S01E01 - Seeking beyond the rocket equation - the prospect of space elevators
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.
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.
“Probably actually easier to build a space elevator on the Moon or Mars, there’s much lower gravity, so the weight of the tether becomes much less of an issue.”
Space Forward: You're now listening to Space Forward podcast. I'm Hussain Bokhari, your host, with me are Matthias Frenzl and Benjamin Shapiro. In this show, we attempt to break down complex ideas into digestible chunks and answer tough questions with perspectives from space scientists and enthusiasts. In this episode, we dive into alternative approaches to go around the rocket equation, highlighting an alternative solution the space elevators, feasibility of space elevators, mechanics of space elevators, regulatory and policy challenges for this alternative solution. And we find out why our guest believes space elevator is the next revolution after rocket.
Today, we've got an amazing individual talking to us about an amazing topic. I'd like to introduce Joshua Bernard-Cooper and our topic of discussion will be space elevators. Josh, how's it going?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Hi Hussain, it's going well. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on.
Space Forward: Pleasure. Pleasure. Happy that you're here. Happy that you're talking to us today in our inaugural podcast. Why don't you give us a brief summary about what have you been up to? And why are we talking about space elevators today?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I am an student currently doing a degree in physics and philosophy as joint subjects, and I've previously interned with the International Space Elevator Consortium, which are a body dedicated to research development for space elevators. I've continued supporting them through some voluntary research and yeah, I'd love to talk about space elevators or share the ideas behind them, the principles and why we should be more excited about them.
Space Forward: Excellent. Describe us what a basic concept of a space elevator is.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: OK, so I'll start with the physics. If you look at suspending an object, so good example is suspending a brick on earth. If you hold up the brick with a wire, then you can draw a force diagram of the tension of the wire in the way of the brick.
But in an non-ideal case the wire isn't massless. So, to get this tension to hold the breakup, you've also got to consider the weight of the wire pulling down. If you then imagine suspending this brick from space, you extend your wire all the way upwards into space, you're holding it up there, then the mass of the wire is going to increase exponentially and it's going to snap and the bridge is going to hit the ground.
In a similar way: If you imagine taking a cable and throwing it off a cliff, then as you hold the cable, it's going to get heavier and heavier and heavier until it's going to snap because the weight of the cable isn't itself going to be too much for the cable to support.
Now, to counteract this we use centrifugal force, which I'm sure many people will have heard physics teachers call it fictitious and it's a fake force and it doesn't exist, which I suppose is technically true. But if you solve the force equations in a rotating reference frame where you're actually imagining that the thing at the end of the rope isn't spinning round, but it stays stationary, then you'll see this force emerge. And that is in that reference frame. That is the force that's counteracting. The centripetal force pulling it inwards, so you got the tension pulling inwards, but you've got the centrifugal force pulling outwards and in that sense it stays a constant distance from the center of rotation. It's the same kind of thing that works with the space elevator. The weight of the tether pulling downwards is going to be counteracted by the fact that the top of the tether is spinning around the earth at seven to eight kilometers a second, which is going to be pulling it back outwards. So it's going to bounce, and in that sense, the space elevator is going to stand taut like you are standing, spinning a rope around you.
Now, how is the space space elevator up? You can imagine launching something from the top of this. If you if you attach it to the bottom of the space elevator and you move it all the way up as you go up, it's going to be moving faster at high altitudes. So you imagine a record on a table or a deck. Then if you put something in the center of the record, the record obviously going at a constant revolution rate that's at the center of the record is not going to it's not going to move. It's going to stay at the center point that everything else is rotating about it. As you move it out further and further, it's going to be moving faster and faster because it's going to cover a larger distance in the same time of a revolution. And if you put something in the top of the space elevator, it's going to be moving faster and faster until it reaches max velocity of seven to eight kilometers a second. And from that, you can detach from the space elevator and push into orbit. You've got all that orbital velocity coming from just moving up the road instead of having to push it up with a rocket and accelerate it both vertically and horizontally.
