How ISEC works

To paraphrase Charles D. Warner (and later Mark Twain), the Space Elevator is like the weather - everybody talks about it, but nobody's doing anything about it.

While we can't address the weather issue directly, we can most certainly address the Space Elevator bit. In recent years, advances in Carbon Nanotube technology combined with Space Elevator engineering work have brought the Space Elevator much closer to reality.

To date, Carbon Nanotube microfibers of a specific strength of 10 N/Tex have been produced, as have aligned carbon nanotube forests of lengths over 1 mm. It was recently shown that a Space Elevator can be built with a tether only 35-40 N/Tex strong. The required length for individual fibers is only in the cm range. The gap is quickly getting smaller.

The time is ripe now to devote explicit resources to the construction of the Space Elevator and the Space Elevator community formed ISEC to coordinate these efforts and initiatives. ISEC has a specific and well defined goal - We know what to do next.

ISEC's work is distributed across multiple projects, and the projects are grouped under four pillars: a Technology pillar, a Legal pillar, a Business pillar, and an Outreach pillar.

Please consult the list of projects. If you like what you see, please become a member. Your involvement will make a difference.

The Space Elevator in 500 words or less

The Space Elevator is the most promising Space Transportation system on the drawing boards today, combining scalability, low cost, qualify of ride, and safety to deliver truly commercial-grade space access - practically comparable to a train ride to space.

Rocket-based space launch systems are inherently limited by the physics of rocket propulsion. More than 90% of the rocket's weight is propellant, and the rest is split between the weight of the fuel tank and the payload. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to make such a vehicle safe or low cost. A target cost of $1000 per kg is proving to be impossible to reach. In comparison, airliners charge us about $1 per pound, and train transportation is in cents per pound

The Space Elevator is based on a thin vertical tether stretched from the ground to a mass far out in space, and electric vehicles (climbers) that drive up and down the tether. The rotation of the Earth and of the mass around it keeps the tether taut and capable of supporting the climbers.

The climbers travel at speeds comparable to a fast train, and carry no fuel on board - they are powered by a combination of sunlight and laser light projected from the ground. While the trip to space takes several days, climbers are launched once per day.

The Space Elevator is linearly scalable. The first "baseline" design will use 20 ton climbers, but by making the tether thicker (which can be done using the Space Elevator itself) we can grow the Space Elevator to lift 100, or even 1000 tons at a time.

In addition to launching payloads into orbit, the Space Elevator can also use its rotational motion to inject them into planetary transfer orbits - thus able to launch payloads to Mars, for example, once per day. Imagine the kind of infrastructure we can set up there, waiting for the first settlers to arrive...

Looking back from the year 2100, the construction of the Space Elevator will be considered to mark the true beginning of the Space Age, much like the advent of the airplane or steamboat heralded the true commercial use of the air and sea.