LiftPort Group Forums

I am astonished and happy by the amount of effort that people have brought to the Liftport forum.  The discussions are rich and fruitfull.  They have contributed to the questions and issues that Liftport has to deal with, but I have a nagging issue.  It is probably irrelevant to others in the forum but for me it is the elephant in the room.

All of our questions and issues are for nothing if we do not solve the project killer.  We are nowhere near building a space elevator without the material to make the tether.  We can plan and propose solutions to problems that may exist but, we keep on ignoring the one that really exist.  We have not discovered the material yet, and we are still far away from discovering that excalibur. 

In the military, especially the infantry and spec ops which I am very familiar with, in the field there is a process when you set up a RON.(remain over night)  This process is known as priorities of work.  In the military it is usually weapons cleaning, which is mission critical to military operations, that is the first priority, sometime this could be replaced by chow or rest.  The priority of work was dependant on what is most mission critical.  This experience that I had in the military explains my irritation.

For me the most important priority of work for the space elevator, is the work on finding the material that can make the space elevator a reality.  For Liftport this is one of their priority's of work, but because of other issues to its mission it is not the top priortiy.  I understand Liftports reality and since I work for the company I accept it. 

But for me there is not a lot noise in the forum about the actual critical point of current space elevator development.  Where is the material?  This is work priority one and it should be for anybody who is involved with the space elevator discussion.  All of the other problems are important after this one is solved.  All the other ones are easily solved because with a little search and effort we can sovle the other logistical, economical, and legal issues, because we have solved them before for other endeavors. 

This is not rocket science it is material science.

I probably be less hostile if there was more or equal amount of discussion about the material topic as there is for any other topic.  I do understand that other people are generating contribuitons from there experiences and abilities, and I am bascially blowing a little steam, disappointment, and frustration, but never the less this a real issue that can make all of our topics and efforts an inefficant use of our time.  If that happens I will not be dissapointed or frustrated, I will be >:(   

Until a couple of months ago LiftPort Inc. was developing a method to mass produce CNT, the rest of us did not need to worry about it.  However that did not stop us thinking about Other uses for CNT (http://www.liftport.com/forums/index.php?topic=621.msg5756#msg5756) or Care of ropes (http://www.liftport.com/forums/index.php?topic=663.msg6021#msg6021) and making the ribbon a CNT chain (http://www.liftport.com/forums/index.php?topic=649.msg5938#msg5938).

Sean-

Sounds like we have much in common.  (Although, when I ended my missions, it was a few seconds of terror as the back of the boat got very big, very fast, a debrief on the jet and mission, and off to the wardroom for a slider...  Too bad I fly a desk, now...)


I agree completely.  Something I wrote in a previous post a while back:

Oh, and add diamagnetic strength - would be critical for a maglev climber.

The main problem is that none of us are in the field of material research - and if we are, are remaining quiet due to legal and proprietary issues, and patent rights. 

I would repeat that ALL engineering - including the macro scale concept for the SE - depend on the material properties of the ribbon.  Until we know what those properties are, we can only "what if" the possibilities.

And as we have seen, Liftport needs to generate some revenue along the way.  We are rolling the dice that non-related CNT and/or other material research will help produce a high macro-strength ribbon of ANY material that is suitable for the SE... 

Unless you have significant funding to supply to a research organization, you are with the rest of us waiting to see what develops...

Be Safe
Mumbles

I feel that I need to clarify my position that I have with Liftport and why I feel that I need to make a comment from time to time. I work directly under Joe Julian of liftport for over a year now and from time to time I take direct orders from Michael Laine. 

I wrote what I wrote not on the company's behalf, it is from a personal and proffesional observation.  However this is only one persons opinion and should be looked at as someones opinion but, I do have extensive knowledge in all of the relative areas of the space elevator including the CNT production capabilites of Liftport.  My weakest area of knowledge is in the technological aspect of the space elevator.(this is not what I majored in college)  I am hyper aware of the other problems that the space elevator has.

CNT are promising but they do not neccesarily mean that they are the material that will be needed and used for the space elevator.  They may be promising but we are assuming there limits would be enough to construct the elevator.  If they do not meet the desired hype, the mission will be delayed. 

My comments are that of an active particpant in developing the space elevator and do not reflect Liftport's opinion even though I am employeed with by the company as the International Business Agent.(this is a made up title but it covers all of the task that I do for on Liftport's behalf)   

Sean has it exactly right. I think the problem is that it now looks like the initial high expectations put in the strength of CNT were unwarranted. We, the SE community, who had started to think we made it past the stage where everybody stops laughing, now realize that the joke may have been on us.