Space Forward: Space is such a novel idea and one of the first things that come to mind when I think about space elevators is science fiction. What why do we need space elevators? What's what's the point behind that?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Yeah, I think I think sci fi plays a big role in people's first impressions, and I think that sci fi has done a lot to perhaps popularize the concept being in books by Arthur C. Clarke and in a bunch of other works. But so bringing it back to reality of it, I think the need for them now more than ever is becoming apparent as we sort of move forward with our development on and off planet. We're going to need much more sort of lift off capability than we could really achieve with rockets alone. Even with the developments of private companies like Space X and Blue Origin, the amount we're going to need to lift into low earth orbit and beyond is is going to be so much. I mean, if you look at megaprojects like Elon Musk's suppose of Mars colony, you know, he wants to transit millions of tons to the Red Planet or ideas for space solar power, satellites or sunshades at Lagrange points or even stuff like nuclear waste disposal, it's all going to need so much more mass than we can currently get out there.
Space Forward: Absolutely, I think you hit it straight on point in terms of the requirement of delta-v that's required for us to get the number of objects, a number of payloads up there.
But what the question will always be, you know, novel innovations are so far fetched that a lot of people don't see a realistic, practical use for them. So what makes you interested? Space elevator programs - what inspired you to get it there?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think I think what you say about a lot of people don't see the practicality in them is is an important issue to raise and important to address rather than just sort of bashing and saying, oh, we should ignore the naysayers because you're going to face a lot of projects. And initially that that's the same kind of attitude you got with space stations or even going to the moon. And so far beyond those concepts now that we should really be looking forward onto the next things. And I think that's part of this of what drew me to the concepts and the ideas of the space elevator is that we need to be looking for these next steps. And the only way we can do that is by thinking large and thinking big and dreaming about what could potentially be possible.
Space Forward: Yeah, think big is a primer for you to become an engineer or a scientist, and you have to be able to broaden the horizons of your mind and let the creativity and imagination go loose. The other aspect of not being an engineer and not being a scientist is business. How does a solution like a space elevator give us a cheap, fast, reliable beyond the karman line?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Yes, so there is quite, quite an economic motive behind the space elevator, as I'm sure you're aware, if you look at the rocket equation, the amount of of mass that you'll be throwing away, I mean, even if you don't look at the equation, you just look at a rocket going off. You can you can see your money burning before your eyes. The amount of money you spend to put a small fraction of your launch mass into space, let alone somewhere on the moon. It's huge. So, the initial motivation behind the space elevator were these economic ones. You know, how much could we reduce the cost of putting a kilogram in orbit to sub a hundred dollars or sub fifty dollars or maybe even less. And these are the same kind of drives that move companies like Space X to look towards reusable vehicles and reducing costs towards, you know, putting their rockets back in space a second time.
And I think a lot of that is sort of what motivated initially and arguments for the space elevator.
It's still a large part of why we might want to look economically. I think there are other things that the space elevator can achieve in a business sense that are going to be more important maybe if you look towards the environment or or other motivations of the current day.
Space Forward: Yeah, I mean, the motivations aren't decreasing. What is decreasing is funding opportunity. So you get to evaluate and explore these type of of projects. You know, historically, these projects have been attached to science fiction for such a long time that it is beyond the idea to even imagine that, "hey, a space elevators, it's a possibility and it could potentially reduce the number of X, Y, Z". Historically, I'm sure that you know who came up with the idea first.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: The original idea for the space elevator was by Tsiolkovsky. It is actually his rocket equation that we talk about so much. And he went to Paris and he saw the Eiffel Tower and he looked at it and he thought about constructing a similar tower all the way up to the heights of geostationary orbit. And if you think about it that way, then the top of such a tower would be circling the earth as if it were in stationary orbit. But, of course, to do that kind of thing, you're looking at a structure that's what's called a compression structure.
So it's building something on top of each other and supporting its own way that way, which would, you know, be even more of a task than the sort of tensile structure which we look at now, kind of like a rope pulled taut, which first came about in the late 50s, in the early 60s. Where Artsutanov suggested deploying a cable downwards and a counterweight the other way from geostationary orbit, and since then it's been developing on this idea, looking at material science and sort of how we can make something like this possible. And the International Space Elevator Consortium was actually founded in 2008. So they've been doing stuff since then.
Space Forward: Well, that's excellent. We know that Bradley Edwards, he published two books, for instance The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation in 2003, and then talking about leaving the planet in space elevators, which I think sort of inspired quite a few movies from the Hollywood. So realistically, Google X and NASA they evaluated space elevator, what did you think of the outcomes that they came up with?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I'm not massively up to date with the progress of Google X and NASA, I know that Google X, I think they ran into issues with looking at the material mainly, which is it's always been the issue. It's been the issue of finding material that has the tensile strength to withstand the forces involved for a space elevator.
And that was I think that was about seven years ago.
