Space Elevator news

publiusr · 2006-08-22 17:38:10

That's a riot.

Space elevator concepts showing up at a convention of junior birdmen--without one shred of hope of ever fielding an LV big enough to place one tether segment up in orbit.

I would laugh were it not so sad.

cIclops · 2006-09-03 08:54:52

In a Space Show interview on 28 August, Brad Edwards responds to the recent claim that CNT ribbons would not be strong enough. He says the claim was based on very rough calculations and not on the latest measured CNT strengths of 200GPa (no source given).

The estimated required strength of an elevator cable is about 100GPa or less, so the latest CNT thread strengths of about 50 GPa make Edwards confident that they will soon be strong enough.

Additional info here

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-09-03 10:34:29

The truth is, even if Mars Direct or some other manned mission were implemented, it would still be another astronautic media spectacular, it would give us some interesting news articals to read about, focusing on the activities of an elite corps of astronauts each with several degrees to their names doing Geology on Mars. We need something like a space elevator, which I call a conveyor whose purpose is to enable the mass transportation of people and things into space. Some people don't want a conveyor of any sort, they put up daunting challenges and are not really interested in finding solutions for those challenges, they just put them up their to serve as road blocks to prevent an activity that they find distasteful. Instead of saying they don't like this, they go on to prove why it can't be done, if someone tries to find solutions and ways around the obstacles they have put up, they get quite annoyed with such people as it undermines their argument that it can't be done and so therefore shouldn't be tried.

Some people just plain don't want any humans leaving Earth surface, and it is as simple as that, and they have a number of strategies to prevent the dawning of the true space age.

1) They'll say that manned space travel is a waste of money, and they'll oppose money to improve the space transportation system, saying the truism that space travel is expensive, will always be expensive and since nothing can be accomplished that would make it less so, all appropriations toward that end will be a waste of money. And then they'll go about listing the various ways that money could better be spent, this second part was more effective during the Heyday of the Apollo program than it is now.

2) Failing to disuade lawmakers from making the Appropriations to better the space transportation system, the opponents will attempt to giganticise the program in order to make it unaffordable. They will say things like, "Oh Mars Direct will never work, you have failed to consider X, Y, and Z, and to solve these problems you need much bigger spaceships or the ribbons will not work, they are too thin, you need much thicker cables and Massive launch vehicles to launch the tether into orbit before it can be lowered down.

GCNRevenger · 2006-09-03 19:07:35

First of all, a space elevator on Earth may or may not be possible. There is a good chance that no matter how much effort we put into nanotech supermaterials that it just will never, ever work. I happen to actually work in a research group that deals with carbon nanotube composites, the most likely material for an elevator cable, and let me tell you its not going all that well. There is also a huge tendency to overhype carbon nanotubes, since this is the "in thing" these days, and where research grants are made or broken. If there is a breakthrough or something, and a cable of sufficent strength and durability is deeme to be practical, then by all means NASA and the government at large should put some real money in it. But until then, rockets are what we have, and NASA should spend its money there. More basic research on nanotech supermaterials like carbon nanotube composites needs to be done first, and that is outside of NASA's pervue.

Now for the other stuff...

We can accomplish useful work with present expendable rockets with present money, give or take, if it is spent wisely and we don't get in a big rush. We can build a prospecting & astronomy base on the Moon and a research station on Mars, perminantly inhabited, with plain old rockets. We could do small-scale PGM mining and perhaps set up a small almost-independant town on Mars for a few hundreds if we would invest in a true Shuttle-II style spaceplane and reuseable landers. We could do this.

MarsDirect though, does not work. Not in its present form. This is not because of an inherint flaw in the arcitecture of the plan, but a matter of details. Specifically, that Bob Zubrin believes the mission could work with rockets, vehicles, and crews that are simply too small. They do not need to be vast amounts larger, 50% would be enough for a four-man crew probably, and infact NASA has a similar mission plan called the Design Reference Mission version three, which is a bit more conservative in its planning.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-09-03 22:48:04

