{"id":19721,"date":"2012-08-24T20:32:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T12:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-elevators-5-questions-for-conference-chair-bryan-laubscher\/"},"modified":"2012-08-24T20:32:02","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T12:32:02","slug":"space-elevators-5-questions-for-conference-chair-bryan-laubscher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-elevators-5-questions-for-conference-chair-bryan-laubscher\/","title":{"rendered":"Space elevators: 5 questions for conference chair Bryan Laubscher"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Credit: Science Photo Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Space Elevator Conference is in town this weekend. Intrigued by the concept, we talked to the general chair of the event, Bryan Laubscher, who also owns Odysseus Technologies located right here in Washington state.<\/p>\n

Laubscher answered five quick questions on why space elevator technology matters:<\/p>\n

What are the top three things you wish to accomplish this weekend at the Space Elevator Conference? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Certainly the goal of these conferences is to get technical people together to talk about things and to cast a broad net. We want professionals from everywhere\u2014engineers, economists and lawyers\u2014who like to take an interest in space elevators and take an interest in the many aspects of development challenges that are in front of us.<\/p>\n

Secondly, it\u2019s for the public. We have this huge family science fest \u2026 It is really important for us to inspire others, especially the younger people, but also to get older people involved as well.<\/p>\n

The third, I guess, is that we\u2019re always hoping for a breakthrough. We\u2019re always hoping that someone will show up and bust out a carbon nanotube ribbon that is strong enough to build a space elevator. We\u2019re still far from that, it turns out. (Ed note: Carbon nanotubes are the main structure they\u2019re experimenting with to build space elevators. They are constructed of interlinking carbon atoms, rolled into a cylinder, and make incredibly lightweight, strong and flexible structures.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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Bryan Laubscher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How far are space elevators from becoming a reality? <\/strong><\/p>\n

We need a carbon nanotube revolution on Earth first. Once it\u2019s used everywhere on Earth, of course, there will be demand that these things will be used to build a space elevator. Right now, they are laboratory-type curiosities, experiments, of what carbon nanotubes can do.<\/p>\n

Carbon nanotubes have such properties that they could replace silicon uses in microelectronics \u2026 Carbon nanotubes also have very high-strength properties \u2014 imagine putting them in an aircraft. Or for use in ships and railroads and even buildings. Carbon nanotube buildings could be much taller, and resist storms and hurricanes much better.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to predict. Carbon nanotubes might take 50 more years. They were invented in 1991, that would put us at 2041, or something. Hopefully, we will see carbon nanotubes coming into their own in 10 to 20 years.<\/p>\n

What is the greatest obstacle to getting it done? <\/strong><\/p>\n

What concerns me is that in the U.S. you don\u2019t see the kinds of real interest in large amounts of money being poured into it. One of my colleagues in Japan says that they have a secret carbon nanotube development project, and they are pouring tons of money into it and they want to be first in the world\u2026Maybe we have a secret one, and I just haven\u2019t heard about it [laughs].<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of interest, but we\u2019re talking about our government saying, \u201cYou know what? It\u2019s time.\u201d When the U.S. decided that we needed global communications, what did they do? They picked companies, like RCA, and said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to pay you to develop satellites, we\u2019re going to launch them, and you\u2019re going to get the money from it.\u201d That\u2019s how we developed communication satellites\u2026I\u2019d like to see something like that with carbon nanotube development.<\/p>\n

What is their potential\u2014and will people be able to travel up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So with space elevators, we hope to drop the cost of space access by a factor of 10, or even 100. The problem with taking people up is that elevators, as we conceive of them now, move pretty slowly, and getting through radiation belts in short periods of time would require higher-speed elevators \u2026 Hopefully, larger space elevators would not just be faster, but the larger elevator capacity would have climbers that are shielded so humans inside are shielded, so we can start to introduce people into the elevator equation.<\/p>\n

Is it cost feasible? As long as we can realize the space elevator and build it, absolutely \u2026 We always think of the elite using space, but I think Dave [Horn, technical chair of the event] was quoted as saying that you could have a science fair in every school and the winning experiment gets launched into space\u2026It would enable the use of space in many different ways, including the clean up of space.<\/p>\n

What are you most looking forward to this weekend?  <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to Jeff Slostad\u2019s keynote speech. He\u2019s with local company tether technology company, Tethers Unlimited, in Bothell. It\u2019s a small company that is experimenting with tethers in space but also using expertise for terrestrial operations, undersea operations \u2026 He is going to talk about the forum of technology, using that as stepping stone to the space elevator.<\/p>\n

And the Family Science Fest. I\u2019m giving the Space Elevator 201 talk this year. I always get really good questions, especially from kids because they think outside the box.<\/p>\n

The Space Elevator Conference is this weekend, with Family Science Fest on Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., available for anyone with admission to Museum of Flight. The Space Elevator Talks start at 1 p.m., with ample time for Q&As, and end by 4 p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Credit: Science Photo Library) The Space Elevator Conference is in town this weekend. Intrigued by the concept, we talked to the general chair of the event, Bryan Laubscher, who also owns Odysseus Technologies located right here in Washington state. Laubscher answered five quick questions on why space elevator technology matters: What are the top three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4450,5518],"class_list":["post-19721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-museum-of-flight","tag-space-elevator-conference"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}