But so the exponential rate of growth and in technology and material science these days means that things are always changing. So whether or not that evaluation is going to stand up for much longer to be debated, I know that ther is a massive run competitions looking at space elevator technology, looking at their climate competition back in 2005, and they also ran a tether challenge in 2012, also with ISEC, actually. So I think the motivation is there, especially if you have players like Google and NASA looking into it.
Space Forward: What about the consortium? What are some of the goals that the consortium have and how many elevators are the goals? What's the timeframe like that we should expect the first breaking of the ground of the space elevator?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So the ISEC has an idea of just goes beyond the individual space elevator sort of into something called the Galactic Harbor. That's what it's been turned into research. And each of the supposedly three galactic harbours, each of which could consist of six elevators and each elevator having seven climbers. And of course, this would be something that comes a long way after you've got your space elevators up and going. It's much more of a sort of, I think, futuristic aspiration. But once you've got the challenges of getting an initial space elevator up, then I think the rest is. Say, easier, but you clearly overcome the main challenges if you get to that stage in terms of time frame.
I think it really just depends on when, you know, serious investment and dedication comes to the project. ISEC has sort of looked at saying, you know, if if we started in a capacity of sort of the level they want, then you could have initial capabilities by 2040 and maybe more full abilities by 2050, which I think, you know, sounds quite soon. But still, I think 30, 40 years is is quite a way off. So it would still be quite a lengthy project.
Space Forward: So you're saying that it could potentially be in our lifetime that we could see the first space elevator in action?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I'd certainly hope so. But of course, that depends on is in our lifetime to people see the business motivation for it and see the desire to go for it.
Space Forward: And that's so true. So here's a question for you. You know, typically, as we see on Earth, elevators, company or companies are utilising the resources to have a commercial, strictly commercial approach. How do you see the economics of the business case be made for something like this? It's really close to be, because at the end of the day, everybody wants to make money somehow as much as they want to be able to provide up a faster, cheaper, reliable product. So what do you say? What do you see as it do? Should there be should there be aspects of making money involved in this?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think whether or not you sort of want to look at it from a higher moral perspective of access to space or whatever, is that I think realistically the business motivations and the economics of it are ultimately what would make a project like this reality. So I think that do definitely need to be aspects of having businesses involved and viewing the space elevator as an infrastructure project that is, in the long term going to save money and make money.
I think perhaps for a company or an organization looking for this motivation, it might be found in having a dominance over traffic to space, being able to be the sole offer of massive lift capabilities for these projects and low earth orbit or for supplying colonies on Mars.
They'd instantly be the most competitive option for anyone looking to transport large quantities up into space.
Space Forward: One of the things that boggles my mind is that the disconnect and the larger players in attacking a revolutionary concept like space elevators and creating a business concept around rockets. You know, we see that people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and many others have sort of undertaken the task of simplifying and easing rockets instead of tackling a more sustainable and perhaps a little bit of an out there approach of establishing space elevators. Why do you think that they're not doing it? What what do you think that is preventing them from even diving into this?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: It's quite difficult one. I think there could be multiple reasons why people will be put off in terms of putting in the time and the money, like I said, maybe 30, 40 years.
That might be a time frame where someone like Elon Musk, who says he wants to die on Mars, might look at it and think, I'd rather get that faster.
It might be motivated by wanting to build on technology that's been strongly developed for the past 60 years. And really the step to reusable launch vehicles isn't isn't as massive as the steps towards the space elevator, for example. I suppose even for someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or someone else who has a lot of money under their belt or within their corporations, is that it would still be such an investment and maybe maybe the motivation isn't there to weigh off against our current use of space, whereas maybe in 30, 40 years time, the use of space and the demands for space will be enough to make a space elevator worthwhile.
Maybe nowadays where we can quite easily satisfy demand with rockets, that does not the the justification for gearing a massive company towards it.
Space Forward: Correct. No, I think one of the things is building that demanded that, as you mentioned, the demand is there, but also because you know that the revolutionary concepts are not easier for people to see because they're looking for the easier way out or the faster way out, essentially to get the biggest bang for their buck. Right. What do you think? I always tap into this because I figure with everything business related, one of the concepts that comes into play is regulations. You know, governments have a tendency to establish and apply regulations and attributes necessary they did that in the Internet days in order for it to not get too out of control. They're doing that now with the space and 5G and some of the other things. What kind of framework do you see playing a great role in establishing an aspect like this?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I'm not too sure. I think. It would be impossible to have such a project without it becoming of immense international interest and sort of subject to international regulations in that kind of way, especially, as ISEC want is constructed somewhere in the middle of the ocean, then you have difficulties with, you know, currently if you launch to rocket on that rocket and the payload in space is under the jurisdiction of the country which authorized the launch. And now you have this gigantic national structure in the middle of the ocean. There's a lot more consideration into who's in charge, who's responsible, and especially if you're launching more stuff from it then how that's going to be regulated. I don't think there really exists the regulation at the moment to look into a structure like this. But it's when I was doing my internship with ISEC and looking at the balloon system, some prototype technologies.