Perhaps private industry could do a better job if motivate by the almighty $.
One time on another forum, I got an idea of actually putting the Mars prize on Mars itself in the form of US currency. If its there and NASA states that it belongs to whomever can get it first, then this will spark a space race among private industry to find means of getting to Mars and fetching the currency. Since that currency won't be in circulation until someone retrieves it, that money doesn't have to be appropriated until someone actually does. I think the result of this experiment would be some company deploying a probe that lands on Mars, scoops up the money and then takes it back to Earth. Now the money doesn't get put on the budget as spent until it makes it all the way back to Earth. If for example, the money burns up in the atmosphere upon reentry, the Federal Reserve can always print more or not. The money supply won't be affected until it actually gets back to Earth and into circulation. NASA could put ten billion up there, or fifty billion, you name it. Basically All NASA pays for is the probe to get it there, someone else pays to the lander, robot, and return vehicle to get it back.

I think in retrospect this is a rather silly idea, probably better to pay contractors to retrive scientific results. The basic idea is that of NASA as paymaster, this NASA doesn't do missions in space, it only pays for the successful ones, that is after the fact when they are accomplished. NASA could for example put up a prize for the first company that builds and deploys a Terrestrial planet-finder space telescope. Basically each budget year more money is appropriated to the pot and over time the pot gets larger and larger, one the put gets large enough, someone with deep pockets will jump at it. There are basically two risks here, there is the risk of your mission failing and there is the risk of someone doing the mission before you. if you wait too long because its not enough money for you, then someone else might go for it, get their first and clean out the pot. NASA doesn't spend the money until someone succeeds!

cIclops · 2006-10-07 03:33:20

Liftport have just released their Roadmap V1.0 Public Beta (PDF)

A detailed progressive development roadmap starting with 3km ballon based lifter tests in 2007, through GEO tests in 2015 to full deployment in 2031. Ambitious indeed.

cIclops · 2006-10-08 02:49:39

A slamming criticsm of Liftport's roadmap on Brad Edward's site

Unfortunately, the Liftport roadmap has little relevance to the space elevator development effort as a whole. Liftport apparently has not read or understood the literature on the space elevator and had no input from technical experts on the space elevator or large space or civil projects.

Note also the link to the announcement: Los Alamos partners with CNT Technologies to commercialize SuperThread that suggests a CNT thread strength of 50GaP will be available soon.

Rxke · 2006-10-08 04:01:42

Ouch.

pretty painful but good critique, but still it sounds like chip on the shoulder remarks, in a way...

noosfractal · 2006-10-08 04:04:41

A slamming criticsm of Liftport's roadmap on Brad Edward's site

Ouch.

Note also the link to the announcement: Los Alamos partners with CNT Technologies to commercialize SuperThread that suggests a CNT thread strength of 50GaP will be available soon.

"100 times steel" in a press release is more like 10 GPa (maybe 20) - but it is a huge advance - in 2005, the strongest we had available commercially was Spectra 2000 at 3.5 GPa. The magic number for the space elevator is 62 GPa. I like how the extrapolation curve is looking

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-08 09:15:58

As for the satellite issue, I think once space elevators are up, their would be less need for low Earth orbiting satellites in many applications at least. Elevators can act as communications beacons, they can take pictures of the Earth from many different altitudes, and any country that is next to an elevator is bound to be spied on.

Space elevators would open up the true space age.

cIclops · 2006-10-10 00:05:30

As for the satellite issue, I think once space elevators are up, their would be less need for low Earth orbiting satellites in many applications at least. Elevators can act as communications beacons, they can take pictures of the Earth from many different altitudes, and any country that is next to an elevator is bound to be spied on.
Space elevators would open up the true space age.

The view from an elevator platform will surely be spectacular but it won't be sufficient to reduce the number of LEO satellites. LEO satellites will still be needed for specialized jobs like detailed earth observations. However a SE will be capable of launching them cheaply and gently.

