Space Elevator to the Solar System and beyond

Saturday, 19 March 2005

And we shall turn swords into plough shears…..

It’s in Brazil’s flag! Why don’t you build a Space Elevator to lift men and materials cheaply and safely up to space. This would allow the building of:

• An international Space Station
• A Moon base (very practical now water has been found on the moon)
• A Far Side Observatory (to scan the heavens for near by Stars with rocky planets, shielded from the atmosphere and radio waves generated by human activity).
• There are at least 125 stars with in a sphere 100 light years from Earth. 55 probably have planets, probably more.
• There may be life on Europa one of Jupiter’s Moons. It is chemically possible. This could be investigated.
• Ice asteroids from the moons of Jupiter could be piloted to Earth, aimed at deserts and melt on re-entry. Thus greening the desert. Saudi Arabia would pay a fortune for this. China short of food would also pay a fortune to green the Gobi.
• The Space Elevator has to be built exactly on the equator for technical reasons so the Amazonian coast would seem to be an ideal location, close to the Americas, Europe and Africa.
• It is estimated to cost $10 Billion. You could raise some of this as loans and get donations from the European Union, United States, Japan and China.
• The Russian, European (based in South America) and United States space programs could be used to construct it.
• It would be like the opening of a new Panama Canal or Trans-continental railway. You would receive many times back what you invested.
• It would help towards your bid for a permanent seat on the UN security council.

Pax Terra.

Space Elevator – a cheap way to get into Space.

Forget the roar of rocketry and those bone jarring lift-offs, the elevator would be a smooth 62,000-mile (100,000-kilometre) ride up a long cable. Payloads can shimmy up the Earth-to-space cable, experiencing no large launch forces, slowly climbing from one atmosphere to a vacuum.

Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, Venus, the asteroids and beyond - they are routinely accessible via the space elevator. And for all its promise and grandeur, this mega-project is made practical by the tiniest of technologies - carbon nano-tubes. An asteroid would be used to support the nano-tubes linking heaven to Earth.

Space visionary, Arthur C. Clarke, centred his novel of the late 1970s, The Fountains of Paradise, on the notion.

Space Elevator to the Solar System and beyond. Built from a incredibly thin and extremely long atomic chain, linking the Earth to an Orbiting Asteroid, and able to lift cargo at an extremely low cost as compared with rockets. Scientifically proven.

The Fountains of Paradise set in a fictionalised (10 degrees South so it is on the equator) version of Arthur C. Clarke's adopted home of Sri Lanka, one of his most personal. The story is based around the fantastical yet scientifically supportable idea of a 'Space Elevator', a 'tower' from the earth to geo-stationary orbit, 23,000 miles "high". The purpose is to make access to space routine, safe and cheap, and the 22nd century-set novel essentially follows Vannevar Morgan in his quest to complete this monumental project.

My Favourite Books - Paradise Section.

www.colonization.biz/moonbase.htm - a bit about the Moon Base game.

Moon base is a very unusual game, quite apart from the run of the mill. It is one of my favourites. The game is not by a software company as such, but by a Construction Company, predicting a near future Moon base, and showing how it can by technically, and more importantly economically feasible, the Programmers consulted NASA experts. The concept gels well, and seems plausible, but one decimal point in the wrong place for commodity prices, and it could all fall to bits. The game rightly predicted that there was a high chance of finding water deposits on the Moon, in the form of crashed meteorites. Since the real life discovery plans for a Moon base have been revealed, showing just how critical it is. In the game you don’t always find water, it is winnable without it – just! But a walk over with it, as it is needed for drinking, growing food (it is highly costly to ship in), and for making oxygen and rocket fuel (H20 -> Liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen).

You also get a big manual, which is a story, with technical and game information scattered through it, most novel (pardon the pun). The story involves, not surprisingly, the foundation of a lunar colony. With another Chinese colony on the other side of the moon (again very plausible in today's world). Among other thing they have to prevent a melt down of a fission reactor, see to a crashed Lander, break a strike, and trade solar power with the Chinese, as one side of the moon is in darkness, when the other is light, with a lunar might lasting 14 earth days, this makes a lot of sense.

Stars with in 100 light years of Earth:

• Alpha Centauri*
• Barnard's Star
• Sirius
• Altair
• Tau Ceti*
• Pi3 Orionis 2?*
• Vega
• Sagittae
• Scorpii*
• Geminorum*
• Pegasi*
• Librae
• Ceti
• Scorpii

Gulf Cooperation Council: “(GCC), organization (est. 1981) promoting stability and economic cooperation among Persian Gulf nations. Its members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In 1991 the GCC countries joined with Egypt and Syria to create a regional peacekeeping force. An aid fund was also established to promote development in Arab states; it was used to help liberate Kuwait in 1991. In 2001 the GCC agreed to establish a customs union in 2003 and a broader economic union (including a single market and currency) by 2010.”

The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council could club together and build a Space Elevator on the Equator in Somalia, bringing peace to that troubled country at the same time. Other countries might wish to join the GCC such as the Yemen, Jordan, and Iraq. The Kurds of Syria and Iraq might wish for autonomy and their own state. This could lead to a federation of Arab states, but this is unlikely unless the Wahhabis sect is contained in Saudi Arabia. They believe any change to Islamic Law after the first 300 years of Islam are illegal i.e. they won’t be in favour of a space elevator. Sharia law would have to be contained to Saudi Arabia or the Hejaz (where the two holy places of Mecca and Medina are located). The Saudi Royal family draw their strength from this sect. They obviously haven’t heard of the Roman saying: “The times are changing and we with the times.” As a sop to the Wahhabis transport vehicles and ships could be replaced with camel caravans and Dows giving jobs to poor Muslims.

The estimated cost of the Space Elevator is $10 Billion, say $20 Billion as projects costs always spiral out of control. With Oil at $50 / Barrel rising to $80 (due to increasing world demand and monopoly status) the Gulf States could easily afford this. $80 / Barrel would be good for the environment. Oil is a finite resource and won't last for ever. What are we to do when it runs out?

Lebanon, Palestine and Israel couldn’t join due to their strong Christian and Jewish heritage. Also military ports in the Eastern Mediterranean would be a direct and unacceptable challenge to NATO and lead to an expensive and pointless arms race. Israel could go non-nuclear and join NATO and the European Union after ceding South Israel to the Palestinians to provide a land link between the West Bank and Gaza so it could become a major port / oil terminus for the GCC. Beruit would naturally link to Damascus.

As you can not always point to Mecca when you need to pray when in Space would the Wahhabis outlaw ANY Muslim going into Space. Do they have the right to speak for all Muslims? If outlawed Robots could be sent or Christians, Druze or Baha’I.