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Each year, the Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA)holds a Climber competition acronymed SPEC (SPace Elevator Challenge) and each year they get more and more ambitious in their goals.  This year they had a 1,200 m long tether held up by balloons.  Climbers are powered by batteries and scores are awarded… Read more“SPEC2014”

The baseline design for an earth-based space elevator calls for a tether that is 100,000 km long.  Just 40 kilometers (four one-hundredths of a percent (.0004)) of that length is within the commonly defined boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere.  And yet this tiny fraction of length is “home” to many… Read more“The first 40 kilometers…”

This Weekend Walkabout continues to catch up on some things I didn’t blog about while I was taking my holiday break. We start off by hypothetically shooting things into the sun, then learn about the latest success from the Indian space program and wind up in Canada – learning about… Read more“Weekend Walkabout – From shooting things into the sun to India to Canada…”

Yes, I said that my next post was going to be on tether capacities and power systems, but that can wait – a new space-elevator themed book is available! Celestial Phoenix is written by new (I think) author A. P. Williams and is available on Kindle at Amazon. Be warned… Read more“Book Review – Celestial Phoenix”

TwistedMojo has a new episode out in the Lonely Astronaut series and it has a space elevator! If you’re not familiar with the series, an Astronaut is stranded on the moon and somehow survives several decades.  There are rescue attempts, Sexual Harassment training, hallucinations, etc. – but all funny (if… Read more“The Lonely Astronaut finally gets a Space Elevator”

ISEC has announced the 2015 ISEC SPACE ELEVATOR CONFERENCE!  This event will be held at Seattle’s Museum of Flight from August 21st through the 23rd, 2015. This will be the fourth year in a row that ISEC has held its conference at this venue.  It’s an incredible place to visit… Read more“2015 ISEC Space Elevator Conference announced!”

This edition of Weekend Walkabout takes us from a very cool Convention / Faire in Tokyo, Japan and then onto Central Europe (via the International Space Station) and finally winds up with the Kerbal Space Program… First up is another trip to Japan – and to the recently held Maker… Read more“Weekend Walkabout – Maker Faire, cosmic radiation and Kerbal…”

Over the years, I have come across several sites around the web which host questions and answers regarding the space elevator.  Many of these appear to be essentially fact-free and not worth the time visiting. I have found an exception, however, and that is the Space Exploration site of the… Read more“A new reference site…”

After a very long delay, the keynote speech given by Mr. Jerome Pearson, the American engineer who is credited with co-inventing the modern day concept of a space elevator, at the 2013 ISEC Space Elevator Conference, is finally available on Vimeo. Jerome’s presentation focused on Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the… Read more“Jerome Pearson’s Keynote speech from the 2013 ISEC Space Elevator Conference”

For the past several months, Wikistrat has been working on building forecasts for the private space industry.  One of their scenarios has been projecting how a space elevator might come about.  In the opening words from their report: In February 2014, Wikistrat ran an internal simulation led by Bruce Wald,… Read more“SPACELIFT”