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Space Science

5595 Days and Counting 54

Posted by michael from the boundless-optimism dept.
Kris_J writes "Seattle PI appear to have been the first to pickup the story that a former member of Highlift ("Space Elevator") Systems has split off to form Liftport. The new company has the impressive aim of a space lift by July 1st, 2018. Competition is supposed to be good, right? If you want to know more they've got a messageboard where you can ask questions."
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5595 Days and Counting More

5595 Days and Counting

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  • OK, Bill, here's your chance (Score:3, Funny)

    by oren ( 78897 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @09:45AM (#5543577)
    I'll be willing to forgive it all if you make this your pet project and provide cheap space access, by the pound, to everyone. Just... please... don't use Windows NT to control the ground station boat, OK?
    • Oh, a space elevator count down.

      I thought it was a "Linux is better than your machine" uptime thingy.

      I knew frmo the article that it wasn't talking about my wife's former 98 box!

    • In 2018, Bill will be 63 years old, by which time he says he will have given away most of his money. Windows NT will exist in the Smithsonian, next to your own favorite operating system, but it is unlikely that either one will be used for projects of this type.

      Also, I would hope that by that time, we will pay by the kilogram instead of the pound (hey, I'm an optimist...).

      One of the cited uses for the elevator is to build solar power satellites to beam power back down to earth. I wonder if it will be

      • Simon Field [slashdot.org] wrote that, in ~15 years:


        Windows NT will exist in the Smithsonian, next to your own favorite operating system, but it is unlikely that either one will be used for projects of this type.

        I just don't think this stands up to even the slightest reflection. Fifteen years ago (1988) You had a few choices for large scale computing: you could run an and IBM system (MVS or VM), you could run a DEC system (VAX/VMS or RSX-11), you could run an HP based system (MPE), or you could run some form of UNI

        • Get real.

          You are not running the same operating system you were back in 1988. That is like saying you are driving the same car, because it is a Chevy like the one you have back in 1988.

          Back in 1988, I was running 4.3 BSD, System 5 release 2, and Ultrix. I am really glad I am not running those operating systems today. And back then, I was really glad I was not running the UNIX version 6 that I learned C on back in 1976.

          It is unlikely that the space elevator will be running Windows NT, and also unl

      • At current rates of improvement, solar panels will be cheap enough to paint on roofs, and efficient enough to produce a house's requirements on a cloudy day.

        You are making two assumptions in the above statement:

        1. That the historical rate of improvement will continue.
        2. That energy storage will become a great deal cheaper as well.

        The first assumption is debatable, and the history of batteries shows that the second is extremely suspect. The suitability of a solar-electric energy supply for our whole economy

        • Who needs batteries?

          It is currently cost effective to put solar panels on your roof, and generate enough power to run your electric meter backwards feeding the grid. The break-even period is less than 10 years for a system that has a 30 year warrantee.

          At the end of the month, you have generated more power into the grid than you took out.

          How the grid chooses to store that power is quite flexible. It can simply offset the power that would otherwise be used from hydroelectric dams, allowing those to

        • ... about spaceborne solar.

          You know, that whole thing with collecting energy in space and blasting it to Earth in the form of tight-beam microwaves?

          Thankfully, this sort of system does not require one to depend on roofs. :)
      • hey, my space lift charges by rods per hog's head, and that's the way I likes it!

        (yes, yes I know hog's heads are volume, but hey...too much pie is my problem)
    • (People in ground boat are sitting at their computer stations in the ground station boat, keeping watch on the elevator.)

      Manager: Hey Bob, you sure you can handle controlling the space elevator's descent?

      Bob: Yeah boss, I can do it. (Bob's computer starts acting funny.) Hey, wait a minute... my computer is going nuts. BOSS, THE ELEVATOR'S GOING BACK UP!

      Manager: WHAT!!