Luckily, we are not on a battlefield, but on a discussion forum. It is quite legitimate, I think, to entertain some hypotheticals in the interest of exciting, wide-ranging discussion. Kind of like a good science fiction book.

Let the real scientists worry about how to make the material. Once they do pull it off, who knows, our discussions may have contributed just a little bit of clarity to figuring out what is next.

Andreas

The problem is that material science is not one of those things that can be worked out by discussion.
We can talk about generic design issues, or discuss logistics all day long (and we do), because those problems are amenable to solving through discussion.

So we solve the problems we can through the forums, and we leave the CNT issues to the experts.

Morale at LiftPort Inc. is obviously at rock bottom at the moment.  The absence of a price list from the Tethered Towers website gives that away.  If refinement of LiftPort's products over the next couple of months changes the costs then the prices displayed can be changed.


When the balloons are working it will be a good time to look at the climbers.  Can climbers be invented that are able to lift a payload?  This will make the lifter into a “Climbing elevator”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator)

The advantages of a lifter and ribbon are:
a. The height is easily adjusted - mines and quarries keep getting deeper.  Whilst being constructed buildings get taller.

b. Lifters designed to work 5 miles off the ground will not be worried by skyscrapers, the sides of mountains or holes deep into the ground.

c. They can be made portable.  Useful when an off road group wishes to ascend/descend cliffs.  Surveyors and the military may be interested.

d. Lifters can work horizontally as well as vertically.  This permits the crossing of rivers and crevices.  The lifter will need to have a gap in its wheels to go around the supporting poles. Some poles will support the ribbon from below other will be wires supporting the ribbon from above.

e. The route has both vertical and horizontal sections.  This can happen in mines.  Currently they use separate lifts and rail lines.  The hopper carrying the payload will have to tilt.


Power can be supplied to the lifter motors by on board batteries or electrical cables attached to the ribbon.

In remote locations customers may prefer solar power to using a generator.  Fuel can be very expensive to transport.

Space Elevators and rockets are not the only way of getting into orbit.  As fall back positions there are:

1.Towers made out of Ultrahard fullerite or aggregated diamond nanorods.  Building a pipe to the sky from which all the air has been evacuated would allow a Maglev train to gain some real speed.

2.Andreas Windemut's aerovator.

3.Lunar Space Runway; the track can be anything from the standard metal and concrete used by Maglev trains weighing thousands of tons to 6 metric tons of CNT.

4.Some other ideas.

In my initial comments it was not my intent to represent morale at liftport.  My frustration is mine and mine alone.  There are others with different and more optimistic opinions. I guess I have the unfortunate position of taking time to get involve with the forum on a regular basis.

The pricing of tether towers is actually based on each individual clients needs and therefore a price list would do no good.  One of the problems we are having is when we put together demostrations we do not get the decision makers we get there filters.

When I went to college, I heard everyone saying it was a good decision and that it will improve my life.  Well I am still broke, however I do see relief in the future. I also discovered something that was never taught in college.  Network is the real education that you need.  The people you know, is what's going to help you be successful.  With Liftport we operating with a weeken network that needs to be strengthen.

This is where I feel that the forum fans and friends could realy directly help Liftport.  We need to increase the depth of our network and it is through the members of the forum that we can actually get word out.  If people are doing this now please keep up the work.  If not make some simple goal such as introducing one person a day to Liftport or Encoruage someone to purchase the Liftport book. This is just an idea. 

While Liftport is the forerunner in space tether technology Liftport is ultimatly a technology firm and will always be able to survive even if CNT are not the magic material.  The pursuit of the space elevator will continue and it will never die and niether will Liftport.  Liftport will from time to time change according to the enviroment it operates in, but it is not going to vanish, not on my watch. This is my mission and I will be here till my end.
 

I notice some typos and like to apologize.  I will pay closer attention next time.

LiftPort morale is still obstinate and agressive.  8)

There needs to be an absence of a public price list at the moment because Tethered Towers' actually has an intellectual property developer working on patents. TT is in a product development mode and is pursuing contracts with development partners. TT cannot, yet, sell towers. TT can, however, be hired to put up towers that allow those partners to develop their own products. It's a weird legal game.

If you're looking for a price list, is it because you have a product you'd like to bring to market using these towers? Let us know and we'll get the ball rolling.

I am afraid I do not have a product.

