Japanese Begin Working On Space Elevator

thebryce writes "From cyborg housemaids and waterpowered cars to dog translators and rocket boots, Japanese boffins have racked up plenty of near-misses in the quest to turn science fiction into reality. Now the finest scientific minds of Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all: the space elevator. Man has so far conquered space by painfully and inefficiently blasting himself out of the atmosphere but the 21st century should bring a more leisurely ride to the final frontier. Japan is increasingly confident that its sprawling academic and industrial base can solve those issues, and has even put the astonishingly low price tag of a trillion yen (£5 billion) on building the elevator. Japan is renowned as a global leader in the precision engineering and high-quality material production without which the idea could never be possible."

Space Elevator Music

Just imagine fourteen hours of Japanese elevator music. I couldn't stand that much symphonic David Hasselhoff. And when you get to space and arrive at the Japanese Sky Deck, you can eat very expensive steak, while being entertained by a Max Headroom stylized recreation of David Hasselhoff, and groped by Hentai-motivated space-whores.

Re:Space Elevator Music

Could you cope any better with Music for Elevators by Anthony S Head though?

Being groped by space-whores could potentially be worth the wait anyway. ;)

Re:Space Elevator Music

Being groped by space-whores could potentially be worth the wait anyway.

But remember, this is JAPAN we're talking about. They have tentacles.

Still, that amounts to $9.5 Billion USD at the moment. To put it in perspective, we're looking at spending $700B to bail out the banks this week. Over the course of the life of the shuttle, each launch as ended up costing $1.3B. So, for a little over a tenth of the bank buyout, or less than 10 shuttle launches*. Or, if you want to go with incremental costs ($60M), it'd be 158 launches - compared to the 115 launches as of Aug 2006. Still, I hardly think that it'd be fair to compare incremental costs of a dangerous platform with creating a new one with substantially lower incremental costs and hopefully greater safety.

Of course, the article does at least mention a number of issues - we need to industrialize a carbon nanotube production process that makes a cable that'd 4 times as strong as the best lab result to date. There's all sorts of issues with a pod that has to go 22k miles, straight up.

I heard a snippet of a speech by Reagan today about SDI and how we now finally have the missile defense stuff he proposed. They talked about him not realizing the difficulties and state of the art, at which I laughed a bit when, in the speech, he talked about it possibly taking 'into the next century'. Anyways - this topic reminded me of the SDI program - nice goal, but might end up being slightly out of our reach at the moment. Especially for a 'mere' 9.5B. Probably end up being 100B*, and an additional 40 years.

*Still cheap at the price.

Re:Space Elevator Music

This is why my preferences are set to view low UID posters at higher point value than others. It is their keen insight from years in the tech arena that keeps me coming back.

I am going to go remove that preference now.

Re:Space Elevator Music

You think that is bad, just wait until some wieseguy gets on and hits the buttons for every floor.

That's Cheap!

$9 Billion Here, $9 Billion there -- pretty soon we'll start talking about real money.

Lift engine.

They're going to use Mothra for the lift engine of the elevators.

Reminds me of a quote...

"The first space elevator will be built about fify years after everyone stops laughing."

-Arthur C. Clarke

Largest is the nanotube problem...

...No space elevator is going anywhere without the necessary nanotube manufacturing breakthrough, and that includes the Japanese.

Bah...

They just saw that the EU completed the LHC world wonder so they are building a Space Elevator wonder to prevent a cultural victory.

I'll stick with PbZep

I'm always afraid of getting stuck halfway up on a space elevator (one bustle in your hedgerow and the whole thing gets jammed up). I'll just take a Stairway to Heaven, there's a lady I've heard good things about that is buying one.

Wirri Wonka

If I find a golden ticket in my package of ramen noodles, do I get to ride the space elevator?

Missing from the article:

The elevators traveling speed will be measured in GFIp/t ("Girl from Ipanema" plays per transport).

Re:No I didn't Read TFA

The concept of a space elevator, of course, requires a very very tall structure, or a pully of sorts from space. That would need to be a really damn strong system, to pull somebody up that high...

Yes, you instantly recognized the challenges of the project. Please, come, be a manager on the project!

Re:No I didn't Read TFA

Nor did you RTFWikipedia [wikipedia.org]. It's a held up by a weight at geosynchronous orbit. The only problem is that geosynchronous orbit is so far out there [wikipedia.org] (the red dotted line is the International Space Station, the black dotted line is GEO), so it requires a WHOLE LOT of exotic material.

Re:No I didn't Read TFA

The concept of a space elevator, of course, requires a very very tall structure, or a pully of sorts from space. That would need to be a really damn strong system, to pull somebody up that high...

