Yuri Artsutanov and His
1960 Space Elevator Proposal in Pravda
Roger G. Gilbertson
Mondo-tronics, Inc.ged.
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 July 1960). 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. Here Roger explains how this translation
was arranged.
I read with interest the editorial
on recent action in the space elevator field ("Citizen
Scientists and the Space Elevator: Going Up?"
The Citizen Scientist, 4 November 2005). Like
many, I first learned of the concept in "Fountains
of Paradise" by Arthur C. Clarke.
In 2003, after reading about Dr. Brad
Edwards' NASA funded study, I became curious of about
the origins of the idea. I'd read mentions of Russian
engineer Yuri Artsutanov and his 1960 article in Pravda,
but could not locate the original story. (Oh, what easy
access to information we've come to expect thanks to
the Internet!)
Eventually I learned that Stanford
University's Hoover Institution has a complete Pravda
collection on microfilm. I contacted them and found
a librarian, Ms. Molloy, eager to help. After a brief
search, she sent me prints of the page.
Using a free demonstration version
of a Cyrillic OCR (optical character recognition) program
called FineReader
5 Pro from Abbyy Software, I scanned and converted
the article into a Macintosh document using a Cyrillic
font. As I do not read Russian, proofreading took a
while, checking the software's output against the grainy
microfilm print, letter by letter ("double K, upside-down
L, backwards R...").
Finally, I sent the Russian text to
my cousin-in-law, Joan, who is a Russian scholar at
Catholic University in Washington, DC. She did the bulk
of the translation into English, and I helped with choosing
an occasional technical term. I then laid out both Russian
and English versions that duplicated the original format,
added the original artwork from the page, and made PDF
files of both versions.
Finally, I passed the PDF files out
to four or five Space Elevator web sites, and from there
it has spread to quite a few places. I wanted to make
the source material available in an easy to use form,
and it has been enjoyable to watch the file find its
way around the internet.
I still do not know if the original
story appeared in color or only black and white. I have
learned that Mr. Artsutanov still lives in Russia and
actively promotes the space elevator concept. Hopefully
the space elevator community can arrange for him to
speak at an upcoming SE conference. It would be great
to get him and Arthur C. Clarke into the same room,
at least via video conference!
In addition to the space elevator competition
mentioned, the field right now has plenty of room for
the contributions of amateur scientists.
One of the biggest opportunities might
be in exploring ways to make tiny carbon nanotubes (CNT)
into macroscopic fibers having higher strength to weight
ratios than any other material.
Take a piece of regular knitting yarn,
unravel it a bit and tease out individual fibers. Each
one measures just a few centimeters long, and yet when
"spun" they hold together without knotting
or adhesives. (How often we overlook the amazing features
of old technologies.) How might we find ways of doing
the same with microscopic CNT fibers?
Might an amateur investigator discover
the secrets of spinning CNT into macroscopic strands?
Or might someone coax spiders or silkworms to incorporate
CNT into their thread-making and have them create fibers
with unheard of strength?
Obviously, even before it gets built,
the space elevator field promises a lot of excitement.
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