Introducing "Elsie" Updated: 30 October 2011
Most of the people coming to this site are looking for information about the Space Elevator. And for better or worse, for 10 years, I’ve been working on that super-project…
But my team and I are shifting gears. I’m a little famous for my oft-used quote: “There is a profound difference between difficult, very very hard and impossible.” Well, I hate to say it, but after 10 years of progress on the theory behind building an Elevator from Earth to Space, it is still impossible. We simply do not have the materials to build this structure (YET)! I remain convinced that we will be able to. However, in the meantime, my team has shifted gears. We are now tackling something that we know IS possible, today, with current materials science, and with current rocketry. We are building an Elevator on the Moon first. We can build the first robotic version in six years and a human-rated system “before this decade is out!”
What we learn from this effort will teach us many of the things we need for the Earth system. And the Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure (LSEI or “Elsie”) is in many ways easier than the Earth system. (And in other ways, it is vastly more complex; so there is a trade-off.) So our site will retain much of the old data that you might be interested in, regarding the Terrestrial Space Elevator. We’ve got lots of stuff in our forums, and our blogs and thousands of images on Flickr. But going forward, this site will serve as the central repository for LSEI data. Thanks for your interest in our first project. Be assured that we are still totally dedicated to the vision of an Elevator rising from our tiny planet, out into space. But before we can build that system, we will build the Lunar version.
