International Space Elevator Consortium
February 2014 Newsletter
In this Issue:
ISEC Note
Dear Friend,
Welcome to the February, 2014 edition of the ISEC eNewsletter.
In this issue's President's Corner, ISEC President Dr. Peter Swan mentions the blustery winter that many of us have been experiencing and goes on to relate that to various environmental issues that a Space Elevator will have to deal with too.
Work has now started in earnest in planning the 2014 Space Elevator Conference. We will be holding it in the same venue as we have for the past few conferences, Seattle's Museum of Flight. We've booked the rooms, paid the down-payment and are now busy making plans to have the best conference yet. It's not too soon to begin making plans to attend - summer will be here before you know it!
This issue also discusses and links to recent articles about the Space Elevator and related topics in the news.
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
This winter has been so over whelming across the world, it reminds me of the power of mother nature. I once learned from a friend of mine who worked with rivers and damns, "Water goes down hill, and you can not stop it!" This comes home to me when I am thinking about all the future issues for a space elevator development. Luckily we have had some year-long studies addressing the space elevator and its development. This year's [2013] study report is about to be released and addresses the first forty kilometers of the climb. This arena is definitely hazardous with winds, rain and electromagnetic effects. The present solution is to place the climber inside a protective box, which only ascends to outside the atmosphere as a shield. The protective box then returns to the surface, on its own, after the tether climber has initiated its climb from 40 km to GEO. I mention this to stimulate interest in our report that will be released at the yearly conference in August.
"Keep Climbing my Friends!"
Pete Swan
Space Elevators in the News
Recently, David Leonard posted an article at www.space.com discussing the recently released IAA report on Space Elevators (last month's eNewsletter contained an extensive article about this report). This article has been picked up in many outlets, even appearing in Andrew Sullivan's The Dish. When information like this makes it to outlets like that, you know that the idea of a Space Elevator is becoming more acceptable. Now, if we can just get the scientists and engineers to come up with those "long, strong tubes"... Incidentally, Mr. Leonard's article highlights the graphic-design work of ISEC's own Frank Chase. Frank has designed the past several ISEC posters, covers for Volumes 1 and 2 of CLIMB, the Space Elevator Journal, and has also contributed other artwork to space-elevator related publications.
The next step in cleaning up space debris is underway. A joint NASA/JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) satellite will host a tether designed by JAXA, a tether that will generate electricity as it passes through the earth's magnetic field and will, hopefully, slow down debris in the vicinity enough so that it will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. Space debris is a recognized hazard for a Space Elevator and cleaning it up will hopefully allow the Elevator tether to experience longer lifetimes before having to be replaced. Incidentally, ISEC released an extensive study on Space Elevator Survivability and space debris.