Space Elevator - Attainable Dreams and the $10 Billion Proposal

Some people are an easy sell on anything that relates to space exploration. For the uninitiated, the idea of the space elevator is to use beamed energy to power a platform or elevator into space. Arthur C. Clarke and others popularized the idea.

The Space Elevator competition is growing into a movement. There's The Space Elevator Blog. There's The International Space Elevator Consortium. There's the Space Elevator Games site that has video of the space elevator. Wow! The excitement is reminiscent of 1969 and the moonwalk!

And now there's even a Wiki. The videos of the space elevators on the Wiki and at the Space Elevator Games site are amazing. They're better than Star Trek.

Brad Edwards has been working with investors to raise $10 billion since 2003. Along with Philip Ragan, he published a book titled Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator. It became a best-seller in Japan.

Japan is holding its third laser competition on March 20, 2010. The Japan Space Agency believes the space elevator can be built for $10 billion. The European Spaceward Association, led by Edwards, just held a conference last month that focused on tether design and the challenges of industrializing the moon.

Ted Semon writes The Space Elevator Blog and is also President of The International Space Elevator Consortium. He writes, "I want to contribute, somehow, someway, to making the first Space Elevator a reality." He's making progress. According to the website of the ISEC, a tether made of carbon nanotube fibers will do the trick, and the people at ISEC "know what to do next."

The momentum is building. On November 6, 2009, Jordin Kare, Tom Nugent and the LaserMotive team set a record at Edwards Air Force Base in California. They accelerated their space elevator to a height of one kilometer, an achievement that rivals the Wright Brothers' Flight, and won the Space Elevator Power-Beaming Challenge Games, a part of NASA's Centennial Challenge Program. The Spaceward Foundation sponsored the event, and LaserMotive won the $900,000 prize.

The "grudge match" in the American Space Elevator Games will be held on May 10, 2010, with another scheduled for August. The top three teams from the 2009 competition will be meeting again, and the goal is to reach a velocity of 5 meters/second. The Kansas City Space Pirates, led by Brian Turner, will be competing. ­­­Mark Boots of the University of Saskatchewan team said they have a design that is easily capable of reaching the 5 meters/second mark. The world will be watching.