Yes high level SE platforms will be excellent for communications and weather satellites as well as for tourist viewing platforms and base jumping

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-10 08:50:28

By launching larger satellites further out, you can obtain the same resolution as the close in satellites. You probably want the satellites to be in nonequatorial orbits since the elevators will have views around itself at the equator, and better yet, unlike satellites, the elevators can view a place contiuously. Space elevators are also an excellent means of placing a Hab onto the surface of Mars or on the Moon for that matter. Just imagine it, a hab is lowered slowly onto the Martian surface, the astronauts hop around and do some exploring, and then the hab is raised up, the elevator changes its orbit slightly and moves relative to the Martian surface, the Mars Hab will have an excellent view of the terrain below and when it spots a place it wants to set down, it commands the elevator to assume a synchonious orbit once again and it lowers itself down the elevator onto the surface once again for further exploration. Not only that, you can also explore Venus by this method. You lower a Hab into Venus' atmosphere, the elevator won't be synchronius with Venus's surface but with its atmosphere which superrotates over Venus in a period of 48 hours. The elevator lowers a balloon with a liquid hydrogen tank, and boils off the hydrogen to inflate the balloon, the balloon then supports further material which is then sent down the elevator, including an aerial hoab gondala that is attached to the balloon. The balloon remains firmly attached to the space elevator. From the ballon the astronauts lower themselves in refrigerated or cooled bathyspheres and walk around in cooled hard suits that are tethered to the Bathysphere, probably with some mechnical assistance as the suits are likely to be heavy. Rocks can be collected, placed in the Bathysphere and then raised up to the Hab/gondala and from their shipped up the space elevator into orbit where a ship awaits to take them to Earth for further analysis. It might also be possible to use space elevators to lower astronauts into the atmospheres of gas giants.

What else can space elevators be used for?
You can rotate them in space and at their ends provide 1 Earth gravity. You can also loop them into a contiuous strip and spin them for gravity, make enough of this stuff and you can build a staggerinly large space colony. When you no longer confined to the structural material limits of steel and aluminum, you can built giant versions of O'Neill's Space colonies. In his book the High Frontier, O'Neill mentione that his Island Three could be scaled up with common ordinary materials such as steel and aluminum to produce the interial land area equal to switzerland, imagine how much better you could do if you were working with nanotube fabrics instead.

On the surface of Mars, you can create huge domes over enourmous craters using nanotube material.

GCNRevenger · 2006-10-10 18:12:21

An elevator makes an awful spy satelite, that it really isn't "overhead" of anything except what is around the cable, and if the cable (and its base station) is within a few hundred kilometers of where you want to look, then why do you need the elevator if you control the region around the base? I bet that lower altitude satelites can do adaptive optics better too, since the calibration laser used wouldn't spread or scatter as much. And if you are all big on launching satelites with large apatures to make up for being at very high altitudes, it would still take an ungodly amount of rocket fuel to change the orbital inclination away from the elevator.

A space elevator would not make a good way to deliver a HAB to Mars or anywhere for that matter, the cable would weigh several hundreds of tonnes, much more than the HAB does, plus you still need a counterweight to prevent the orbit from collapsing, which needs to weigh alot more than the HAB does. If it weighs, say 40MT then you are talking about >1000MT of vehicle. Something that size gets awfully hard to aerobrake, increasing fuel requirements even more. And even then, you are still restricted to sites that are directly over the equator, plus how do you intend to get back to the ERV if the thing fails?

You place entirely too much faith in "nanofabric," yes it is amazingly strong, but its not infinitely so, and its extremely difficult to produce. I feel confidant in saying that it will never be cheap enough to outright replace metals for general structural use in buildings or space stations.

noosfractal · 2006-10-10 18:42:46

even then, you are still restricted to sites that are directly over the equator

I don't think there'll be a space elevator on Mars for quite a while, but I do want to point out that non-equatorial space elevators are possible ...

http://www.mit.edu/people/gassend/space … quatorial/

You place entirely too much faith in "nanofabric," yes it is amazingly strong, but its not infinitely so, and its extremely difficult to produce. I feel confidant in saying that it will never be cheap enough to outright replace metals for general structural use in buildings or space stations.

I wouldn't be so sure. Never is such a long time. There's no reason cost/volume shouldn't follow the same curve as other carbon fibers ...

GCNRevenger · 2006-10-10 19:37:22

Just this guy? And a little graph? Anyway, I don't think even his results show that a nonequitorial space elevator would permit much deviation from the orbital plane, but also note that if the elevator is away from the orbital plane, then no vehicle separating from it would be in a stable orbit even at geostationary altitude. Being above or below the orbital plane, but not crossing it, like an inclined orbit.

