Space elevator leader: "we're optimistic skeptics"
Read or listen: Space elevator: carbon nanotube ribbon to space. Gallery: Images of space elevators
(Photo courtesy of Liftport Group)
Michael Laine explains the ups and downs of building a space elevator.
Salazar: To most people, a space elevator probably sounds like science fiction. Why build an elevator to space?
Laine: My main answer: to get energy from the sun in huge, huge quantities.
One of my big concerns is that only about one in four people in the world have access to 24–hour electricity. What you and I take for granted all of the time is a real luxury. If you don’t have access to that sort of constant, on–demand energy, you don’t have access to advanced medicine, telecommunications, or advanced education.
So one of the questions that keeps me up at night is, how many Mozarts are there in the world that we don’t have access to? How many Einsteins are there? There are 6.5 billion people, and only one–quarter of them have electricity. What are we as a human race, missing?
The only way that I know how to solve that problem is cheap, endless reliable power from the sun. And I’m not talking about your typical solar panels. I’m talking about panels out in space, the size of a dam, for example, that could capture clean, green, limitless power and bring it back down to the Earth. That’s always been my driving focus, personally, to go back and forth into space. We’ve had that technology for 30 years, we just haven’t had the economic ability to get back and forth into space cheaply and reliably. So that’s where the space elevator comes in.
If you ask other people in the company, they’re all going to have different answers. For some, it’s about exploration. For some, it’s about the fear of a big asteroid hitting the planet, or, as Stephen Hawking has been saying, a global plague. Some of it is hope, vision, and exploration. Some of it is greed, making a pile of money through resource extraction and energy extraction from the moon.
Salazar: How likely is it that this project will succeed?
Laine: There’s no way for this project to fail. I want to be really clear about that. Even if we don’t achieve an elevator to space, we’ve still fundamentally influenced material sciences, communications, and robotic technology. There are going to be lots and lots of developmental technologies that come out of this, in the same way that there were lots and lots of developmental technologies to come out of the Apollo program.
Let’s put this in perspective for a moment. To build an elevator to space, we need a very strong, a very long string, something in the range of 30 times stronger than steel. It’s taken us 15 thousand years to go from zero to three on the tensile strength scale, from the bone and stone era to industrial steel. We’re trying to get to something that is about 100, just to give that perspective. So what if we fail? What if we don’t get to 100? What if we only get to 25? You still fundamentally change industrial society. That’s got value all by itself.
So whether the elevator is built or not – that’s still an open question – there’s no way that this project can fail to change the world. In that sense, we’re pretty optimistic about it.
Salazar: Does all the necessary technology exist to build an elevator to space?
Laine: There’s no one product that doesn’t exist. But everything exists at a very, very small level and has a long way to go in the development process. Most all of the components for the space elevator are in the laboratory. For example, the lasers need a lot of work. And the carbon nanotubes – the things that make the ribbon – need a lot of work.
We figure it’s going to be several years before we’re able to build this. One thing that we tell people all of the time is that we don’t even have all of the questions yet, let alone all of the answers.
We position ourselves, really, as optimistic skeptics. We want to be the people who are leading this charge, but there still are a number of questions which are unanswered. And so we want to be realistic about that. The space elevator is very much still on the drawing board.
Salazar: Right now, what’s your main hurdle?
Laine: Whenever you build a large infrastructure project, a bridge, a freeway, or a railroad, a dam, or a nuclear power plant, whatever it is, you have to consider four fundamental elements. We call those the four pillars. They’re science and technology, finance and business, social and political, and legal. If you ignore any one of those areas, you’re not going to achieve anything.
Most people are interested in the technical hurdles. Here, the two biggest technical issues would be the carbon nanotubes and the power beaming system.
But you have to look at the financial, the political, and the legal issues. Funding for this project is critical. Otherwise, you’re not going to do anything. And there are some regulatory issues that need to be dealt with. The FAA has been really helpful towards allowing us launch space to do high altitude tests.
All of these things fit together. It would be great if a politician were to be willing to back this. You really have to believe in what you’re doing. We obviously do, but it’s a real challenge if you’re say, a senior Navy or Air Force officer. It’s a career–risking endeavor if you’re going to back it.
Salazar: Is there a way that people can stay updated about the project?
Laine: We’ve just recently released a road map of where we are today and where we’d like to go, a time frame for that, the technologies that need to be developed.
We operate in an open source computing format, so that if people have questions, or if they think that they’ve got some talent that they can apply to the project, we’re certainly enthusiastic about bringing people together for that. We’ve put together a database, brand new, it’s only been out for about a week. That’s a place where people can either ask fundamental questions, but then, more importantly, it’s a place for researchers to come together and work collaboratively on certain aspects.
It could be photodynamics, or radiation, or it could be a legal problem, or it could be a social, political, or financing problem, all of those are going to be covered in this super database. So I would invite the Earth & Sky community, especially if they are researchers, to get involved, because it is such a large project, we can’t possibly do it ourselves. We’re reaching out to the global community to get involved.
Salazar: By the way, how does it feel to work on a project that’s so far out on the edge?
Laine: It’s fantastic. Every day, I travel the country, travel the world, meeting really interesting, very bright people. They’re all interested in making a difference. They’re willing to put their brain power and money and their influence behind the project, with the ultimate goal of making the world a better place. It’s pretty fun being the “space elevator guy.”
Read or listen: Space elevator: carbon nanotube ribbon to space
Let the games begin. This year’s space elevator games will be held October 20–21 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
What woud an elevator extending from Earth into space look like? Gallery: Images of space elevators
Question – is it possible to download the entire audio of the interview? Liftport would be happy to host if bandwidth is a concern.
Brian Dunbar
Liftport
Hello Brian! We want to start offering longer podcasts soon. But for now we don’t have the long version of this particular interview edited into an audio form. It’s not a bandwidth issue. It’s a “people-time” issue of doing the actual audio editing.
We do have a short radio show featuring Michael Laine. It’s due to air next week on the Earth & Sky radio series. On the day it airs, it’ll be heard around the world something like 6 million times.
Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you or Liftport.
Deborah
It’s a “people-time” issue of doing the actual audio editing.
I am familiar with that. I like to say “I’m dancing as fast as I can” ...
On the day it airs, it’ll be heard around the world something like 6 million times.
I’ve subscribed to your podcast – and isn’t it just darn nifty that I can hear ‘Earth and Sky’ and don’t have to be anywhere near my radio?
More proof, perhaps, that the good old days weren’t.