SpaceOps News
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European Space Elevator Challenge (EuSEC) and
Interview with Frank Schaetzing In his most recent book [LIMIT] a space
elevator plays an important role. SpaceOps News had the opportunity to
get Mr. Schaetzing's opinion about the realization chances of a
space elevator. |
Mr. Schaetzing, in your bestseller “Limit” the space elevator plays a major role. How realistic is the space elevator concept and how would you assess the implementation chances of a usable space elevator?
In principle a space elevator can be implemented, scientists assume the feasibility of the orbital mechanics. Currently the biggest problem is the tether: It must be 30 times stronger than kevlar. Research on carbon nanotubes points in the right direction, i.e., super-molecules each of which can withstand the load individually. The problem seems to be when interweaving the individual molecules since some atoms get lost, reducing the strength. Nevertheless, there is cause for optimism because threads of carbon nanotubes could already be produced. If such a tether could be manufactured additional difficulties must be solved, e.g., a climber moving up the tether would reduce the angular momentum by a tiny fraction and slow down the earth rotation (however, the angular momentum would be accelerated by the same amount when the climber moves downwards again); the tether would need to be slightly curved, and some other pitfalls have to be overcome as well, meaning that the realization of a space elevator will take a while. But I personally believe that the space elevator will work – and this would be good because it would be a decisive advancement of space exploration.
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"We must outwit the speed of light – the most
recent results from CERN give reason to raise our hopes."
(Frank Schaetzing)
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The U.K. magazine “The Economist” published an article entitled “The end of the space age” postulating that economic exploitation of space including human spaceflight will be limited to the space between LEO and GEO, “human spaceflight beyond will return to fantasy”. What is your opinion?
This is true only insofar as spaceflight technology is currently not economical enough. The two preconditions to change that are: first, new technologies like space elevators or similar solutions first have to be established. This could lower the high launch cost significantly, which is the biggest hurdle for efficient space transport. It costs a lot of money to lift a rocket against the earth’s gravity; every kilo of payload is basically too expensive to transport with conventional means into space. Second, we must outwit the speed of light – the most recent results from CERN give reason to raise our hopes.
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The Idea of the “Space Elevator” The fundamental idea of the “space elevator” goes back to 1895, when the scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky considered building a tower from the surface of the Earth reaching into the geostationary orbit. The Artsutanov paper – 1960 – proposed a way to build a tensile structure to the geostationary orbit. The aim was and still is, among other objectives, to deliver payload – for example equipment, items, satellites etc., to space in an economically viable way. This idea could be a more efficient solution to the expansive use of rockets. The actual concept of the space elevator system includes a tether reaching from the surface of the Earth to the geostationary orbit. The geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period. To keep the tether taut by means of gravitational and rotational forces, the center of mass of the space elevator has to be kept above this orbit. A climber is attached to the tether, which carries the payload up to the space station or to the satellite. The energy supply is planned to be realized by “power beaming” (such as laser), as well as using solar cells. (see Space Elevator schematic above) |
The European Space Elevator Challenge – EuSEC
The space elevator working group, the organizer of
EuSEC is one of the 5 groups being organized in the WARR (Wissenschaftliche
Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Raketentechnik und Raumfahrtechnik) a scientific
working group for developing rocket- and spaceflight techniques composed of
students of the TU Munich, sponsored by the TU Munich, the department of
spaceflight techniques (lrt) and the Munich based Klaus Hoechstetter
foundation. The Space Elevator working group currently consists of approx. 20
students.
The main aims of the European Space Elevator
Challenge are to inspire young engineers and scientists with the idea of the
space elevator system,especially in Europe and moreover to establish a larger
European space elevator community; to increase the understanding of the space
elevator system by exchanging experiences but also utilizing these experiences
for the development of a real space elevator system and to introduce the space
elevator concept to the public.
The EuSEC challenge is to establish a climber
structure in compliance with predetermined requirements defined in the EuSEC
Handbook (July 12th 2011). The challenge environment consisted of a
25 m tether with assembly and stop buffers suspended from a crane and kept
within 20 deg of the vertical line.
The focus is on:
- Efficiency of the climber, i.e., how fast the test track could be climbed,
- Technical implementation of the climber (especially payload systems),
- Aspects which directly impact the development of the “real” space elevator system.
The first EuSEC in August 2011 offered participants the opportunity to participate in two levels, while later competitions will have up to four levels.
Out of initially registered 8 teams only 5 team actually participated in the field competition on Aug. 19th at the premises of the TU Munich. These were 3 teams from Japan (Aoki Bravo A & B and Egami Lab), Earth Track Controllers (ETC) from USA and the WARR Space Elevator Team from Germany.
Cancellations came from the Cambridge CNT Society (UK), the Iran Space Elevator Team (IRSET), the Macedonian team “Macedonian Star” and the Stellarup-Lift Team from UK. Hopefully those teams will be able to participate in 2012!
 Aoki Bravo B: Up into the clouds
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The final official results of the first EuSEC were:
Level 1 (remote-controlled, battery energy supply)
1st Place: Earth Track Controllers (ETC) Level 2 (autonomous, battery energy supply)
1st Place Earth Track Controllers (ETC) |
The EuSEC aims described above are considered to be long-term goals and cannot be accomplished with one competition. Hence, the goal is to organize EuSEC annually and the encouraging results as well as the many enthusiastically competing teams suggest many more EuSEC’s in the future which hopefully result in an operational system as described in the introduction by 2025.
Other international groups and associations are dealing with the problems of implementing an operational space elevator system, in particular improving the tether strength (nano tube techniques), investigating the various power supply methods (solar power or power-laser beaming) and of course dealing with cost and financing questions.
More information about the current status of their research results can be found on the key-websites listed below.
Key Websites
- EuroSpaceward - Europe's effort to contribute to the technical development of mankind in order to enable its evolvement to a type I civilization.
- International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) - The home of the International effort to build a Space Elevator.
- Japan Space Elevator Association (JSEA) - The home of the Japanese Space Elevator effort.
- Space Elevator Blog - The chronicle of all that's going on with the Space Elevator effort.
- Space Elevator Reference - The original Space Elevator site.
- Space Elevator Wiki - A repository of information and a baseline for research of the space elevator.
- Spaceward Foundation - The home of the Space Elevator Games.
- The Space Elevator Games Official Website. This is THE official site for the Space Elevator Games. It contains news, blog postings, videos and all the latest about the Games.