I had quite a bit of trouble looking through the FAA regulations for whatever craft, and there wasn't much there.
It was a few paragraphs talking about the balloons because tethered balloons don't go very high. And this was a project looking at the balloons that could go up to 35 kilometers, which would be a massive hazard to aircraft and things. So there really wasn't the really tough.
Therefore, I think that have to be a legal involvement.
Space Forward: You know, it's it's interesting that you say that because, they haven't been able to develop a robust regulation or regulatory system to have it attached, that a market of enormous service or things like that, space time and space transportation. So I envision that they will have a hard time. They'll definitely have a hard time establishing something along these lines because, you know, it's such a global global initiative, as you say, and it requires an international sort of footprint. And what we know about geopolitics as they are right now, international footprint sometimes seem to get really muddy and out of the scope. Let's come back to come back to something along the lines of where are our listeners can brainstorm about and I love doing this because this idea of crowdsourcing different ideas, you get the perspective could make it make this vision a revolutionary concept into a reality.
What kind of design concepts do you see working best? That's one of the biggest things. What do you take from your research, from your time at ISEC would be appropriate here?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I think a lot of what comes down is on concepts for space elevators would be the operation of a climber.
And I think this is one of the things that's captured me the most is the all dedication of research within the people at ISEC looking into how the climbers work and the sort of competing designs there.
They're looking at sort of more traditional wheel-based things that go up and down. But they you're going to run into lots of problems with friction and energy dissipation and materials going to fatigue, and you don't really want that on something like a space elevator. Looking more like linear induction motors and things moving up and down like the maglev train. Ultimately, I think the leading idea is like an electrostatic wheel where the wheels are sort of constructed out of various almost like capacitor plates that are angled with a potential difference put across them and that, you know, causes a component of acceleration.
So I think that is quite a leading design in terms of space elevators. Another thing that.
In terms of design, a space elevator that maybe wouldn't initially come to mind is sort of how the tether would be constructed and it wouldn't necessarily be like a typical rope. It would be more of a sort of a thin ribbon with a varying thickness as you go up and down.
So to maintain a constant tension and not risk a breakage at one particular point.
Space Forward: Yeah, I mean, it's a dangerous thing to think about. It's a dangerous concept. And I think as much as innovation there is, innovation has to be dangerous for it to become better and better and better over time. And that's just iteration over iteration. One of the things that you mentioned is ISEC. You know, it's an open science community. How is it like to contribute to a community like the like? That said, can you give our listeners an idea as to how it works? Is it open to anybody? Do you have to go through a very harsh process?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I wouldn't know anything about a selection process for someone who wants to apply to help with research, because having done it, I was able to deal immediately with the environmental study, but from my understanding of ISEC, it's very open to having people join and contribute. You know, members can contribute helping in research, primarily, dedicating the time to doing that. More different academic fields from the highest doctors in material science or systems engineering. All the way down to me, sort of like an undergraduate physicist level people writing articles and newsletters and doing presentations at conferences and workshops to spread the word, as it were.
And they depend on, you know, member contributions of efforts and funds as well. So I think the mindset, I think, ISEC is very much that everyone has something to contribute. Everyone has something they can learn from each other. And it's not like a top down structure. We've had this many years in the space industry. We're going to tell you what to do. Even working on the study is I'm treated like an equal partner with people who've done systems engineering for donkeys years.
Space Forward: That is indeed the concept. And this is what this is - a beautiful thing about an innovation driven group of people that the focus has always been on.
The focus will always be on the topic itself, at the innovation itself, rather than the personalised versions of of of egomaniacs that maniacal type of behavior. You know - one of the things that I wanted to ask you is what was, you know, out of your internship, what was one key thing that you learned that you could share with us that you think that everybody should look out for?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: More in the sense of space elevators?
Space Forward: We talked about space elevators a little bit, because what I really want to know is what kind of research was done around the materials. And what I wanted to know essentially is try to imagine in my head as to what it could look like and what you might have learned while you were there.