There's no reason cost/volume shouldn't follow the same curve as other carbon fibers

...Which clearly illustrates that you have no idea what a different animal nanotechnologic nanotube composites are from plain old carbon fiber. Its like comparing a handfull of iron ore to steel, made of much the same stuff, but a totally different material.

Or a much much better example that I just now thought of, try comparing graphite to diamond. Same atoms, but a totally different material too.

noosfractal · 2006-10-10 20:34:50

Just this guy? And a little graph?

Well ... and his paper that was part of the proceedings of the 3rd annual space elevator conference ...

http://www.isr.us/Spaceelevatorconferen … tions.html

Looking forward to your critique at the next conference.

Anyway, I don't think even his results show that a nonequitorial space elevator would permit much deviation from the orbital plane

which is, as you point out, undesirable in any case. The point is that the anchor isn't constrained to the equator. Which is nice if you don't happen to have a lot of secure equatorial territory available.

There's no reason cost/volume shouldn't follow the same curve as other carbon fibers
...Which clearly illustrates that you have no idea what a different animal nanotechnologic nanotube composites are from plain old carbon fiber. Its like comparing a handfull of iron ore to steel, made of much the same stuff, but a totally different material.

I understand that growing arbitrary length single-walled CNTs is a challenge we've yet to overcome, but everything I've read about the Los Almos/CNT Technologies deal says they are going to grow fibers on the order of centimeters (the hard part) and then spin the stuff into arbitrary length thread with near-standard textiles equipment. I'll be very surprised if production volumes aren't exponential.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-11 01:53:05

Have you ever heard of something called a nano assembler? In this case it would be a molecular machine that specializes in manufacturing nanotubes. Another important feature would be for the nano assembler to be able to assemble more nanoassemblers. So if you can get a nanoassembler that can make more nanoassemblers and nanotubes as well, then you will be in the business of mass producing nanofabrics. You just start with raw materials and nanoassemblers and you eventually have your nanotubes when the raw material is used up. This is what nanotechnology is all about. Didn't you know that?

I also think nanotechnology would serve a major roll in terraforming planets and building space stations. The dumb nanotech would simply make bulk materials such as masses of nanotubes, smarter nanotech would make the nanotube fabric, and even smarter nanotech would make something specific out of that fabric. You seem to think that we'll be eternally plodding along at 20th centurly levels of technology forever. I'm afraid I do not share your pessimism. I don't think technology 500 years hence will be comprehensible to us. I cannot predict in what way it will be incomprehensible to us for that is unknown, but just because we can't comprehend whats going to be doesn't mean we should therefore assume that the distant future will be just like the present technologically speaking.

I think in principle if its possible to make a little nanofabric, then it is possible to produce millions of tons of that stuff, it is only carbon after all, and all it lacks for is an efficient process to produce vast bulk quantities of that stuff. Just because you can't imagine how, doesn't mean that no one will ever be able to. Give the scientists and engineers of the future some credit.

GCNRevenger · 2006-10-11 05:00:27

Its a challenge we might never overcome. The LANL nanotubes still aren't good enough, and there still isn't a good way to make nanocomposites out of them to get the required amount of tubes under control, and there still isn't a good way to make them in bulk. The spinoff company that wants to make these things wants to "work up to" batches only in the kilograms. An elevator able to move really substantial payloads might need 1000MT of the stuff. My point remains that even though they might look the same and be handled the same, CNTs are a completly different beast than plain old polyacrylamide fibers and are infinintely harder to produce.

Have you ever heard of something called a nano assembler?

Yes, and nanoscale manipulation of individual or small groups of atoms in a practical and efficient manner for the construction of nanomaterials is a complete Hollywood pipe dream. There is argument if the laws of physics even permit such control.

This is what nanotechnology is all about. Didn't you know that?

