President's Corner
Excitement for Conference
I am really looking forward to this year's ISEC conference
[17-19 Aug Museum of Flight in Seattle] on many levels. The first reason is
that I enjoy the type of people who come to our Space Elevator conference. They
are usually curious, exciting, innovative, futuristic, and enthusiastic. The
fun of being in an environment with similar types of personalities is rewarding
and stimulating. Over the years, the feedback at the conferences has changed
the course of development for space elevators with new and exciting ideas, vast
experiential guidance, feedback from "been there done that," and just
plain analyses from many viewpoints. The people make the conference!
The Keynote Presentation this year will be awesome, as the
topic is "The Last Piece of the Puzzle? – Single Crystal Graphene" by
Adrian Nixor (Nixor Ltd). Can you image a new material that is being developed
to provide a continuous crystal that could be kilometers long? Our speaker is
going to explain how this could indeed be the tether material of the future.
Now the last enticement - You can contribute! I have found
that our audience is far more than just listeners. We have the opportunity, and
we enthusiastically encourage participation, to provide feedback to the
speakers [they normally stay for the full conference and sit with the
audience], contribute to the discussions, and participate inside our
mini-workshops, where all knowledge is valuable.
Please join us at the Museum of Flight for our conference, a
social at the "Red Barn" and participation with students during their
space elevator races and the Museum Science Day.
Come join us as: "The Space Elevator Transportation
System is closer than you think!”
Keep Charging
Pete
ISEC Year-Long Studies and their Reports:
ISEC sponsors research into a
focused topic each year to ensure progress in a discipline within the space
elevator project. The yearly study process has been consistently investigating
elements of the space elevator for the last nine years. The ISEC has a process to pick topics and
then conduct a year-long in-depth analysis on critical topics for Space
Elevator development. This focus enables
the ISEC to prioritize activities and leverage volunteers with expertise in the
chosen fields. The single focus on a
topic for a particular year enables the community to bring its strengths
together and address the topic at the yearly conference. Each study leads to through a proven process
with a resulting report. The topics
chosen by the Board of Directors are shown below. This expansion of the Body of Knowledge can be
downloaded at www.isec.org, for free in pdf format or for a slight charge in
paperback.
Table 1-1, ISEC Study
Reports
|
Reference
|
Year
|
Title
|
|
Penny, 2011
|
2010
|
Space Elevator
Survivability and Space Debris
|
|
Penny, 2013
|
2012
|
Space Elevator Concept of
Operations
|
|
Swan, 2014
|
2013
|
Design Considerations for
Tether Climbers
|
|
Fitzgerald, 2015
|
2014
|
Space Elevator
Architecture and Roadmaps
|
|
Hall, 2016
|
2015
|
Design Considerations for
Earth Port
|
|
Fitzgerald, 2017
|
2016
|
Design Considerations for
Apex Anchor and GEO Node
|
|
Wright, 2017
|
2017
|
Design Considerations for
Modeling and Simulation
|
|
Knapman, 2018 *
|
2018
|
Design Consideration for
Multi-Stage Space Elevator
|
* in development
Architecture Note #19
Is the Space Elevator a Rope?
by Michael A. Fitzgerald
Personal Prologue
This is an Architecture Note. It is the opinion of ISEC’s
Chief Architect. It represents an effort to document ISEC’s ongoing science and
engineering discussions; and is one of many to be published over time. Most
importantly, it is a sincere effort to be the diary, or the chronicle, of the
multitude of our technical considerations as we progress; along the pathway
developing the Space Elevator.
ISEC is chasing a dream … is it the right dream or are we
pushing a rope?
Introduction
It was in the movie Titanic. Leonardo de Caprio was on the
bow of the ship, leaning forward, screaming for all to hear, dreaming of the
exciting adventures to come to him when he got to America. We all know how that
turned out, but it certainly was of no fault to Leonardo’s movie character. Other
forces intervened. Most were simply less than competent, some were nefarious,
some were misinformed. The outcome was at best … sad.
ISEC needs to understand that we are not alone. We are going
to encounter other players; and they might be misinformed, or less than
competent, or nefarious, or simply not dreamers. What shall we do? We need to form our story and stick to it.
Recent wake up call
In a recent effort to develop some collaborative activities
to help promote our dream, I encountered a fellow space enthusiast and, hoping
for a joint meeting on the bow – leaning forward in tandem, I found that he was
not burdened with any enthusiasm for space elevators. Now, you and I KNOW that
our dream will come true eventually, but collaborating with him? Dream
elsewhere.
There was no point to trying to change his stance by
updating him on all the wonderful progress and all the recent exciting news. I
simply said… “Thank you. We’ll proceed.” What he probably doesn’t realize is I
meant the “Thank you” part more than the “We’ll proceed” part. He made no disparaging comments. He simply levied a much higher information
standard than I was prepared to convey. THAT, was the wakeup call! He was a bit
out touch regarding our recent progress -- but, heck, who isn’t!
Our story and let’s stick to it
ISEC is having a small conference in Seattle this month. Our
theme is that the Space Elevator Transportation System development is closer
than you think. That is our story. ISEC is going to review the seven positive
statements of the preliminary Technology Readiness Assessment and make sure
that development is ready for each of the segments of the Transportation
System. ISEC is going to do that self-examination with thoroughness. That is
our story and we are sticking to it.
Other stories and sticking to them
Another feature of our August conference is that ISEC is
starting an Outreach effort over the next year or two (or whatever it takes). The
key aspect of our outreach plan is to identify Outreach clients and make sure
they have sufficient information about Space Elevators. In other words, find
out how high the Outreach client has set the information standard, then
assemble the information and get back to the Outreach client, immediately. We
have started. That is our story and we are sticking to it.
Outreach topics / clients:
These several topics, and more, are associated with
different clients who have relatively unique information needs. ISEC’s new job
is to go beyond the technical Body of Knowledge that has driven us for years.
It is time to gather knowledge so that we can join with others and collaborate.
More to come,
Fitzer
New ISEC Webmaster
First, I would like to thank Mark Dodrill for his dedication
over the last few years. He has taken the website from one that was created
early and simply evolve into one that is current in technological advances. The
principal achievement was to gear it up for mobile devices and a current
web-centered arena. Thanks Mark.
Now, I welcome Douglas Ahlquist. He has joined us and will
be in full control during and after the August conference in Seattle [17-19
August Museum of Flight]. He has over twenty years experience in Software
Engineering performing various roles from Architect to lead software engineer
to quality assurance developer at locations like NASA, Google, Nvidia, JPMorgan
Chase, and others. He will be taking us from where we are towards more
involvement inside the Cloud and faster responses to our space elevator
enthusiasts around the globe. Please welcome him to the team and come to our
conference to talk about how the webmaster will improve our Cloud
environment.
Pete