And you're like, wow, is that this is a cool concept and this will definitely be applicable in the next 30, 40 years.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Yeah, I definitely think what you said about the material is quite interesting and will always be in the public discourse around whether or not a space elevator is possible.
And I'm sure lots of people have heard about doing space elevator carbon nanotubes, cause for a while they were one of the biggest candidates. But there's been so many struggles to get carbon nanotubes and sort of significant length and so more recently.
Single crystal graphene has become one of the leading candidates, and I was I was quite surprised reading about this because I've never heard of it before I was ISEC and yet it's it's becoming such a leading material for space elevators, the potentially even in other industries, I'm sure it's going to have plenty of applications. Got this huge tensile strength and you can produce sheets that are like Saran Wrap or clingfilm or whatever kind of stretchy plastic you want to call it, but insanely strong and the things that would be achievable with that kind of material.
Space Forward: It's definitely not imaginable at the moment, right, because, you know, people are thinking about how to utilize the fiber cables currently and use its satellite application so I can only imagine if a 10X reduction of massive volume is take it into place with new materials being innovative. I don't even I can't even imagine what it might do because I lacked that imagination of, you know, one of the things I'm sure that you figured out that and I'm sure that ISEC was really, really important in discovery was the potential speeds of of the elevator, because that's one of the key things that helps the skyrocketed to keep propelling is no pun intended. But it's the idea that it will take us less time. It's more efficient. So what are what are some of the things that you would find about what are the speech that an elevator could potentially, potentially move it to?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I don't have an exact figure for how fast the time is going to be moving. But I think that the speed aspect of the space elevator that makes it appealing is not necessarily how fast the climb is going to be going, but the fact that the climbers will be going like round the clock. And in that way you're able to have stuff going up into space daily, have it so regularly, and you don't really have to worry as much about launch windows because you want, you know, strong back by the limitations of the rockets. Of course, the climbers will be going fast, but they won't be going the fast as rocket on an individual basis simply because the speed at which you are just insane when you consider like a ground movement scale. And that does introduce problems. Of course, the rockets absolutely shoot through the Van Allen radiation belts. So anyone on board doesn't really get any sort noticable dosage of radiation. But if you're on something moving at speed, very fast car or a train, then you're going to be in the radiation belts for quite some time. And that's quite risky. So, of course, you can either try and mitigate the effects of the radiation or as ISEC said it more recently, angling towards is a dual space architecture. If you you can still utilize rockets while having the space elevator because it's going to be benefits to both.
Space Forward: That's a great point. I think safety is one of the key things that each and every single individual decides to capture itself into. What are what are some of the challenges that you see that this industry or this specific market segmentation or vertical or whatever you want to call it will see. What what are the concepts? What are the challenges here?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I think from an engineering perspective, some of the main challenge is obviously not the material, but the dynamics involved and the tons and tons of complicated math. You've got to do to work out how a structure like of this scale and of this shape would would move. You've got to consider the tether as a as a rod trying to stabilize itself along with gravity gradient, moving like a metronome, oscillating naturally. The library operation as well of the space elevator will be something to consider and all the different waves and vibrations, transverse waves, torsional waves, compression waves, I think there's actually a picture out there of one of the climbers, NASA's climbing competition. And it stops because the torsion waves on the tether became so great that the tethers twisted on itself and the climate gets stuck. So these are some of the main considerations that are going to be difficult once the materials there are proven, it's making sure that a structure like that kept in check and it can be done like any other great engineering structure or a rocket like that. It makes it seem chaotic at first, but with enough dedication.It's it can be managed, I'm sure.
Space Forward: I am sure it can be, because I think with any challenge there is a solution. You just got to be there's got to be hard at it, because if you if you're able to find that solution that you've overcome that challenge. One thing that I am sure our audience would want to know is the issue that is currently out ahead of space debris and the amount of space debris that has been that has been introduced over the past years of space launches. You know, I wonder if you guys have looked into the idea of what happens if the space elevator collapses and falls as space debris. And, you know, what are what are some of the considerations there? Have you looked into this from an environmental standpoint?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Yeah, definitely, I think, first of all, the space elevator in terms of debris is going to bring a huge advantage in that you're not chucking away loads of parts of rockets every year and you're going to save debris in that way. But of course, with the concern of should it collapse, it would definitely depend on where the elevator was severed. If you imagine two people in a tug of war, if the rope breaks one of their ends, then it's going to ping back towards the other way or break. Then it's going to go either way. So it broke somewhere in the middle and some of the structure fall down the earth and the other part of it would, you know, ping back up to the apex anchor and stay in space. But if there was a sever the apex anchor, then most of the structure would fall to Earth and that would have to be procedures in place to mitigate the damage in such a situation. And I'm not personally quite sure what they would be. I think there was discussion of maybe looking into the destruction of the tether in that scenario or getting people out of the the area. But of course, in that situation, it would take quite a while for the tether to come back down to earth and come crashing down as much mass as it is. It's going to go, you know, thirty six thousand kilometers through space. So that should be up time to take action.
