Sir Arthur Clarke and the Space Elevator - Star Technology and ...

Sir Arthur Clarke and the Space Elevator Jerome Pearson

President, Star Technology and Research, Inc. [email protected]

ISEC Space Elevator Conference Seattle, Washington 23-25 August 2013 1

Sir Arthur C. Clarke 16 Dec 1917-19 March 2008

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Royal Air Force radio and comm, 1945 British Interplanetary Society, 1946 Science and science fiction writer Sri Lanka and diving business, 1956 Comsats and Clarke Orbit fame, 1963 Space elevator research, 1976-79 Space elevator novels, 1978, 1997 Knighted, 1998 “Sage of Science Fiction,” 2000

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Clarke and My Teenage Inspirations

The “big three” of science fiction: Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke (plus Bradbury)

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Arthur Began it in 1945 2013

1945

Arthur Clarke, “Extra-terrestrial Relays,” Wireless World

1963

416 active satellites in Clarke Orbit Syncom 2

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Arthur Inspired Me on the Orbital Tower 1969 description of GEOSats on “imaginary towers”  1975, “The Orbital Tower” in Acta Astronautica  1976, Arthur begins our correspondence  1978, “The Fountains of Paradise” 

The Orbital Tower

Arthur in 1964 5

The U.S. Bicentennial IAC, 1976 

Great conference, and my first presentation on the Orbital Tower  Met Robert Forward, Georg von Tiesenhausen (who suggested looking at the lunar space elevator, since the Earth elevator was so hard) Received Arthur’s letter, article, and questions on the space elevator 

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Clarke’s First Letter to Me, 1976 

His paper addressed the collision problem  He expected 104-106 objects  Space Command now tracking 21,000  He wondered how to propel high-speed climbers  Suggested power conducted through the tower, or radiation from solar power satellites  He asked where to locate the base for stability  He recognized the low geopotential point at 75° east longitude  I replied, suggesting a horizontal base in Mexico, at the other stable point of 105° west  Orbital pipelines and radiation belt absorption 7

Walter Morgan and Tower Stability  Arthur

asked Comsat Corporation for analysis  Walter Morgan and colleague analyzed it  Discovered the 24-hour north-south oscillation

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Clarke’s Space Elevator Research 

Yuri Artsutanov  Arthur discovered Yuri’s Pravda article, but didn’t meet Yuri until 1982 (seen here)  Collar and Flower  Arthur discovered their near-invention  I found US authors who did the same  Hans Moravec  Discovered his marvelous “rolling satellite”  I found Paul Birch’s “orbital rings,” Keith Lofstrom’s “launch loop,” and Rod Hyde’s “space fountain” 9

The Fountains of Paradise, 1978

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Arthur’s Space Elevator Base

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Buckminster Fuller and FOP Album  Arthur

did LP album of Fountains of Paradise  Caedmon recording, with a cover by Bucky Fuller shown here 

Fuller designed a free-floating tensegrity ring-bridge in space above Earth’s equator, rotating at its own rate, allowing traffic to ascend and descend 12

First Chance to Meet Arthur  Arthur

gave plenary address at the 1979 IAC in Munich, Germany 

My asteroid retrieval paper was late 

Missed my first chance to meet Arthur in person

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Lunar Space Elevator, 1979 Climbs with solar power by day, beamed power by night Climbing wheels Cargo tanks

Solar Arrays

• Tramway from polar ice deposits to the lunar space elevator •

Climbs lunar space elevator to beyond L1 •

Flies as spacecraft to Earth orbit using ion rockets •

Returns from Earth orbit with supplies, again using ion propulsion

Lunar Tramway 14

Space Flight Without Rockets

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Reagan’s SDI, Clarke and Heinlein President Reagan’s SDI advisory group met at Barney Oliver’s “Star Wars” party in 1984  Heinlein, Dan Graham, Lowell Wood, Hans Mark, Arthur Clarke, w/John Paul II, 1984 and others attended  Clarke strongly objected to Heinlein’s support  Berlin Wall fell, 1989  Soviet Union “Evil Empire” collapsed, 1991  Clarke and Heinlein never reconciled, as Arthur retold the story to me at our meeting in 1996 