If LiftPort is in the tower rental business it can put up a price list of daily and weekly rental fees including operators.  The price may say "Contact salesman for a quote" but the list would be up.

One of the main jobs of a price list when negotiating with large organisations is a tool used by the buyer to calculate his budget.  The purchasing department then asks for a discount.

Sean: Right on target. My own initial enthusiasm in 2004 was predicated on taking at face value Brad Edwards' conviction about how quickly CNT research (and then process engineering for a bulk material) would proceed.

Then I spent much of 2005 interviewing the researchers themselves, and concluded that (1) it's not certain that the strength of perfect SWCNTs is adequate in the first place, and (2) even if it should prove to be so, the process engineering -- and price reduction to levels that would make SE construction thinkable -- is likely to take a lot longer than many SE enthusiasts are ready to contemplate.

That is a possibility.  I came on board with Liftport because it was the most interesting game in town, and I would love to be a part of that game.  It is a company that can survive by transforming according to what is needed to build a space elevator, or if the space elevator is absolutly not possible then the company can transform again into a major R&D company.(the space elevator not being feasable will in my opinion never happen.)  But before that can happen we need to explore all possible avenues of construction, because it will dramaticaly change utilization of space.   

CNT may not be sufficiently strong to make a space elevator but Kevlar and its rivals can be made into a rotating tether.

I believe that Aggregated Diamond Nanorods have the strength to make a 100km tall tower that the tether can sit on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregated_diamond_nanorods

Then there is Windemut's machine.

I do not think that our discussions have been mis-directed.
I think a general consesus has been found in that a rotating (bolo) space elevator is superior in almost every way, and can potentially be constructed with existing strength materials for a much lower price.
The problems of a roating space elevator are in boarding from a sub-orbital plane, but these are more linked to designing accurate guidance systems which is the way technology is going.
Coming up with some kind of MAGIC strength CNT might leave us waiting till the end of time. We might be lucky , but to the average person on this forum there is nothing we can do except wait (or raise money for the project) .
It is like asking the average soldier to design an atom bomb back in the 1930s rather than clean his rifle.

No need even to get into "superior" or "inferior," inviting quarrels that waste a lot of bandwidth. Rotating tethers make sense both on their own and as steps toward a beanstalk SE -- e.g., one would certainly want to see any candidate beanstalk ribbon material tested under tension in space conditions.

For that matter, a rotating tether could be used for orbital changes, or injection into lunar or planetary trajectories, independent of any scheme for rendezvous and payload transfer with a suborbital craft. Its principles of momentum storage and transfer are worth pursuing whether or not they help with the ground-to-orbit step. 

The concept of the space elevator is to offer a cheaper, more reliable means of leaving the earth's atmosphere.  If we still have to use a rocket system to leave the earth's gravity to get to an elevator, then we should not even bother with this project. 

The reason we are working on this project is because carbon nanotubes have the theoretical potential of overcoming the technical killer of this project and if it does pan out we need to be ready to move forward and build the space elevator as efficently as possible.  The theoretical strength is there and there is a large number of universities working on this issue.

The whole point of this topic was to awaken people to the possibility that carbon nanotubes may not pan out and start the thought process on solutions that can get around this issue.  There have been so many comments that focus on the technical aspect of this topic and that is only one of the dimensions of this project.  Strategy is the key to success here and we need to be ready for all unexpected departures from what we started with. 

In the end, if it was not for the promise potential that carbon nanotubes have, we would not be discussing the space elevator and I would not be working at liftport.

CNT with sufficient strength to make the space elevator does not exist at the moment.

If you wish to build a cheap way of getting into space starting in the next 2 years produce a  prototype Aerovator with 10 GPa glass fibre able to launch 2 metric tons.  Start with a model 100 m across to debug the equipment which can then be filmed to show investors and customers.

Write a plan showing:
1.Where you are going to get the money.
2.Possible build locations including political control.
3.Prepare a list of possible customers.
4.Prepare detailed technical and management plans.
5.Plan and produce the working model.
6.Draw up a list of suppliers for the prototype - glass fibre, motors/aircraft and base.
7.How much you are going to pay Andreas Windemut for his idea.

That is an interesting idea.  I wonder if NASA or the ESA has done a study on that concept.  If it is as easy as it sounds, then they may have already look at this proposal.  If they didn't, draw up your proposal and copyright it.  That way you will have the intellectual rights to your idea.  You can also hire someone to help with your business plan and marketing plan or do it yourself.  You can find plenty of sites on the internet that list angel investors.