GeSp644

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Number: 644 Name: ELEVATOR 3

Address: J.E.D.CLINE1 Date: 881201

Approximate # of bytes: 10080

Number of Accesses: 12 Library: 3

Description:

Integration of the concept which Microelevator

leads to , including space habitats for 15 billion people

or equivalent; also more on elevator details.

Keywords: microelevtor,habitats,GEO

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Conceptual Design: GEO's Umbilicals and Space Settlements

Stepping back to get a big picture of where

Microelevator is leading towards: offering an alternate path

for the separated survival of high-tech civilization and

Earth's ecological system.

This scenario integrates the theoretical ability of

kinetic-energy supported elevators to move payload to the

Earth orbit that synchronously rotates with the Earth's

rotation, with a concept of solar-energy-powered

accellerators hovering alongside of the elevators to provide

its power, and with a concept of building Stanford-Torus

type space habitats strung like beads around geosynchronous

Earth orbit 22,300 miles above, with an aggregate

single-string capacity equivalent to fifteen billion people.

Especially unique features of this scenario are the

Earth-to-space habit umbilical links and their power source,

and the chain of Stanford Torus type space habitats

occupying GEO to which the umbilical links connect from

earth-surface.

The umbilical links, which are used to move people,

materials and information between earth and space, are

elevator-like structures supported by the kinetic energy of

orbital-velocity electromagnetically-accellerated mass

streams contained within them, and the solar-energy powered

engines which provide power to hold it up and move payload

along it (analogous to the engines on an airplane) located

at the upper reflector and perched along its length. These

borrow from the Solar Powered Satellite, linear motor and

mass-driver technologies; the upper reflector regulates the

softness of the reflection of the kinetic stream mass back

toward the earth-surface points.

The space habitats each provide comfortable near

self-sufficiency for 10,000 people each, as designed by the

1975 summer faculty fellowship program in engineering

systems design (ref NASA SP-413). These habitats rotate to

provide artificial gravity and are passively shielded. In

geosynchronous orbit, they sit stationary relative to the

Earth's surface. There is room in the first string of them

in GEO for 1476000 of them, providing a comfortable limit

population of 15 billion people...room enough for everyone

now on Earth and for whales, elephants, redwood trees, and

mosquitoes too.

(A note on the need for advertising this concept so as to

get the international support needed to implement it: the

media is a form of retail sales; the goods are enticing

packages of information. The enticement is a function of the

intensity of the need-to-be-filled, and the prospective

immediacy of the fulfillment. The media staff makes a living

at selling at a profit. Media needs to make its goods

available to prospectibve customers, and attract attention

and interest to entice purchase of the info.)

With the theoretical ability to move all of humanity

into space economically via "space elevator" technology,

where will they go first? Space habitats need to be created

there for us. Using a synthesis of existing technologies

to build dynamically supported space elevators from each

country out to geosynchronous earth orbit, the majority of

human civilization can move there economically. But what to

live in at GEO? We could, for example, use a continuous

coaxial string of "Island One" space habitats, or a "banded

Torus" stretching all way around GEO.

Each Island One Stanford Torus space habitat provides

space for housing, agriculture, community activities, and

light industry within a 130 m (426.5 ft) diameter tube bent

into a wheel 1800 m (5906 ft) in diameter. Passive shielding

is 6 feet thick on a side, and with 150 feet for sunlight

input, each habitat or layer uses up 590 feet of GEO. The

circumference of GEO for one layer of these habitat sections

is pi * diameter; diameter is the radius of Earth 3950

miles plus geosynchronous orbital altitude of 22300 miles,

times 2, equals 52500miles; times pi equals 165000 miles,

which multiplied by 5280 ft/mile, gives 870850000 feet. Each

habitat layer uses up 590 feet apiece, so that is room for

1476000 Island Ones. Since each habitat layer comfortably

houses 10,000 people, the comfortable population limit for

this first layer is 1476000 * 10,000 people, or 1.48E10

people, or about 15 billion people, 4 or 5 times the whole

Earth's present population. Plenty of room!

