article briefly covers the history as well as latest developments and has some interesting graphics and links. The question posed though, is can we build a space elevator before we no longer need it?
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The June 2023 issue of the British Interplanetary Society's magazine Spaceflight is on sale from today featuring several articles on space elevators. Michael Fitzgerald discusses how the space elevator galactic harbour fits into the off-world economy; Cathy Swan explains the latest space elevator architectures; Peter Swan looks at the beneficial aspects of space elevators working together with rockets; Adrian Nixon, John Knapman and Dennis Wright examine the current materials of choice for the space elevator tether; and Rob Coppinger writes about the space elevator concept of the Obayashi Corporation. Download the articles here.
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In the context of the European Space Agency’s open call for proposals “Clean Energy from Space” which sought novel ideas related to Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) systems, Swiss-based Astrostrom GmbH has been investigating the feasibility of the "Greater Earth Lunar Power Station" (GE⊕-LPS) designed to provide power from space to operations on the lunar surface. In their press release dated 28 April 2023, Arthur Woods identifies three key lunar technologies, the first of which is a lunar space elevator (LSE) that can be constructed from known materials and technologies. It would consist of a cable from the Moon’s surface to the Earth-Moon Lagrange point 1 and then extend almost to geostationary orbit. A mature lunar space elevator would become an economic Earth-Moon transportation system. Astrotrom takes the idea of a lunar space elevator further on its website with two new videos: “Greater Earth Lunar Space Elevator” which shows the core of the Moon-to-Earth Transportation System, and ”Up and Down the Cislunar Transportation System” which shows the LSE Base Station.
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Brad Edwards, who did much of the work into defining the components and operation of a space elevator at the beginning of 2000, has created a new company appropriately named The Space Elevator Company. The accompanying website gives details of the technologies involved for the ribbon (carbon nanotubes are the material of choice), climbers, powering the elevator, space debris, deployment and operations. The applications considered are space solar power, asteroid mining, orbital stations, and Moon and Mars colonies. The website also features Brad’s interview with Bloomberg in February 2022 (see below).
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“Space elevator tether materials: An overview of the current candidates” is the title of an article by Adrian Nixon, John Knapman and Dennis Wright which was made available online on 6 April 2023 prior to it being published in Acta Astronautica. The paper reviews manufacturing progress in making materials that have the strength necessary to form the tether for the space elevator. Currently these are single crystal carbon nanotubes, single crystal graphene and single crystal hexagonal boron nitride.
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On 12 January 2023, the Brighterside of News published an item on emerging technologies from the arXiv under the title Traveling to the moon aboard a space elevator is possible using today’s technology. However, this is not really new news as the idea surfaced some years ago, even though I have just come across it while writing up the April 2023 History Corner in the ISEC Newsletter (see above). Indeed, it’s not every day that one comes across news items about the space elevator in a daily tabloid newspaper! The Daily Mail Online for 29 August 2019 had an article under the title Scientists imagine a bizarre 'space elevator' to ferry astronauts from Earth's orbit to the Moon. The space elevator in question was dubbed Spaceline and was dreamt up by astrophysicists Zephyr Penoyre of the University of Cambridge and Emily Sandford from Columbia University. There does not seem to have been too much follow-up activity on their proposal and it looks as though their paper submitted at the time to Acta Astronautica was never published in the magazine - though it was published on ArXiv.
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On 6 May 2022, Derek J. Pearson submitted his thesis entitled The Steep Climb to Low Earth Orbit: A History of the Space Elevator Community's Battle Against the Rocket Paradigm to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for the degree of Master of Arts in History. The thesis examines the growth of the space elevator community in America from 1975 to 2010 and argues that the continued practical failures of the space elevator resulted from a technological paradigm built around the rocket and supported by a traditional engineering culture. Pearson, who sat in on a couple of the ISEC History Committee meetings, interviewed three individuals associated with space elevators (Michael Laine, Bradley Edwards, and Robert Cassanova).
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YouTube has plenty of nice videos on space elevators and one of the latest ones is by fundraiser Anton Petrov. Entitled Exciting New Updates About Space Elevator Technology...Possible After All? the video starts with a mention of spider silk and its relative strength and the query whether it would be strong enough for the space elevator ribbon. The video then looks at the various technologies required and available, preceded first by a review of the history of space elevators. There is also a discussion of costs, graphene, ISEC and space elevators versus rockets.
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A Stories from Space Podcast (18 September 2022) by Matthew S. Williams entitled Building an Elevator to Space with guests Dr Peter Swan and Adrian Nixon discusses how recent advances in graphene now make it the material of choice for the tether.