      Bob: Wait, it's coming back down. I think everything's okay now. I have control back. (Bob starts to control elevator again, then his

    • They can use GNU/Hurd
    • I'll be willing to forgive it all if you make this your pet project and provide cheap space access, by the pound, to everyone. Just... please... don't use Windows NT to control the ground station boat

      Yeah investing in this plan would definitely be better than wasting almost $5,000,000,000 [gatesfoundation.com] on global health and education initiatives. What an evil bastard!
  • Hrm. That seems so far, yet so soon. That's only a couple months over fifteen years. Will we have everything necessary to make a useable space elevator? I would personally like to see it, just because the idea of an elevator into space interests me. But, I don't know if we'll have it by 2018...

  • possible, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @12:47PM (#5544696)
    Companies that are more interested in attracting attention than in getting tangible results are usually interested either in attracting investments or overcoming opposition. Since there is no widescale opposition to a high lift operation yet, they are probably at the investment stage.

    Seeing as they are going to the general public, I guess that they don't have stable long term institutional investors for their long term project. That means they are searching for lots of piece-meal investments to keep a capital intensive project going for fifteen years. That sounds pretty hopeless to me.

    I'd guess that what they're really after is money, in the name of the project. Perhaps the other partners saw this and that is why they left the original coalition.
  • I hope they have a good relationship with Highlift Systems, because their FAQ [liftport.com] is a copy of Highlift's [highliftsystems.com] .

  • It's Official (Score:4, Funny)

    by coaxial ( 28297 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @01:48PM (#5545277) Homepage
    It's official. Microsoft is a country.


    "I don't plan to stand in the way of anybody building the elevator," he said. "I want to see somebody build a space elevator in the long term for the benefit of everybody. If Michael does it first, or Australia, Japan, U.S., Microsoft, whoever, that's fine."
  • I am pretty excited about this. With this in place, space will be accessible to all at a reasonable price. Travel will be so much safer as well. No more tying yourself to a stick of dynamite with a hole at one end and lighting the fuse.

    I wonder what kind of industries will spring from this. People may be able to get on an elevator, climb to several miles in the sky, strap on a parachute and jump off. Others may try to see how high they can climb under their own strength. Of course, the higher you go, the e
  • A.C. Clarke has confidently predicted that in the year 2001, we will have a commercial space station, regular manned flights to the moon, and manned expeditions to Jupiter.
    • In the parent post, I was pointing out that technology that seems to be right around the corner often isn't. Arthur C. Clarke was the obvious choice for this task, as he popularized the idea of a space elevator. I can see my post as being Funny or Insightful (to paraphrase timothy's definition: puts a new spin on a given story ... an analogy you hadn't thought of, or a telling counterexample).

      "Troll -- ... This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might m

  • uh oh (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by g4dget ( 579145 )
    We'll recite the usual toast, perhaps even clicking our heels together in the traditional manner:

    Unless one is wearing ruby slippers, that is considered a rather menacing gesture by many, in particular when accompanied by unintelligible toasts and an extended arm (holding a glass softens the effect, I suppose).

  • I'd almost have to wonder whether we might actually GROW the lift, as in a genetically engineered tree (like Mr Niven's "Integral Trees") grown from silicon,carbon, and whatever else we could throw at the composter bin.
  • Some even hope the system might someday lift people to space.

    Wow, those crazy optimistic people. Given the existance of a working commercial cargo elevator, those hopeless romantic optimists will go even further and begin dreaming anew of "someday" using it to lift a real live person. Kooky guys indeed.
  • I am a big fan of HighLift and the tiny nanotube thread, but I'm just not convinced that a steel tower is impossible given the right geometry. (Note, I'm not suggesting the ascii below is such a geometry, it's just to illustrate the point)
    Sure, maybe a steel cable could never work, but at some scale it must be possible to build up a tower or, alternately, to build down a beam of of interconnected steel tubes.
    Building down it seems we could use steel beams made of elaborate geometries like we s

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