When Tony Bennett sings about "little cable cars" that "climbhalfway to the stars," he's talking about San Francisco on a clearnight. But when Jerome Pearson thinks about cables, cars and stars,he means the real thing.
Pearson is a proponent of "space elevators": Put a satellite ingeostationary orbit so it stays in the same spot in the sky, dropthousands of miles of cable down to the surface, and run little cartsfull of stuff up and down. "We'll be developing a lunar base,"Pearson said, "and the space elevator can be a part of it."
Sound crazy? Maybe, but the NASA Institute for Advanced Conceptslast year awarded Pearson a $75,000 grant to design his lunar spaceelevator, one of 12 far-out projects aimed at translating science-fiction hype into practical science reality in the next 10 to 40years. The theme: Don't let today's facts get in the way of a goodtheory.
"Sometimes people who have cool ideas don't know NASA people whoare interested in them," said the institute's senior scienceadviser, Ron Turner. "We wanted to reach out into the scientificcommunity to nurture these revolutionary concepts."
Besides the space elevator, the 2004 awards included projects toalter plants genetically so they can prosper on Mars; to use sunlightto power a space-based laser that lunar explorers and passingspaceships can use as a power source; to make a superconductingmagnetic field to shield astronauts from radiation; and to build abuoyancy-driven glider to fly in thick, "extreme" atmospheres such asthose of Venus or Saturn's moon, Titan.
Some institute projects have already taken on a life of their own.NASA became interested in the "Entomopter" after an earlier grantshowed how a larger version of a flying microrobot that mimicsinsects rather than birds could be adapted for aerial reconnaissancein the thin Martian atmosphere, where conventional aerodynamics workpoorly.
The institute is also an enthusiastic promoter of "space tethers" -- cables that would dangle from satellites, grapple spacecraft in lowEarth orbit and fling them into higher orbit or toss them toward themoon or distant planets.
The institute has helped pioneer space elevators for severalyears, awarding early grants to explore how they might be used tolift payloads from Earth, potentially reducing the cost of gettinginto space from $10,000 per pound with rockets to a modest $100 perpound.
Pearson, an independent aerospace engineer from Mount Pleasant,S.C., says building an elevator could be even easier on the moon,which has less gravity than Earth and no unguided space junk thatcould slam into the cable and break it.
"We can build them right now, and if we can develop the vehicle,you wouldn't have to have people," Pearson explained in a telephoneinterview. "They'd be like the Mars rovers, doing their own thing."
The basic idea would be for the elevator to lift carts full oflunar "regolith" -- the coarse lunar sand in which Neil Armstrongleft his footprints 35 years ago -- upward to be ferried into Earthorbit for use as cheap radiation insulation in spaceships, spacehotels and space stations.
The institute started in 1997 as a NASA effort to seek out far-sighted concepts that might not pay off for decades, but which couldbe priceless when they do.
"NASA recognized it suffered from 'not invented here' syndrome,"Turner said in a telephone interview. "If it wasn't invented by NASA,then NASA didn't want to hear about it."
The institute, based in Atlanta, is run as an independentorganization under the supervision of the Universities Space ResearchAssociation, a group of about 95 colleges and universities involvedin space-related research.
Business manager Dale K. Little said the institute spends about $3million a year on research, averaging about 15 of the peer-reviewed,$75,000 "Phase I" grants and about five follow-on "Phase II" grantsof as much as $400,000 each.
"In our process, the word 'nurture' is very important," Turnersaid. "We want to get hold of the long-haired, sandaled professorsand put them with the NASA people who might be most interested intheir concept."
North Carolina State University plant biologist Wendy F. Boss andmicrobiologist Amy M. Grunden are using their $75,000 to developplants for space environments by implanting them with genes from"extremophile" organisms that thrive on Earth in conditions ofintense cold, heat, toxicity or radiation, or lack of oxygen orwater.
They have inserted such a gene into cultured tobacco cells, Bosssaid in a telephone interview, and in March they will know whetherthe gene produces a functional enzyme that makes the cells hardier.
If it does, the pair will apply for a Phase II grant to identifygenes that will produce specific characteristics in potentiallyuseful plants. "They give you very little money and lots ofpressure," Boss said. "But it's so much fun."
At Virginia Tech, aerospace engineer Craig A. Woolsey wants todesign a glider that can fly through thick, soupy atmospheres -- suchas those on Venus (sulfuric acid) and Titan (methane) -- by expandingand contracting to increase or decrease buoyancy, causing theaircraft to go up and down. Shifting weights inside the fuselagewould regulate horizontal movement.
"Buoyancy gliding is a fairly tested idea, and it's proven to bevery efficient in oceans," Woolsey said in a telephone interview."But nobody has proposed using it on a celestial body."
At the University of Alabama, in Huntsville, physicist andelectrical engineer Richard Fork is using his grant to design a space-based laser that could charge batteries on the moon or provide whathe calls "wall socket" power for spaceships.
The crux of his idea is a rod-shaped laser core made ofalternating wafers of titanium-containing sapphire, to amplifysunlight, and diamond, to remove heat, "like a roll of Life Savers,"Fork said in a telephone interview. "It's encouraging that theability to make high-quality diamond [at reasonable prices] isadvancing."
