1
Sir Arthur Clarke and the Space Elevator
Jerome Pearson
President, Star Technology and Research, Inc.
ISEC Space Elevator Conference
Seattle, Washington
23-25 August 2013
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
16 Dec 1917-19 March 2008
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
2
3
Clarke and My Teenage Inspirations
The “big three” of science fiction: Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke (plus Bradbury)
3
Arthur Began it in 1945
1945 2013
416 active satellites
in Clarke Orbit
Arthur Clarke, “Extra-terrestrial
Relays,” Wireless World
1963
Syncom 2 4
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
6
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
8
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
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
13
Lunar Space Elevator, 1979
• 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
Climbs with solar power by
day, beamed power by night
Solar Arrays
Climbing
wheels
Cargo
tanks
Lunar Tramway
14
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,
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
w/John Paul II, 1984
16
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
As 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
Jerome Pearson and Sir Arthur Clarke
Singapore, 1996
IAC Beijing
Sri Lanka, 1988
IAC Bangalore
18
The Search for Strong Materials
Arthur followed carbon nanotube research
Richard Smalley breakthroughs, Rice University
Boris Yakobson proudly called me
19
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
20
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
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!
22
Fermi’s Paradox: Where Is ET?
The Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes
have found nearly 2000 planets
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
Many Sci-Fi Awards Hugo Nebula
Asteroid 4923 named “Clarke” There is an asteroid “Asimov,” but “Heinlein” was taken
“Sage of Science Fiction” Award, 2000 Knighthood conferred by Queen Elizabeth, 1998
Circa 1996
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
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
1950’s
1960’s 25
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