Space Forward: It's a great point because, that kind of brings me up to my next thought, which is. It depends on how it crashes, but it will also depend on where it's located. So geographically, have there been a consideration as to what is optimal place or what is a space elevator port and where it should be constructed?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So, yeah, the space elevator or the Galactic Harbor would want to be built in the ocean, tethered to the platform, there is probably the most viable option and equatorial as well, because you want to be building up to geostationary orbit. So I think the proposed location by ISEC we're looking at the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean is both Indian Ocean, maybe for the three galactic harbours, but yeah, in the ocean. So should should that be a dangerous scenario? I think that would hopefully minimize some of the damage.
Space Forward: Yeah, definitely minimal damages, if you're looking at something in the ocean, but that you come down to the idea of, you know, what what potentially what kind of resources will you needed or exactly how something like this. And that's you know, that's a that's a topic of discussion for a completely a completely different type. But I what I wonder is that as much as we have, we have been unable to figure out the depths of the ocean. It's been a while since we've been back to the moon and we don't know what we'll get to Mars. So what I wonder is an application like space elevator or a parking space elevator, could it be feasible to have a concept that could be established the first before we do anything on Earth?
Space Forward: Is there is there a beta test that could be developed or the other route and a barge because of gravity and such?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Definitely possible. And it's probably actually easier to build a space elevator on the moon or Mars. You know, there's much low gravity, so the weight of the tether becomes much less of an issue while maintaining the tensile strength of the material. And as a result, you do less research and development into material that can withstand those kinds of weights.
So if you if you look on the moon, for example, such a structure would definitely help us in getting to the surface of the moon and sort of reduce the costs of getting to the moon as a whole, because spacecraft would be able to dock with the space elevator instead of having to soft land on the moon, that would reduce the launch cost of payloads. You could use a much lower specific impulse engine like ion engines to take craft to the top of the elevator and then and then land them down the moon.
Space Forward: And out of this idea, what kind of what do you take the height or the altitude that these elevators could essentially orbit or even, you know, start off at. What is an optimal altitude that was sort of considered what they think about a potential beta test, which is very, very exciting to hear.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Well, as I've said, the Earth space elevator would go up to geostationary orbit and a bit beyond. So thirty six thousand kilometers and beyond the apex anchor. Mars. Geostationary orbit or Martian stationary orbit, whatever you want to call it, is only about thirteen thousand kilometers. So you want to go just there and beyond. However, one of Mars moons, Deimos, orbit sixty thousand kilometers. So you've got to worry about that and not colliding the anchor with the elevator. However, on the moon, you'd want the space elevator going much further out than it would on the earth. They would have to go up to fifty six to sixty two thousand kilometers so that the space elevator would be balanced along the Lagrange points between the moon and the earth. So bigger, but I suppose easier to build in a way.
Space Forward: Oh, absolutely. I mean we talk about it easier to build, but when time comes we'll see how easy it becomes, depending on how many robotics and new innovations that we start to develop, which is I guessing, again, I'm assuming that will be the ones you'll be building the space elevator, because I'm sure you know why humans are in a position where they're out of the langrange point without without anything potentially. And another one of these days that I wonder about it, and I'm hoping that you have some idea around, is that people engaged in the project, you know, how many people are currently part of ISEC? And what can you say about you introductions taking place and new incomers thet are coming on board the project and they are really, really hyped up about it and essentially think this is a woke idea.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think it's hard to say how many people are involved. From my perspective, having done an internship and volunteered for some research, I know that the research I volunteer with, there are at least 15 to 20 people participating. So probably around the order of magnitude of people working with ISEC. But there are there are organizations that cooperate with iSEC work around the world as there are European organization dedicated to space elevators. There's a there's a Japanese space elevator association, as well as various companies or startups who are looking towards this kind of technology, like galactic harbors associates sort of walking, working towards that kind of project.