That's probably not how it would be done. You'd have a ribbon hanging down from geostationary to the equator, and your vehicle would actively climb up it, rather than being hauled up. The ribbon still needs to be incredibly strong and light, but it's not the component that's actually doing the work.

Exercise for the reader: work out how you're going to power the climber.

Re:No I didn't Read TFA

Exercise for the reader: work out how you're going to power the climber.

CowboyNeal as a counterweight?

Re:call me when they have something

Absent any stunning advances in material sciences,

The TFA states that carbon nanotubes would require a 4x increase in strength compared to present-day materials, and that the past 5 years of research have already brought about a 100-fold improvement ... sounds to me like many stunning advances have already happened and we're well on track to fully-stunned status.

This is just a Popular Science article, i.e. "hey wouldn't it be neat if but it ain't happening so we're really just jerking your chain."

"Japan is hosting an international conference in November to draw up a timetable for the machine."

Re:call me when they have something

I got an email earlier today guaranteeing a gain of 1-3 inches in length. It's a start.

Re:call me when they have something

Well, no. Modern materials are within a factor of 3 or so of what's required for a space elevator, and known materials with sufficient theoretical strength exist, it just needs to be figured out how to build them. It would not be surprising to have those materials move from theory to reality within a decade or so.

AI, human-indistinguishable androids, and world peace, on the other hand, are not things that people have any idea how to achieve. And FTL drives are prohibited by currently accepted physical theory. To compare a space elevator to any of those is either deliberately being stupid, or a result of profound ignorance about either space elevators or all the other things you mentioned.

A space elevator is certainly not going to be as easy as a Popular Science article makes it sound. But on the other hand it's not anywhere near as difficult as the pipe dreams you named.

Re:Just as a subnote...

And as a sub-subnote, this is approximately the cost of developing a complete conventional man-rated rocket launch system. I'm skeptical of the quoted price tag, but it would be extremely cheap if it could be achieved.

Re:Just as a subnote...

would that work to finance the japanes space elevator:

1- take a subprime loan from a US bank
2- file for banckruptcy
3- let US treasury buy the debt back and cancel it
4- Profit !

I mean with that they could spend as much as 700 billions !

Re:Equal and opposite?

You have an anchor at the top of the ribbon. It needs to be very massive compared to the payload - so we need a large space station, or a small captured asteroid. You have it in an orbit that's slightly above geostationary, so that it tends to drift into a higher orbit and is kept in place by tension in the ribbon. That way, the top is pulling upwards naturally, and the payload doesn't drag the whole structure down.

Engineering efficiency

Without venturing to comment on whether a space elevator is actually possible, the main reason is simple efficiency. Rockets are incredibly inefficient as power sources in any case, but then in addition you have to use almost all the energy produced to lift the fuel some part of the way. Then, having added all that potential energy to your Shuttle or whatever, on the way down you turn it all into heating the air. The result is huge amounts of fuel to get a very small payload into orbit.

A practical space elevator could use vehicles powered by electric motors, which would get about 70-80% efficiency. On the way down, the motors could be used as generators, getting back probably around 30-50% of the original energy supplied. The total energy consumption might only be a percent or so of that needed for a rocket. The design of the cable with electrical conductors on either side reaching all the way up to geostationary orbit is, of course, left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:Equal and opposite?

You're thinking of making a big tower (like a really large skyscraper). That wouldn't work. You have to approach the problem differently.

A simplified explanation of a space elevator is to take a really long, really strong cable (nanotubes), hang a weight on the end (more cable, an asteroid, lots of metal, etc), and anchor it on the equator. The weight goes out beyond geostationary orbit, and the tension of your cable pulls in on the counterweight to keep it from flying away. The tension keeps your cable taut. You can then run "cars" or "trains" up and down the cable on motorized wheels, most likely with electric power (solar, beamed microwave, or conducted through the cable). Your car can travel nice and slow, and be more efficient than a rocket.

If this doesn't make sense, imagine tying a weight to the end of a string, holding on to the other end, and spinning in circles. The weight will be held out at the end of the string and appear stationary relative to (since you're spinning too). Now put a caterpillar on that string that walks to the counterweight and back to you.

In short, the advantage is that you can use electrical power (which you don't have to carry with you) converted to direct mechanical energy to climb into orbit, instead of expelling fuel (less efficient) that you do have to carry with you. Your vehicle ("car") structure is simpler, more robust, and cheaper than a rocket. The elevator itself would be quite expensive, and requires some advances in materials science, but isn't physically impossible.