Google Earth gives 'space elevator' a lift

  

Stretching the meaning of Google Earth, a community of believers has marked the spot where, so sayeth the faithful, nanotubes will rise.

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Space Elevator: The Music Video
Got the world on a string
Buy-in-the-sky scheme

Space Elevator: The Music Video

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If we had government by Google ...
The business of imagination
Got the world on a string

Got the world on a string

  

New space prizes target space elevators (New Scientist)

Space elevators - a futuristic idea in which space is accessed via long tethers with the power needed being transmitted on beams of light - are the target of two new cash prizes, sponsored by NASA.

The prizes, announced on Wednesday evening, are the first in a series called "Centennial Challenges", modelled on the $10 million X Prize recently awarded to the first privately developed spacecraft. Winning teams will receive $50,000 in 2005 for either building the strongest strand of material or for using light to power a wireless robot up a cable.

The Spaceward Foundation, a space advocacy organisation based in Mountain View, California, will administer the prizes, which NASA will fund. The new prizes will focus on the technologies necessary to develop a space elevator. But NASA is keen to stress that the work could benefit many space-based projects required to achieve President George W Bush's plans to return people to the Moon and on to Mars.

"The innovations from these competitions will help support advances in aerospace materials and structures, new approaches to robotic and human planetary surface operations, and even futuristic concepts like space elevators and solar power satellites," says Brant Sponberg, NASA's program manager for Centennial Challenges. More here

Update: Earth's first Space Elevator Club!

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QuoteBot: "NSF is just hot to trot on nanotechnology"
Buy-in-the-sky scheme
Stairway to Heaven
The goal is elevation

QuoteBot

“The [carbon nanotube] material is not just for space elevators, it has much broader applications. The NSF is just hot to trot on nanotechnology, so I think there’s definitely bucks out there.”

Donna Shirley, former head of NASA’s Mars exploration program, quoted in The Space Review

Related News
Space Elevator Now the Subject of Research By Cadets at the United States Air Force Academy (Business Wire)

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Buy-in-the-sky scheme
Stairway to Heaven
Cut NSF, but grow nano

Buy-in-the-sky scheme

  

A carbon-nanotube elevator to the stars. It's funny to me sometimes what is considered legitimate enough for government -- or NASA -- funding and what is not. I say more power to Liftport. I'll be on the ... second ... elevator outta here. Here's a RealOne Player link to an Associated Press video on the nanotube elevator plan.

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Davd Barry sends up the space elevator
Stairway to Heaven
The goal is elevation

Stairway to Heaven

The Space Elevator: You've seen it legitimized, lampooned and blogged, but here you can see it beautifully illustrated. Even if you think the idea preposterous that nanotubes will buy us a stairway to heaven, it's still nice to imagine. This illustration was done by Chris Wren, who makes a living using his imagination at Mondolithic Studios with his partner, Kenn Brown. I'll let Chris explain why and how he came up with this Space Elevator illustration:

I did this piece for a commission we got from Focus magazine in Italy. Seems like the old idea of the space elevator is starting to be taken seriously again. The article's focus (no pun intended) was how new materials such as carbon nanotubes are finally showing promise in overcoming some of the technical and engineering challenges presented by such a massive project.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of a space elevator, ever since I read Arthur C. Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise." But when I started to look for reference images on Google, I was surprised at how little there was. I found a few images, but they didn't really seem to suggest the sense of extreme height and perspective that I thought would be cool.

I used 3DS Max to model and texture the elevator itself. Then I took it into Photoshop, and added a lot of the small accent lights. The Earth itself is a composite of NASA images, and satellite cloud imagery. I did up the city lights with MAYA's paint effects, and some hand brush work in Photoshop. The final image size was 6000X3000 pixels, at 72pp1.

There was a symposium last year to discuss practical plans for the design and construction of a space elevator. Arthur C. Clarke himself even made a live speech via satellite from his home in Sri Lanka - a likely location for a space elevator by the way. Sadly, the participants agreed that the biggest hurdle to overcome was not technical - but the threat of terrorism. That's why the elevator is now being planned to be anchored to a midocean platform at some point on the equator.

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Dave Barry sends up the space elevator

You know nanotech has evolved into cultural icon status when Dave Barry decides to hold it up to public ridicule. In his latest column, he gives the carbon nanotube space elevator idea the full mock treatment.

Now, I don't mean to imply that Barry, the master of printed wit (I am not worthy even to carry his thesaurus), would ever sully his eyes by taking even a glance at my blog, but I'll flatter myself, anyway, to think that he might have read my post on explaining the nanoworld to a lay audience. Barry really breaks it down here:

Their plan is to build it using "carbon nanotubes," which, in layperson's terms, are nanotubes made out of carbon.

Great stuff, whether you're an elevator believer or not. If you hate to see nanotech mocked like this, get over yourself.

More on the space elevator in this post from September.

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The goal is elevation

Arthur C. Clarke is going to lend his vision to an upcoming Santa Fe, N.M., event on the Space Elevator. Yes, the Space Elevator, a cable to the stars featured in some of Arthur C.'s stories. Nanotubes are going to give us the lift.

Sci-fi aside, there's real research going on here. Scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas have created fibers that are 20 times tougher than steel wire and got them to clump and fall in line. Also, the idea was given a "conceivable" stamp of approval in a recent German government report (PDF) on space nanotech, a NASA division is working on it and a company called Liftport is at least getting some publicity over the idea (T-minus 5420 days, 9 hours, 43 minutes, 49 seconds until the April 12, 2008 "Lift," according to the Bremerton, Wash., company.

Before you dismiss the notion as more nano silliness (a la "Jake 2.0"), remember that it was Arthur C. Clarke who, in 1945, wrote a preposterous story in which extraterrestrial relays enabled instant worldwide communications. Today, some of you are reading this Weblog using satellite-enabled Internet connections.

My luck, I'll be on the one with the kid who pushes the buttons for every floor.

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