You have no clue. No clue at all... I am a polymer chemist, and to some extent a "nanotechnologist," I deal with making nanocomposites, templates, and their analysis. For the forseeable future, talk of nanorobots performing any task, much less complicated things like self-replication, is at least a century away if its even possible. You have been duped and adopted the wild dreams of what might eventually be possible some day, that which futureists and science fiction authors dream about, as a reasonable expectation. You have no bearing in reality at all.

it is only carbon after all

Again, you've got no notion of what you are saying. This statement illustrates your simplistic, ignorant and frankly naieve beliefes about chemistry and nanotechnology. You say this as if "there shouldn't" be a problem just because the starting material is common, which is totally silly. There are lots of molecules that are extremely hard if not totally impractical to make, yet they are made of carbon too... What atoms the stuff is made of is irrelivent, the question is what is involved in making the stuff. Just because its made from carbon doesn't mean anything.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-11 10:56:10

Its a challenge we might never overcome. The LANL nanotubes still aren't good enough, and there still isn't a good way to make nanocomposites out of them to get the required amount of tubes under control, and there still isn't a good way to make them in bulk. The spinoff company that wants to make these things wants to "work up to" batches only in the kilograms. An elevator able to move really substantial payloads might need 1000MT of the stuff. My point remains that even though they might look the same and be handled the same, CNTs are a completly different beast than plain old polyacrylamide fibers and are infinintely harder to produce.

Yes I know we still have far to go, but that's no reason to give up. Yes, we might never overcome these challenges, we might be hit by an asteroid tomorrow and our civilization might go down the tubes as well, and we might never get around to solving the nanotube problem. Yes, these are all possibilities. I don't know what can be accomplished with nanotubes and the ability to weave them into useful fibers. We have to try things out and find out whats possible not throw in the towel. Who invented the light bulb, was it a pessimist who said it never would happen or an optimist? The "Thomas Edisons" of the world were not the pessimists, who said it can never be done.

Have you ever heard of something called a nano assembler?
Yes, and nanoscale manipulation of individual or small groups of atoms in a practical and efficient manner for the construction of nanomaterials is a complete Hollywood pipe dream. There is argument if the laws of physics even permit such control.

. Will the uncertainty principle of quantum physic make molecular machines unworkable?
This principle states (among other things) that particles can't be pinned down in an exact location for any length of time. It limits what molecular machines can do, just as it limits what anything else can do. Nonetheless, calculation show that the uncertainty principle places few important limits on how well atoms can be held in place. at least for the purposes outlined here. ...
. Will the molecular vibrations of heat make molecular machines unworkable or too unreliable for use?
Thermal vibrations will cause greater problems than will the uncertainty principle, yet here again existing molecular machines directly demonstrate that molecular machines can work at ordinary temperatures. Despite thermal vibrations, the DNA-copying machinery in some cells makes less than one error in 100,000,000,000 operations. To achieve this accuracy, however, cells use machines (such as the enzyme DNA polymerase I) that proofread the copy and correct errors. Assemblers may well need similar error-checking and error-correcting abilities, if they are to produce reliable results

This is what nanotechnology is all about. Didn't you know that?
You have no clue. No clue at all... I am a polymer chemist, and to some extent a "nanotechnologist," I deal with making nanocomposites, templates, and their analysis. For the forseeable future, talk of nanorobots performing any task, much less complicated things like self-replication, is at least a century away if its even possible. You have been duped and adopted the wild dreams of what might eventually be possible some day, that which futureists and science fiction authors dream about, as a reasonable expectation. You have no bearing in reality at all.

Maybe, but who are we to say what the future holds or does not hold? There are several generations of scientists and engineers who will come after us in the next century. There is no way to anticipate what they are capable of inventing or what solutions they might devise for building nanoassemblers. The only thing I do know is that the ones that succeed in solving the nano-assembler problem will probably have a more open mind than you have, they are willing to try things out that you may consider impossible, and they may solve these problems in ways that you do not anticipate and come up with unexpected results. There is alot more to discover and build in this world, you are in no position to be the final authority on everything that is and isn't possible. I hope the ranks of scientists don't become dominated by pessimists who are unwilling to try new things because they consider them impossible.

it is only carbon after all
Again, you've got no notion of what you are saying. This statement illustrates your simplistic, ignorant and frankly naieve beliefes about chemistry and nanotechnology. You say this as if "there shouldn't" be a problem just because the starting material is common, which is totally silly. There are lots of molecules that are extremely hard if not totally impractical to make, yet they are made of carbon too... What atoms the stuff is made of is irrelivent, the question is what is involved in making the stuff. Just because its made from carbon doesn't mean anything.