Some of the grantees are very familiar to NASA. MassachusettsInstitute of Technology aerospace engineer Jeffrey Hoffman, who wenton five missions as an astronaut, won $75,000 to design asuperconducting magnet system lightweight enough for a spacecraft tocarry it and use the magnetic field for radiation protection.
"It's sort of embarrassing, because the idea is not new. The Earthitself has been doing it for billions of years," Hoffman said in atelephone interview. "There's a lot of disagreement about whetherthis is viable. We would like to find out that it is."
Another old space pro is Pearson, who spent 36 years with NASA'sApollo program and the Defense Department's Star Wars initiativebefore retiring to devote himself to research projects such as thespace elevator, of which he was an early enthusiast. The elevator isconceptually possible because a satellite in orbit above the samespot on Earth (or the moon) is being equally influenced by gravity,which wants to pull it down, and centrifugal force, which wants tofling it farther into space.
The weight of a cable dropped to the surface of the host must bebalanced by a counterweight, like a kite's tail trailing away intospace. As long as this equilibrium is maintained, the cable may bevirtually any length.
Theoretically. In practice, no material exists that is strongenough to dangle 23,000 miles from a geostationary satellite toEarth's surface without breaking from its own weight. The hope isthat a cable made of carbon nanotubes will eventually do the trick,but a practical carbon nanofiber has not been invented.
Pearson's idea is to build an elevator from a satellite in lunarorbit to the moon's surface. Because the moon is only one-eightieththe mass of Earth, the cable can be made now, because existingcomposite fibers are strong enough to handle that load.
Also, on the moon there is no danger from derelict rocket stages,dead satellites and other space junk, nor is it necessary to work outa way for satellites to get past the cable without slicing it in two.
To get to the NASA institute's Phase II, Pearson intends to draw apicture of what a lunar space elevator would look like -- a verticaldrop with a bending "branch line" heading part way to a base at oneof the lunar poles, where explorers will be closer to whatever waterice deposits the moon has.
The cable cars would carry polar station supplies along the branchline, even as they dig regolith along the main line. And if theascending cars can be moved beyond the orbital balance point to thecounterweight cable dangling in space, centrifugal force would makethem travel faster and faster.
"They could go far enough to get to higher Earth orbit, where theregolith could be used in space habitats," Pearson said. "It wouldmake nice shielding from cosmic rays, and it would be real cheap."
NASA Nurtures Inventors to Produce Space Wonders of the Future
When Tony Bennett sings about "little cable cars" that "climbhalfway to the stars," he's talking about San Francisco on a clearnight. But when Jerome Pearson thinks about cables, cars and stars,he means the real thing.
Pearson is a proponent of "space elevators": Put a satellite ingeostationary orbit so it stays in the same spot in the sky, dropthousands of miles of cable down to the surface, and run little cartsfull of stuff up and down. "We'll be developing a lunar base,"Pearson said, "and the space elevator can be a part of it."
Sound crazy? Maybe, but the NASA Institute for Advanced Conceptslast year awarded Pearson a $75,000 grant to design his lunar spaceelevator, one of 12 far-out projects aimed at translating science-fiction hype into practical science reality in the next 10 to 40years. The theme: Don't let today's facts get in the way of a goodtheory.
"Sometimes people who have cool ideas don't know NASA people whoare interested in them," said the institute's senior scienceadviser, Ron Turner. "We wanted to reach out into the scientificcommunity to nurture these revolutionary concepts."
Besides the space elevator, the 2004 awards included projects toalter plants genetically so they can prosper on Mars; to use sunlightto power a space-based laser that lunar explorers and passingspaceships can use as a power source; to make a superconductingmagnetic field to shield astronauts from radiation; and to build abuoyancy-driven glider to fly in thick, "extreme" atmospheres such asthose of Venus or Saturn's moon, Titan.
Some institute projects have already taken on a life of their own.NASA became interested in the "Entomopter" after an earlier grantshowed how a larger version of a flying microrobot that mimicsinsects rather than birds could be adapted for aerial reconnaissancein the thin Martian atmosphere, where conventional aerodynamics workpoorly.
The institute is also an enthusiastic promoter of "space tethers" -- cables that would dangle from satellites, grapple spacecraft in lowEarth orbit and fling them into higher orbit or toss them toward themoon or distant planets.
The institute has helped pioneer space elevators for severalyears, awarding early grants to explore how they might be used tolift payloads from Earth, potentially reducing the cost of gettinginto space from $10,000 per pound with rockets to a modest $100 perpound.
Pearson, an independent aerospace engineer from Mount Pleasant,S.C., says building an elevator could be even easier on the moon,which has less gravity than Earth and no unguided space junk thatcould slam into the cable and break it.
"We can build them right now, and if we can develop the vehicle,you wouldn't have to have people," Pearson explained in a telephoneinterview. "They'd be like the Mars rovers, doing their own thing."
