LOS ALAMOS, NM, Sept. 9, 2003 (Quicktime VR)

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, world-renowned science fiction author, will address the Second Annual Space Elevator Conference held Sept. 12-15 in Santa Fe. The event is co-sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Institute for Scientific Research Inc. (ISR).

Clarke, the author of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Fountains of Paradise” and many other novels, will open the conference with a live address via satellite at 8 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 13, from his home in Sri Lanka.

Clarke has included space elevator imagery in several of his novels and has long been a champion of this revolutionary means of space travel. The conference will bring together individuals and institutions interested in solving the scientific and engineering challenges inherent in constructing the world’s first space elevator.

Said conference organizer Bryan E. Laubscher of the Los Alamos Space Instrumentation and System Engineering Group, “With the discovery of carbon nanotubes and their remarkable strength properties, the time for the space elevator is at hand.”

“The promise of inexpensive access to space is so important to the human race that we are ready to meet these challenges head on. Viewed in one way, the space elevator will be the largest civil engineering project ever attempted,” Laubscher said.

I was thinking, you could build a carbon nanofiber (flexible) elevator to space from a spot near the equator.

Since you can bring parts up cheaply by um, Space Train, you can build a DeathStar Satellite (except not evil). You can use the Satellite to beam ultra-fast Internet to the round 3 billion people in India and China. Internet that fast could take over the TV, Phone, and Radio markets. A project like that would become more and more profitable, delivering more and more value to its stockholders… so it could go public for funding.

Space Tourism would also make a Space Elevator profitable. Dennis Tito paid $20 million to go to Space. The price would be lower if you were just riding nanostrong tubes up .. like Railways to Space. Still mad expensive though. You could have sick hotels and restaurants and paddleboats in Space, and charge 400$ for Tang.

Anyways, I should go to sleep.

Posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2004 in Computers, Future, Nanotechnology, Sri Lanka, Tech.