There are bulk processing techniques and nanoprocessing techniques. The nanoprocessors that exist today are in biological cells. If we learn how cells operate, we may alter them and use some of their structures as templates to build other things that are useful to us. Just because a solution hasn't been achieved up to now also doesn't mean anything. For most of human history, there were no light bulbs, that fact did not stop or discourage Thomas Edison from building economical lightbulbs and starting a whole new industry based on electric lighting. All the people who pooh poohed this idea, and thought that flames were the only way to go, didn't build this industry and didn't reap the rewards of trying new things, they lost this opportunity because they weren't willing to try, and Thomas Edison and other inventors like him were willing to experiment rather than just listen to all the experts and do nothing as nothing was accomplished before.

I'm not a chemist, but you appear not to want to try new things, and you dismiss new ideas with a wave of the hand. Can you not be humble enough to admit that someone else might possibly be cleverer than you are, and might approach an engineering problem from an angle you might not ever have tried? I know I'm not the person to do it, but their are others out their. Your frustrations aren't frustrations for all. Just because you don't know how something will be done, doesn't make it impossible. no matter how educated and learned in your field you are, you must admit that their may be someone else who may be smarter than yourself, and is able for find solutions that you say are not there to be found. Science and technology advances.

noosfractal · 2006-10-11 15:03:18

nanoscale manipulation of individual or small groups of atoms in a practical and efficient manner for the construction of nanomaterials is a complete Hollywood pipe dream.

What did you think of the articles flash referenced a few weeks ago ...

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4959

?

Seems workable to me.

GCNRevenger · 2006-10-11 20:57:31

After skimming over the pages, its pretty clear that this technique only works for large or superlarge molecules, its still a different animal than the angstrom-level atomic manipulation to make near-perfect/near-identical nanotubes. For the kind of stuff Tom is talking about, you need to be able to move individual atoms as well as adjust their electronic state at will probably.

Anyway, I am not trying to be a doomsayer; what I see is expectations growing out of all proportion, and talk of a space elevator needs to be pulled back down to Earth, so to speak. This notion about "you just need to open your mind" is new-agey crap; science doesn't work that way, you don't launch into an avenue of research irrationally like that. Edison wasn't so much a scientist, he was just a tinkerer, using trial and error (!!!) to find an acceptable material for light bulb filimants for instance. Frankly, things like nanotechnology are too complicated and there are too many variables for mere tinkering, only science will bring the technology to fruition.

From any informed and sane scientific point of view, it is very clear that the kind of angstrom-scale "nanorobotics" you are thinking about will require a vast amount of science and development to create. Science does not move quickly, and sudden breakthroughs of any magnetude simply do not happen with any regularity. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable, nay infact its entirely unreasonable not to believe that the kind of "nanorobotics" you want won't happen for a very long time.

noosfractal · 2006-10-11 22:31:49

After skimming over the pages, its pretty clear that this technique only works for large or superlarge molecules, its still a different animal than the angstrom-level atomic manipulation to make near-perfect/near-identical nanotubes.

I agree, they are still talking shake-and-bake assembly, but these assemblies are getting close to nanoscale, they may be able to form the scafolding, or templates, or nozzles, or other formation assembly for the desired nanoproduct(s). They can let you control formation conditions at the nanoscale.

For the kind of stuff Tom is talking about, you need to be able to move individual atoms as well as adjust their electronic state at will probably.

I don't think I'll see self-replicating nanofactories in my lifetime, but probably crude nanobots (find a target, do a multi-step task), and at this point, almost certainly fabrication of arbitrary length single-walled CNTs.

Edison wasn't so much a scientist, he was just a tinkerer, using trial and error (!!!) to find an acceptable material for light bulb filimants for instance. Frankly, things like nanotechnology are too complicated and there are too many variables for mere tinkering

You can already order arbitrary DNA molecules over the web, or the machine that makes them if you're a mid-sized company. And while scanning tunneling microscopes aren't yet available from Fry's, people do have them in their garages ...

http://www.e-basteln.de/index_r.htm

You can't make even micrograms of nanoproduct with them, but you can tinker.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-11 23:46:57

I don't think I'll see self-replicating nanofactories in my lifetime, but probably crude nanobots (find a target, do a multi-step task), and at this point, almost certainly fabrication of arbitrary length single-walled CNTs.