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An article by Matt Williams in the 18 July 2022 issue of Universe Today has the catchy title of “A New Method for Making Graphene has an Awesome Application: A Space Elevator!” The article discusses the research of Adrian Nixon and colleagues into graphene with special focus on the space elevator. The article, which covers much of the early history of the space elevator and notes Brad Edwards’ contribution, is complemented by several videos which show the current direction and work of ISEC, as well as Arthur C. Clarke’s ideas.
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On 12 May 2022 at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri there was a short programme devoted to The Life & Legacy of Space Pioneer Jerome Pearson (1938-2021). Sponsored by Jerome’s sister Mary Atterbury and her husband Alan, the programme featured presentations by two of Jerome’s former colleagues: Dr David Raitt, ISEC Chief Historian, and Joe Carroll, President of Tether Applications Inc. Their presentations can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/710843000.
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The online website, The Engineer, has an article dated 15 February 2022 by Gareth L. Powell entitled “Sci Fi Eye: Thinking big - Dyson spheres and ringworlds”. The article takes a look at some of the largest engineering science fiction projects and the first example briefly discusses space elevators - taking a look at their history and cable deployment and mentioning that the IAA concludes that we are much closer to being able to build one than most people think.
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Theories on how to build a space elevator have been around for decades. Scientists say not only would such technology change humanity, but that we could have built one by now. On 16 February 2022, Bloomberg, in its Moonshot series, published a very informative video, featuring an interview with Brad Edwards, under the title “Space Elevators are Getting Closer to Reality.”
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The article entitled “The Race is on in Japan to Build a Space Elevator Through Open Innovation” by Yasuo Matsunaka which was originally published in March 2019 has been updated on 14 December 2021. It includes details on Team Raptor’s approach, a hybrid space elevator approach from the Science Council of Japan, and the joint-development project (STARS-Me) between Shizuoka University and Obayashi Corporation. There is also a nice YouTube video of Obayashi’s space elevator construction.
Another article (5 November 2021) on the Salam Groovy Japan website discusses how Obayashi is currently testing carbon nanotubes for its space elevator. The article is entitled “Japan’s ‘Space Elevator’ ready to build in 2025?” and includes how to build a space elevator, its overall structure, and an earlier video of Obayashi’s space elevator construction concept. There is also mention of the intention to use the space elevator for deployment of space solar power system satellites.
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Following a Skype discussion with Pete Swan and David Raitt, Matthew Williams has brought his earlier article (below) up-to-date with another article (23 October 2021) on the Interesting Engineering website entitled “The Technologies that Could Finally Make Space Elevators a Reality”. The article covers the new materials and the new vision created with the concept of the Galactic Harbour and the Green Road to Space.
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An article (11 September 2021) by Matthew Williams entitled “Engineers are Creating a Real Space Elevator. Can they Succeed?” questions whether it is possible to realise the concept of a space elevator. The article mainly covers the history of the space elevator - Russian origins, in science fiction, the early NASA conference - but doesn’t seem to go into much of the latest studies from the IAA and ISEC. However, it is an interesting read with some decent animations and links.
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In February 2005 Olivier Boisard illustrated a short novella in French and English by Jean-Yves Prado entitled The Space Moucharaby, the subject of which was a space elevator. He followed this up with a nice video animation of his space elevator in 2007 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TchQJvYdeQ0). Taking things further he created a 3D demonstrator for desktops in September 2017 which gave a virtual tour of the Space Elevator project "From South Pole to the Marquesas Islands" (http://www.planete-a-roulettes.net/Space_Elevator/). Then in August 2020 he created an augmented reality app (available from the App Store for iPhone/iPad) called Space Elevator AR which enables users to discover the space elevator as a reduced size model in their living room, or full scale outdoor model. Users can explore the space elevators main components on Earth and space and video capture the scene. A preview can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6j2TgNuHUg
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An article in the Science Magazine newsletter for 27 July 2021 explains how bees fix the interlocking geometric hexagonal pattern of their honeycombs. Bees start to build combs in different points in the hive and work downwards, but eventually misaligned sections need to be joined. They do this by filling gaps by building irregular-shaped cells in pairs of certain combinations of five- and seven-sided cells which then fit neatly together. Chains of such pairs also show up in the arrangement of atoms in graphene where the chains of five-seven pairs reduce the pent-up energy in the material and thus make the crystal stiffer and stronger. Growing everything from one point, rather than several, would create a single honeycomb or a single crystal of graphene. Such insights might be useful for the space elevator ribbon.