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Second Chance to Meet Arthur 

Sputnik 30th anniversary celebration, Moscow, 1987  Arthur was invited, but declined because of work  I was invited, and offered free flight and hotel

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an Air Force employee, I sought permission  The request went all the way to the Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger  Weinberger thought that it might be anti-SDI, and said that no DoD employees could attend  Bottom line: in the military, it is better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission! 17

The “Space Elevator Boys” Finally Meet

Sri Lanka, 1988 IAC Bangalore

Singapore, 1996 IAC Beijing

Jerome Pearson and Sir Arthur Clarke

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The Search for Strong Materials  Arthur

followed carbon nanotube research  Richard Smalley breakthroughs, Rice University  Boris Yakobson proudly called me

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Implications of Strong Materials 

From The Fountains of Paradise:  Morgan uses fiber in handheld climber Mentions cutting trees with the fiber  From my orbital tower research:  SE material enables Single Stage To Orbit  SSTO would compete with space elevator

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Space Elevators and Orbital Rings  Arthur’s

3001: The Final Odyssey  4 orbital towers 90° apart around the equator  A geostationary ring of attached satellites  He realized that a rigid ring like the one in Larry Niven’s Ringworld would be unstable

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I mentioned orbital rings in a letter to Arthur  Paul Birch’s “orbital rings and Jacob’s ladders”  Arnold and Kingsbury’s electrodynamic tube accelerator in orbit to catch payloads from Earth 21

Arthur Clarke and Extraterrestrials  Arthur’s

Fountains of Paradise has “Starglider,” an alien robotic craft going from star to star, that passes our sun while the orbital tower is being built, and communicates with Earth  His Rendezvous with Rama has a similar theme  But recent exo-planet discoveries raise questions

You are here; 200 billion stars In our galaxy

200 billion planets In our galaxy, Many of them billions of years older than Earth, And No One Has Called!

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Fermi’s Paradox: Where Is ET? 

The Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have found nearly 2000 planets   

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Most stars seem to have planets Earth is just half the age of the galaxy Aliens could colonize the galaxy in just a billion years at reasonable speeds

So Enrico Fermi asked, “Where are they?” He had 3 answers: 1. They exist, they’re here, and we’re in a zoo; 2. Civilizations destroy themselves or lose interest in space; or 3. Extraterrestrials don’t exist, and this galaxy is ours! 23

Accolades for Arthur 

Von Karman Award, 1996

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Many Sci-Fi Awards  Hugo  Nebula

 Asteroid 4923 named “Clarke”  There is an asteroid “Asimov,”

Circa 1996

but “Heinlein” was taken

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“Sage of Science Fiction” Award, 2000

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Knighthood conferred by Queen Elizabeth, 1998 24

Arthur Clarke, Selected Works Non-Fiction:  “Electromagnetic Launching as a Major Contributor to Space-Flight,” JBIS, November 1940  “Extra-Terrestrial Relays,” Wireless World, October 1945  Interplanetary Flight, 1950; The Exploration of Space, 1952  “The Space Elevator: ‘Thought Experiment’, or Key to the Universe?” Plenary Address to the 30th IAC, Munich, 1979 1950’s Fiction:  Childhood’s End, 1950; The Sands of Mars, 1951  Expedition to Earth, 1953; The City and the Stars, 1956  2001: A Space Odyssey, motion picture with Stanley Kubrick, 1968  The Fountains of Paradise, 1978  2010: Odyssey Two, 1982  3001: The Final Odyssey, 1997

1960’s

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Space Elevators in Fiction “Prominence,” Curtis Brubaker

The

Last Theorem

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Summary of Arthur’s Impacts  Arthur

was a giant in the science fiction world  Many influential novels and awards  Arthur was also influential in the technical world of comsats and Clarke Orbit  Arthur was a tireless force in developing and publicizing the space elevator  We lost one of our guiding lights with his death in 2008

With Nalaka Gunawardene, Feb 2007

Still working, Dec 2007 27