Each umbilical elevator is connecting a point on the

Earth's surface to a point in space that orbits stationary

relative to the equator, connecting with a set of tubes that

carry construction materials, blueprint information, and

the construction's byproducts. The umbilical transmission

line provides the connective path for the flow of energy,

materials,and information between Earth and geosynchronous

Earth orbit (GEO). The transmission line consists of

bender-accellerator-joints linked by

trajectory-stream-tubes, where electromagnetically coupled

kinetic energy flows from place to place. It is powered

sometimes from the Earth surface bender-accellerator, and

mostly by engines in space consisting of solar energy

converted (either by huge solar cell arrays, or by

helium-brayton cycle solar-electric powerplants) into

electric power which is used to electromagnetically

accelerate the kinetic energy storage stream within the

umbilical.

Referring back to the 1975 design for the Stanford

Torus habitat for 10,000 people apiece, there are some

significant changes required for this application. The

original design required all of the structure to be built of

Lunar aluminum, requiring Lunar development first. In the

currently proposed scenario, the lifting of large amounts of

payload economically from the Earth, the first several of

these space habitats can be built from Earth instead of

waiting for development of Lunar or asteroidal resource

availability. The direct connection from GEO to Earth also

means more room for experimentation with the habitat system.

Changes will have to be made in the method of getting solar

light into the habitat for the agricultural areas: (each

torus is divided into 6 equal sections, configured as 3

residential sections separated by 3 agricultural sections.

The agricultural sections each contain some 20,000 chickens,

10,000 rabbits, 500 cattle, and 90,000 fish. The fishwater

irrigates the fields of corn, sorghum, soy beans, rice

alfalfa wheat and vegetables, on the tiers attached to the

sides of the 130 meter tube, per the original design by the

1975 engineering study group. It required, for each torus,

10,000,000 tons of rubble for the passive shield, 156,000

tons for the torus shell, and 48,000 tons for the glass

solars.) Lunar and asteroidal resources can be started to be

developed after the first habitats are built from Earth

resources, and would be used for the great majority of the

rest of the space habitat GEO string. The spring-shaped or

banded-torus structure could eventually grow to occupy GEO

entirely around the Earth. Need umbilicals built from every

nation up to it, to speed up completion and guarantee

international occupancy. Standardization in the

endless-torus is necessary, so that when one section grows

to meet with an adjacent section, the two will join together

smoothly. Rail tracks the entire length of it, so as to

provide direct internal transportation throughout the living

area. Need airlocks periodically along it for use in case

of severe damage to some place, that causes loss of internal

pressurization. Question: should living area be alloted

to the various nations in proportion to existing population,

land area, overpopulation urgency, or percent of

contribution to the creation of this gigantic space

settlement?

The economic impact of this endeavor is impressive.

Virtually every industry on earth will need to be adapted to

function in the space habitat environment. There needs to

be a higher ratio of technologically-skilled people to take

on the responsibilities of creating and maintaining

self-sufficient closed ecology multi-lifeform habitats. The

habitats are essentially closed ecological zones, so the

knowledge learned in their development and operation will be

useful during the restoration of the Earth after most of

civilization has moved off-planet.

This scenario leading away from the present perilous

trends on the Earth can give hope immediately to people, and

with enough interest and effort put into it, could have

experimental man-rated umbilical elevators built to small

experimental rotating habitats at GEO in, say, eleven years.

Designing and building a Microelevator to GEO, and other

demonstrations for the media to advertise, seem necessary to

bring the public to awareness of what great futures can be.

References:

Space Settlements, a Design Study, NASA publication SP-413,

1977.

GEnie Spaceport Library files #634,629,592,581,563, and 553.

By J. E. D. "Jed" Cline November 30, 1988

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