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Wind turbines are getting bigger and taller (the tallest is currently about 180m, but a 500m turbine is under design), but to benefit from much stronger winds in deeper waters far offshore, they need to be floating and this involves new technologies optimised for height not weight. There are two basic approaches to the problem - lifting and climbing. Climbing cranes, which scurry up the very object they are building, and are often used to raise skyscrapers on land, are unproven at sea, but work is afoot which sounds as though the idea has been lifted from the space elevator! The suggestion is to put tracks on the sides of the turbine towers which would allow a ship to pull alongside, place a maintenance car on the tracks, and thus move large parts up and down the tower. Shades of the Galactic Harbour?
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Chinese scientists have unveiled a futuristic design of an Earth-Moon delivery system, dubbed the “sky ladder" which will transport humans and goods to the Moon for just four percent of the current cost. In April 2021 New China TV put up a video on the sky ladder (and a futuristic manned lunar rover).
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As part of Blue Marble Week, run by the Space Division of the Foundation for the Future and co-sponsored by ISEC, a series of ten video presentations were made on 9 March 2021 by ISEC members and demonstrated that the engineering development of the space elevator is ready to begin. This break out from the doldrums is the result of the coming together of the tremendous body of knowledge sufficient to make the case that a space elevator not only can be built, but must be built, and the large global momentum for humanity’s movement off planet with the space elevator providing the infrastructure for that movement. The videos cover such aspects as space access infrastructure; the green road to space; supporting space solar power; economic returns from permanent space infrastructure; the architecture of galactic harbours; graphene progress; dual space architecture; the space elevator body of knowledge; space global transportation infrastructure; and a panel discussion. The videos can be viewed in the ISEC Video Library, or the ISEC YouTube page.
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Jerome Pearson, co-founder of the space elevator and a long-time member of the History Committee, passed away early in 2021. Although Jerome conceived the idea of the space elevator in 1969, it was not until 1975 that his ideas on the space elevator were published in an article “The Orbital Tower: A Spacecraft Launcher Using the Earth’s Rotational Energy” in Acta Astronautica. This definitive paper announced the entry of the space elevator to the scientific community at large and was a major step forward to bringing the concept within grasp. One of his main interests was a lunar space elevator - a complete cis-lunar transportation system able to transport Earth supplies and structures from LEO to lunar bases, mines, and habitats. A Tribute to Jerome can be read in the March 2021 Newsletter, with a brief correction appearing in the April 2021 Newsletter.
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Arthur Woods, an astronautical artist and independent researcher living and working in Switzerland with two art projects successfully flown on the Russian Mir space station, has been analyzing Switzerland’s energy dilemma. His research has culminated in a space energy option for Switzerland with the concept of harvesting energy in space by using space solar power satellites to address the country’s future energy needs. In the detailed video presentation on his ideas, Arthur Woods mentions that the space elevator, as part of the green road to space, would be a cheap option for the launch of the required solar power satellites.
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Space elevator architectures. Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, v28, n1, 2021, p17-26. The idea of a space elevator has captured the imagination of scientists and engineers (as well as writers and artists) for some 125 years and been the subject of many studies with the concept being extensively refined and developed over the last few decades. This article by ISEC Chief Historian David Raitt describes the various insights gained from the published descriptions, studies and experiments concerning the space elevator’s concept and different elements. All these diverse ideas have led to refinements and modifications of the various components making up the entire system (its architecture). To date, there have been eight such architectures (convergent rather than divergent) and a brief overview of each of these is provided.
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Science journalist Étienne Ledolley (June 2020) created a new video for his Scientifiction series on YouTube with assistance from ISEC. The episode is about Arthur. C. Clarke and can be viewed (in French) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PndYfuGtCBY
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The contribution of Arthur C. Clarke to the space elevator. Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, v27, n2, 2020, p4-8. This article by David Raitt discusses the influence that the well-known science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke has had on the space elevator since his seminal work The Fountains of Paradise published in 1979 (for which Jerome Pearson provided technical expertise). Clarke’s name crops up many times whenever space elevators have been mentioned in the past as well as the present. His thinking and work regarding space elevators still endures as a source of influence and inspiration.
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Yuri Artsutanov, co-founder of the space elevator, passed away on 1 January 2019. Yuri took the 1895 thought experiment of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to the next level of development some sixty years later, with a more feasible scheme for building a space tower by using a geosynchronous satellite as the base from which to construct it. By using a counterweight, a cable would be lowered from the satellite to the surface of the Earth while the counterweight was extended from the satellite away from Earth. His article was published in the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda on 31 July 1960 under the title “To the Cosmos by Electric Locomotive” (available in the Historical Documents section above). A tribute outlining Yuri’s life and place in space elevator history is to be found in the February 2019 ISEC Newsletter. A brief correction to the tribute to Jerome Pearson, which provides further details of Yuri’s life, appears in the April 2021 Newsletter.