There's no stairway to heavens? Take the elevator

Before jumping to the conclusion that anyone trying to build an elevator into space must be a little crazy, consider that NASA has put up $2 million for a related contest and several new Seattle-area businesses have started working toward this lofty goal.

Many who have long been stubbornly devoted to the idea -- which is simple, based upon an elevator climbing a cable up to a space station -- are meeting through Sunday on the Microsoft campus to consider signs of progress and future challenges.

"This all started as science fiction," said Bradley Edwards, a physicist, local businessman and one of the world's leading proponents of building a space elevator.

But today, he said, new technologies such as improved laser-based "beamed" energy systems and superstrong carbon nanotube fibers are pushing this a little closer to reality.

"A lot of these things really are becoming more practical and economical," said Tom Nugent, a member of the Seattle-based firm LaserMotive LLC, which is competing for the prize money.

Nugent and his colleagues built a laser "power beam" system as a prototype to send a space elevator into the heavens.

"There are other applications to this technology as well." The military, Nugent said, has long been interested in the ability to send energy through thin air using lasers or another means.

That's part of the pitch space elevator enthusiasts are making to get financial support to research building their dream. The prize money donated by NASA to the relatively small Space Elevator Games -- scheduled to take place in the Arizona desert in the fall -- is aimed at rewarding those who can create better energy beams and stronger cables to carry loads into space.

A new kind of material made entirely of carbon molecules arranged in a cylinder, a "nanotube," has excited the space elevator community because of the promise of its stunning strength and flexibility. The problem, however, is nobody knows how to make miles of carbon nanotube material into a coherent and reliable cable to support an elevator to and from space.

"That is really the heart of this, and the challenge," Edwards said during the opening meeting Friday morning.

Actually, former NASA director of advanced concepts Ivan Bekey told the 50 or so people at the meeting that there's an even bigger challenge once the climbing cable and energy system problems are solved.

Space junk.

"Today, there are 6,000 satellites in orbit ... and some 5,000 of them are dead," said Bekey, who now runs a private aerospace consulting firm in Virginia.

There are an estimated 150,000 pieces of space debris the size of basketballs and millions of tiny bullet-fast pieces -- all of which are almost guaranteed to rip apart any cable or ribbon tethering the space elevator, he said.

"There will be impacts, no question," said Bekey, adding that any elevator must be able to avoid collisions and self-repair rapidly to the tethering system.

"I'm a frustrated advocate," Bekey said, and challenged his colleagues: "Please prove me wrong. I'd love to be wrong."

Jerome Pearson, a South Carolina aerospace engineer who in 1970 was one of the first to propose the possibility of an actual space elevator, said he believes Bekey can be proved wrong -- once Earth stops abusing space.

"We need to treat space as a commons," Pearson said. International law requires any government that launches something into space to remove it once it stops working -- a requirement uniformly ignored.

Progress is slow, said Ben Shelef, founder of the Spaceward Foundation and coordinator of the Space Elevator Games, but more organizations are entering and coming up with creative small-scale elevators. "This year, three or four teams look really strong," he said.

Akira Tsuchida, who works on Japan's participation in the International Space Station, is director of the Japan Space Elevator Association. His government has made space elevator technology one of its official priorities, he said.

"They are spending a lot of money on carbon nanotube development," Tsuchida said.

And, he said, the Japanese people don't regard a space elevator as strange or impossible. Part of this may be because of the love of science fiction in his country, Tsuchida said, and the fact that mass transportation is everywhere.

It might also be because the Japanese have no extra land for test-firing rockets.

"And if we shoot (a) missile in Japan, North Korea might become angry," Tsuchida joked.