Citizen Scientists and the Space Elevator: Going Up?

Forrest M. Mims III

Imagine a ribbon thinner than a sheet of paper and about a meter wide extending from a barge somewhere off South America to a platform in space 100,000 kilometers (62,000 miles) overhead.

Now imagine odd-looking machines that bear absolutely no resemblance to a space rocket traveling up the ribbon into space--and back down again days or weeks later.

If you can wrap your mind around this imagery, you have just imagined what has come to be known as the Space Elevator.

Once the realm of science fiction, the Space Elevator is receiving serious attention. The general idea was first proposed more than a century ago by Konstantine Edouardovitch Tsiolkovski in "Reflections on Earth and Heaven and the Effects of Universal Gravitation" (1895). While this was a work of science fiction, Tsiolkovski was a brilliant scientist who wrote extensively about space and related matters.

Yuri Artsutanov of the Leningrad Technological Institute proposed a space elevator concept 45 years ago in "To the Cosmos by Electric Train" (Young Persons' Pravda, 31 July1960). An English translation of this remarkable article (PDF) has been placed on the web by Joan Barth Urban and robotics expert and author Roger G. Gilbertson.

Over the years, the idea of a tower or cable linking a spacecraft to Earth was independently proposed by others. Sir Arthur C. Clarke reviewed the history of the Space Elevator concept more than two decades ago in "The Space Elevator: 'Thought Experiment', or Key to the Universe? (Part 1)," Advances in Earth Oriented Applied Space Technologies (1981).

In recent years the Space Elevator idea has been receiving considerable attention, as a web search will quickly reveal. Scientific meetings and papers about the idea are now being reduced to primitive practice as various companies, universities and individuals begin building and demonstrating rudimentary Space Elevator components.

NASA's Centennial Challenges program offers cash prizes "... to stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration and ongoing NASA mission areas." One of the most recent NASA Centennial Challenges was a Space Elevator competition under the Elevator 2010 program. The competition was conducted on 21-23 October 2005 by The Spaceward Foundation. A prize of $50,000 was offered for the fastest robotic climber to ascend at least 50 meters (164 feet) up a ribbon in less than 50 seconds when powered only by light from a 10,000-watt light source suspended over the top of the ribbon.

There were no winners--this time.

Meanwhile, The LiftPort Group has been pressing ahead with its ambitious plan to develop an operational Space Elevator. So far they have managed to send a midget crawler 305 meters (1,000 feet) up a ribbon attached to a tethered balloon.

The LiftPort Group has also established a "public inclusion" policy that should be of high interest to the citizen science community. The policy provides that, "International Public Inclusion is exactly what it sounds like: an invitation to every human being to participate in the development of the Space Elevator in some manner."

The Space Elevator concept faces enormous engineering challenges that tend to be glossed over by some backers. Some of these can be found here. Assuming that a Space Elevator can be developed, what will happen in lightning strikes the ribbon? Can the ocean platform really be moved in time to prevent a hit by space debris? Can the ribbon be protected from terrorists in an aircraft?

Even if the Space Elevator is never implemented, the ongoing research will have important spinoffs. Among them will be new means for sampling the atmosphere by means of robots that can travel to and from tethered high-altitude balloons and even kites. Clearly the Space Elevator challenge offers interesting opportunities for forward thinking amateur scientists with an engineering bent.

Going up?

Readers, you can learn much more about the Space Elevator at the links given above and by searching on the web. The September 2005 issue of Nuts & Volts has a good article on the subject (L. Paul Verhage, "The Space Elevator," pp. 82-87). Do you have constructive ideas, suggestions and criticisms about the Space Elevator concept? Send your clearly written comments to "Backscatter." Place "Space Elevator" in the subject line. Editor.