Space Forward: So I wonder, you know, in regards to that, what kind of what was the thing that surprised you the most about this project when you started working on it? And what could you say that will continue to be a surprise to you as as it starts to develop and as you start to bow out or look into different ideas and different perspectives?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think one of the surprising things is almost how far along the research was to me. At first glance, there's lots of discussion about how a space elevator isn't feasible or not possible. And, you know, whether or not that's the case. There's so much literature out there about getting it to work, about the material behind it, about the tethers, about the physics of launching from a space elevator. And there's plenty of research done andt here's plenty more to do. In that regard the space elevator is making progress in ways that I hadn't expected.
Space Forward: Hey, that's good to know. I mean, at least that's a plus for the scientific community to think about the fact that whether it's a novel concept or a concept that is concurrent in any manner, it's still under development or still and the progress is significantly much, much ahead then you ought imagine it to be. That kind of brings me up to my new sort of idea as to how could you potentially think about the space elevator and have a similar concurrent concept that could be attached to it. Is it the only concept that is being thought about it being researched on that's related to improving, creating efficiency and scientifically experimenting with projects and innovative ideas like such?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I think there are a bunch of ideas surrounding knowm rocket launches and have been for quite a while, you know, people wanting to avoid the rocket equation and get stuff into space more efficiently. And as recently as I think, you know, the early 2000s, we will see new ideas going ahead and being published with quite some sort of serious dedication, even if you look all the way back into concepts from ages ago. There's stuff like the space gun. The US tried that with something called Project HARP. You know, if we put something in a big gun and shoot into space, will that work? Unfortunately, the problem with reentry works both ways. And that wasn't too successful. So you could also look at something like a coilgun a magnetically propelled payload into space from the moon where don't have to worry about the atmosphere. So closely related to the space elevator that's received some attention is the sky hook. So instead of having a space elevator to go all the way down, you might have a space elevator that puts the tether midways. So you can attach something at the bottom and take it up, launch it to the base of the elevator and then and then bring it to orbit. Even more more out there is a swinging skyhook so that it's constantly rotating about a point. And as the as the point rotates the surface of the earth, you can attach a payload and it will get someone up into orbit.
Space Forward: You know, science fiction, there's no boundaries of science fiction, no boundaries of imagination as you can as you as you're telling us. And this is this is one of the most beautiful things about it, is that in science fiction, the line of realism or realistic standards versus actual doable things, it's it's getting thinner and thinner. And I'm sure you're seeing that with the new concepts that are coming into it to motion and to operation. And I'm sure in the next 30, 40 years, space elevators will be one of those concepts too. But what are the key things about any of these concepts is support and sponsorships. So is academia and private companies, agencies involved are there fundings and prizes that are that our listeners can tune in to or research.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Well. The prize is offered by the NASA competition, I think a one good example of incentives to get involved with this kind of thing, and I hope to see similar things in the future. ISEC itself has a number of sponsors. One example is Microsoft. I'm not sure how much they give towards iSEC, but they are a sponsor. There's the Seattle Museum of Flight, Galactic Harbor and a few other companies and groups here, and they're looking to getting the funding dedicated. But I still think ultimately a lot of the time comes from the volunteering and the dedication of the people working for ISEC. The people, especially the academics who are the most knowledgeable in these kind of topics, putting together huge studies and papers on space elevators. So it would be nice to see more support for that kind of academia, but I think until you've got those business motives we talked about the earlier, you're not going to see it in any sort of large capacity, as you see, of a company research and development stages.
Space Forward: Excellent. One the things I'm trying to imagine is terrestrial applications are potentially figuring out a way to do a update of a space elevator instead of calling it a space elevator, calling it it's very, very high altitude. The high altitude elevator or something. Is there is there is there a potential of something like this to happen and potentially upgrade it to extend it to space and things like that?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: So I don't think it would be as possible to extend something from suborbital to orbital, but there's definitely a possibility to do lots of prototyping and tether testing terrestrially without having to actually build an orbital space elevator. And that's one of the things I worked on during my internship was looking at this balloon supports the tether that I talk about when we were thinking about regulations, and that would involve a balloon supporting a tether up to the middle of the stratosphere and testing to the dynamics and powering climbers in that kind of way. In terms of the actual space elevator, the initial space elevator capability will be would be relatively low, looking at carrying, I think, 14 tons a day, the idea of each elevator could carry something nine times a day. So that kind of development is possible. It's possible to get running before it's at full capability.
