A resurrected LiftPort is kickstarting its space elevator project

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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Robotic Shark looks for lost ships in the Arctic

A University of Victoria (UVic) team will use an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to look for ships lost 167 years ago in the Arctic. The ill fated Franklin expedition went down in 1845 looking for the Northwest Passage.

According to the University of Victoria in Canada, the two missing ships are called the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. All 129 crew members were lost. According to the CBC, the ships were outfitted with advanced technology for their time period.



Franklin’s vessels, the Erebus and the Terror, were outfitted with steam engines, desalinators, iron plates over their wooden hulls, and propellers and rudders that could be retracted to prevent ice damage.

Fast forward to 2012 and UVic will be using some of the most advanced technology of our time to look for the doomed vessels. The AUV is called “Mano” which means shark. It has a side sonar which will help its handlers identify items on the sea bottom and chart the region.


“Among the challenges, will be navigating the torpedo-shaped vehicle in the northern waters where the magnetic field is erratic,” says research engineer and team leader Alison Proctor. “That’s an integral part of our navigation system and these are uncharted waters, so we are uncertain what to expect.”

The Mano will be controlled by team members in a “16-foot boat that will be launched daily from a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a research vessel provided by the Arctic Research Foundation”. They will spend 12 to 14 hours a day in the boat. The actual sonar pictures won’t be seen until the end of the day when the AUV resurfaces and the pictures can be downloaded from the Mano’s onboard computer.

No one knows exactly where the two ships went down so this years expedition may not be successful, but even if it is not successful, it will rule out at least one section of the Arctic for future trips. If the trip is successful and one or both ships are found, this is just the beginning of the exploration.

Once the ships are located by sonar, another expedition will set out to get actual footage of the ship or ships using another type of submersible equipped with a camera. The final step will include sending divers down to the wrecks for a closer look.

Best of luck to the researchers. May seas be calm and the wind always at their back.



The above photograph is of:

UVic Research Team
A team of UVic researchers are traveling to the arctic this summer to help Parks Canada locate Sir John Franklin’s lost ships. Pictured from front to back are UVic research engineers Emmett Gamroth, Alison Proctor and Jeff Kennedy.
Photo by: UVic/Bluefin

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