Episode 1 ︱Seeking Beyond the Rocket Equation ― The Prospect of Space Elevators
Here comes our inaugural podcast episode. In this show, we attempt to break down complex ideas to first principles and deconstruct them into digestible chunks. We're trying to get answers to tough questions with perspectives from space scientists and enthusiasts. This episode has at its core the implications of Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation, which figures the hard limits of rocket-based payload transportation to Earth’s orbit. Furthermore, rockets are expensive, up to failure, risky and carry too little payload. Making rockets more efficient reminds analogically of Henry Ford’s classic: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. One of the non-rocket approaches to get a fast, cheap, safe and repeatable transport to orbit is the Space Elevator concept which we are going to cover in the episode with our guest, the amazing Josh Bernard-Cooper, a University of St Andrews Physics and Philosophy student, International Space University alumni and Research Assistant at the International Space Elevator Consortium.
CONTENT
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:00 The basic concept of a space elevator
00:12:00 Google X, NASA
00:16:00 Motivation to build elevators
00:24:00 Design concepts
00:32:00 Speed of the climber and radiation
00:34:00 Main challenges
00:37:00 Space debris and elevator collapse
00:38:00 Best place on Earth to install the elevator
00:40:00 Beta test the elevator on Moon and Mars?
00:41:00 Optimal altitude for beta best
00:44:00 How many people are involved?
00:47:00 Non-rocket launcher ideas
00:49:00 Fundings, prizes, sponsors
00:52:00 Elevator in 10 years?
00:57:00 Realists vs Futurists
00:59:00 Why a lead blanket is useful in the Elevator.
SHOWNOTES
Joshua Bernard-Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-bernard-cooper
International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) https://www.isec.org/