Space Forward: Well, Josh, I want to say that you've been in you've been a very great champion of space elevators thus far, and I hope that, you know, the future days, we'll see your name attached to a potential of space elevator on the development. But I've a few questions that I'm sure that you can answer. And one of the questions is, can we do the elevator within the next 10 years?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think the next 10 years is a bit of a short timeline, considering that we don't plan on going back to the moon ourselves within the next three years. I think we've got a lot of work to do, developing any sort of lunar infrastructure before something of that scale can be built, especially when you consider that, you know, you'd need to have people staying on or working near the moon. And NASA's is very much in the early stages of even looking at that kind of that kind of infrastructure. I mean, we still don't have the final developments on the lunar landers for the ARTEMIS program. So I think sustaining people longer than the lander plans to standing for is going to be quite a way off still. But it will come because the ARTEMIS program is a big part of the motivation is working towards building up the techniques and the technology for living longer term on Mars will be there. But I'm not sure quite when.
Space Forward: That's a great point, because because a lot of other things seem to get delayed due to political and geopolitical atmospheres and, you know, riots, insurrections all over the world, essentially. Another question that just pops up is could be the prototype of Earth Elevator first developed on Moon or Mars. Is there is there a likely chance of that happening on board of Artemis and potentially applied in that way?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think. I'm not sure of the likelihood of it maybe being developed first. I think it's very possible. And I think if anything, the key there is that building one of these easier designs of a space elevator might show that it's achievable, might show that that's a business case for it, and in that sense, provide those with the motivation to make the proof of concept work towards it.
Space Forward: That's a great point. I think the motivations have to be there and the return on investment will have to be there before you start proving and applying some of these concepts that are very, very much out there. What do you think that within the next 30 years there'll be more progress in alternative non-rocket-equation systems or within the elevator? Is it likely to happen with the continuous sort of development and evolution that we're seeing in science that happen so rapidly.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think they'll certainly be progress and perhaps more research towards it. I don't know how likely it is that we'll see any sort of major developments or working towards building the infrastructure just because the rocket industry is so large. It's it's growing. It's incredibly successful at the moment. And it's still got a long way to go. It's still going to all the life in it before we have those kind of limits. I think what might be the defining factor about when we strive for something like a space elevator or another non rocket launching capability will be when we need these massive space projects. So if we see the acceleration of climate change and our planet move to a more catastrophic situation where we need something like space based solar power or we need to be. Constructing a sunshade at Lagrange point, or if we need to be disposing of our nuclear waste into space, then there might be more of a hurry demotivation there.
Space Forward: The hurried motivation, you know, where where do you think that sort of pops up from in terms of what do you think about the faster, cheaper, better type of scenario in space elevators or in anything like the evolution? You know, there is there are those who are futurist and there are those who are realists.So which one which what do you see leading the charge on innovations?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I think currently the innovations are strongly based in that almost like realist view, especially looking at rocketry and the way that's developing in terms of reusable vehicles, not the reusable vehicles, are themselves guaranteed to be the absolute end of future of space travel. I know that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, who are developing the H3, the next Japanese rocket, they're not particularly interested in looking at reasonable launch vehicle just yet. And their rocket is going to rival the Falcon nine without needing to be reused. SpaceX still struggle with refurbishing their rockets and the costs that takes them after after it's landed back on the path that they still have to spend a lot of money getting it ready again to go back into space. So I think a lot of that focus on that research is currently around that that realist idea of where can where can rockets be improved, where can they be developed further and really sort optimized?
Space Forward: So there are a lot of concepts here that need innovations to come into play before we actually think about putting a space elevator online. So I think this is one of the things that brings up a point where we we we try to figure out how much energy would be needed or to put one kilogram of payload into orbit with the space elevator.
Josh Bernard-Cooper: I could give you an exact number of all the top of my head without some secret equations.
Space Forward: And I guess I guess this is what we could do. We did that. We could translate that question to our listeners. If you figure out of this, that the answer to those problems. Share it with us. But I've got one last question with you. I've I've got one last question for you. If you could take an object. By using a space elevator to space, what would it be and why would it be that object?
Josh Bernard-Cooper: Taking over space elevator. Well, maybe a blanket so that I don't get irradiated while I'm going up there.
Space Forward: That's definitely a good point. And, you know, this is a question that we're hoping to wrap up all of our all of our shows with, which is why do you think space should continue to move forward?