Maybe not this lifetime but
Check this website out:
www.alcor.org
With cryonics, some of us may indeed someday see a terraformed Mars and perhaps walk on its surface. I can't guarantee any of this of course, but what do we have now? Burial, cremation, religion and a belief in the afterlife. I'd say we would have nothing to lose in trying this out, since we would be already dead by the time were frozen anyway. If reversable biostasis can be achieved, then this makes the task of building starships that much easier, and terraforming projects can become more affordable, if you find an "almost Earth" out among the stars that only need a little modification and alot of patience to match Earth's environment. Generation ships have to be huge, but a "sleeper" ship can be small, it doesn't have to support a vast ecosystem on a millenial long journey out among the stars. All life we want can be packed neatly and affordably in cryonics chambers. Yes it all sounds like science fiction, and perhaps it is, but I never said it would all happen tomorrow, did I.

I don't know how close space elevators are, it may be possible to make them using bulk technology. The reason nanotubes are expensive is that we don't have sufficient motivation to find ways to mass produce them in suffcient quanitities. The nanofabrics aren't strong enough yet, and since that is the case, liftport has not reason to mass produce it until it can produce a fabric that is strong enough for its purpose, then and only then would it work on mass producing it in quantity.[/url]

noosfractal · 2006-10-12 01:35:31

www.alcor.org

67 "patients", 1000 members. I'd have thought more by now.

cIclops · 2006-10-12 04:24:16

If reversable biostasis can be achieved, then this makes the task of building starships that much easier, and terraforming projects can become more affordable, if you find an "almost Earth" out among the stars that only need a little modification and alot of patience to match Earth's environment. Generation ships have to be huge, but a "sleeper" ship can be small, it doesn't have to support a vast ecosystem on a millenial long journey out among the stars. All life we want can be packed neatly and affordably in cryonics chambers. Yes it all sounds like science fiction, and perhaps it is, but I never said it would all happen tomorrow, did I.

Reversible biostatis is available right now, but that doesn't make building a starship possible. The key problem with building a starship is propulsion. There is no propulsion system available that will take a ship to the nearest star in any timescale short enough to ensure its systems will be working when it arrives. The best that seems possible in the foreseeable future would be a solar sail (100+ years) but that would carry a tiny payload. Nuclear engines can propel far more payload but would take much longer (1000+ years). In both cases the mission would be a flyby at high velocity.

In case you are wondering: for some time it has been possible to reverse cryogenic storage of embryos. The challenge would be of course to provide environmental support once revived and then to raise a sane functioning crew. There would be plenty of time on the journey for them to mature Assuming it does become possible to cryogenically store and revive an adult crew, what would be the point of their suicide mission? If you want them to land, multiply the propulsion problem by a large number. Return would effectively be impossible.

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#31 2006-10-07 03:33:20

Re: Space Elevator news

#32 2006-10-08 02:49:39

Re: Space Elevator news

#33 2006-10-08 04:01:42

Re: Space Elevator news

#34 2006-10-08 04:04:41

Re: Space Elevator news

#35 2006-10-08 09:15:58

Re: Space Elevator news

#36 2006-10-10 00:05:30

Re: Space Elevator news

#37 2006-10-10 08:50:28

Re: Space Elevator news

#38 2006-10-10 18:12:21

Re: Space Elevator news

#39 2006-10-10 18:42:46

Re: Space Elevator news

#40 2006-10-10 19:37:22

Re: Space Elevator news

#41 2006-10-10 20:34:50

Re: Space Elevator news

#42 2006-10-11 01:53:05

Re: Space Elevator news

#43 2006-10-11 05:00:27

Re: Space Elevator news

#44 2006-10-11 10:56:10

Re: Space Elevator news

#45 2006-10-11 15:03:18

Re: Space Elevator news

#46 2006-10-11 20:57:31

Re: Space Elevator news

#47 2006-10-11 22:31:49

Re: Space Elevator news

#48 2006-10-11 23:46:57

Re: Space Elevator news

#49 2006-10-12 01:35:31

Re: Space Elevator news

#50 2006-10-12 04:24:16

Re: Space Elevator news

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