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Actually the Kickstarter project is only raising money to build a proof of concept experiment that is called the “Climb to the Sky-A Tethered Tower”. The idea is to build a robot that will then climb up two kilometers to the high altitude balloon platform.
According to href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaellaine/space-elevator-science-climb-to-the-sky-a-tethered?ref=search">its Kickstarter page, the project will cost $3 million total. LiftPort the company behind the space elevator project was spun out of a NASA program started in 2001. The company wound up going dormant in 2007 for the same reason so many other businesses went bust, the economic crisis. The $8,000 Kickstarter program is a way to advertise that the company is back and is continuing its research and experimentation to eventually build a space elevator.
Michael Laine, the man behind the company and the current project, explains that the technology to build a space elevator from earth doesn’t exist yet, but the technology to build a Lunar elevator does. So rather than go from the earth out to space, the company would first work on going from outer space to the Moon.
The Kickstarter program has more reward levels than most projects. There are 14 rewards that can be earned between $1 and $51. The top tier is $10,000. For that kind of money you get a wide variety of options. You can name the robot. You get access to internal documents about the company. You get to ride the balloons two kilometers up and then parachute back down. For the rest of the offers you really need to check out Kickstarter.
At the lower levels you go from email notifications to bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and t-shirts. There will be a “Group Talk”, a two hour chat with the team, several “Meet-Ups” in select cities and a lot of social media interaction. Clearly, this project is designed more to start people talking about the project than to raise any serious funds.
LiftPort isn’t the only group that thinks a space elevator is possible. Back in February, I reported that the Japanese were planning a space elevator. Their elevator is expected to rise 36,000 kilometers into Geostationary Orbit. The counterweight for the elevator would be 96,000 kilometers high. The project is expected to be several decades away from completion and in the early stages.
Both space elevators would use carbon nanotubes to build the structure for the elevator to ride. LiftPort envisions it more as a ribbon. The Japanese visualize it as more of a column.
Give the project a look and then pitch in a few bucks. If nothing else, your great great grandchildren can say that their ancestors were among the first investors in the space elevator.
The illustration is from the Kickstarter page created by Michael Laine of LiftPort
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