The basic idea would be for the elevator to lift carts full oflunar "regolith" -- the coarse lunar sand in which Neil Armstrongleft his footprints 35 years ago -- upward to be ferried into Earthorbit for use as cheap radiation insulation in spaceships, spacehotels and space stations.
The institute started in 1997 as a NASA effort to seek out far-sighted concepts that might not pay off for decades, but which couldbe priceless when they do.
"NASA recognized it suffered from 'not invented here' syndrome,"Turner said in a telephone interview. "If it wasn't invented by NASA,then NASA didn't want to hear about it."
The institute, based in Atlanta, is run as an independentorganization under the supervision of the Universities Space ResearchAssociation, a group of about 95 colleges and universities involvedin space-related research.
Business manager Dale K. Little said the institute spends about $3million a year on research, averaging about 15 of the peer-reviewed,$75,000 "Phase I" grants and about five follow-on "Phase II" grantsof as much as $400,000 each.
"In our process, the word 'nurture' is very important," Turnersaid. "We want to get hold of the long-haired, sandaled professorsand put them with the NASA people who might be most interested intheir concept."
North Carolina State University plant biologist Wendy F. Boss andmicrobiologist Amy M. Grunden are using their $75,000 to developplants for space environments by implanting them with genes from"extremophile" organisms that thrive on Earth in conditions ofintense cold, heat, toxicity or radiation, or lack of oxygen orwater.
They have inserted such a gene into cultured tobacco cells, Bosssaid in a telephone interview, and in March they will know whetherthe gene produces a functional enzyme that makes the cells hardier.
If it does, the pair will apply for a Phase II grant to identifygenes that will produce specific characteristics in potentiallyuseful plants. "They give you very little money and lots ofpressure," Boss said. "But it's so much fun."
At Virginia Tech, aerospace engineer Craig A. Woolsey wants todesign a glider that can fly through thick, soupy atmospheres -- suchas those on Venus (sulfuric acid) and Titan (methane) -- by expandingand contracting to increase or decrease buoyancy, causing theaircraft to go up and down. Shifting weights inside the fuselagewould regulate horizontal movement.
"Buoyancy gliding is a fairly tested idea, and it's proven to bevery efficient in oceans," Woolsey said in a telephone interview."But nobody has proposed using it on a celestial body."
At the University of Alabama, in Huntsville, physicist andelectrical engineer Richard Fork is using his grant to design a space-based laser that could charge batteries on the moon or provide whathe calls "wall socket" power for spaceships.
The crux of his idea is a rod-shaped laser core made ofalternating wafers of titanium-containing sapphire, to amplifysunlight, and diamond, to remove heat, "like a roll of Life Savers,"Fork said in a telephone interview. "It's encouraging that theability to make high-quality diamond [at reasonable prices] isadvancing."
Some of the grantees are very familiar to NASA. MassachusettsInstitute of Technology aerospace engineer Jeffrey Hoffman, who wenton five missions as an astronaut, won $75,000 to design asuperconducting magnet system lightweight enough for a spacecraft tocarry it and use the magnetic field for radiation protection.
"It's sort of embarrassing, because the idea is not new. The Earthitself has been doing it for billions of years," Hoffman said in atelephone interview. "There's a lot of disagreement about whetherthis is viable. We would like to find out that it is."
Another old space pro is Pearson, who spent 36 years with NASA'sApollo program and the Defense Department's Star Wars initiativebefore retiring to devote himself to research projects such as thespace elevator, of which he was an early enthusiast. The elevator isconceptually possible because a satellite in orbit above the samespot on Earth (or the moon) is being equally influenced by gravity,which wants to pull it down, and centrifugal force, which wants tofling it farther into space.
The weight of a cable dropped to the surface of the host must bebalanced by a counterweight, like a kite's tail trailing away intospace. As long as this equilibrium is maintained, the cable may bevirtually any length.
Theoretically. In practice, no material exists that is strongenough to dangle 23,000 miles from a geostationary satellite toEarth's surface without breaking from its own weight. The hope isthat a cable made of carbon nanotubes will eventually do the trick,but a practical carbon nanofiber has not been invented.
Pearson's idea is to build an elevator from a satellite in lunarorbit to the moon's surface. Because the moon is only one-eightieththe mass of Earth, the cable can be made now, because existingcomposite fibers are strong enough to handle that load.
Also, on the moon there is no danger from derelict rocket stages,dead satellites and other space junk, nor is it necessary to work outa way for satellites to get past the cable without slicing it in two.
To get to the NASA institute's Phase II, Pearson intends to draw apicture of what a lunar space elevator would look like -- a verticaldrop with a bending "branch line" heading part way to a base at oneof the lunar poles, where explorers will be closer to whatever waterice deposits the moon has.
The cable cars would carry polar station supplies along the branchline, even as they dig regolith along the main line. And if theascending cars can be moved beyond the orbital balance point to thecounterweight cable dangling in space, centrifugal force would makethem travel faster and faster.
"They could go far enough to get to higher Earth orbit, where theregolith could be used in space habitats," Pearson said. "It wouldmake nice shielding from cosmic rays, and it would be real cheap."
