Swan, and 6 co-authors, reported in April, 2021 that the year of 2020 had many negative aspects from fires, pestilence, hurricanes and the Pandemic. The beautiful thing is that it also had so many nations coming together in the vision of moving off-planet. The summer flotilla of vehicles going to Mars was remarkable and the joining of countries to go to the Moon shows an initiative so huge it is motivational. The question then became, with this new movement off-planet, how shall the Space Elevator supporters respond?
All this action reinforces the critical nature of the Space Elevator as participants in the future with the inherent strengths of being a permanent transportation infrastructure with a zero-carbon footprint. If everyone wants to have their citizens living on the Moon or Mars), a massive movement of equipment and supplies will be needed. Space Elevators are the answer! The Space Elevator community's vision should be, that it can support this historic movement and ensure its success. Space Elevators CAN move millions of tonnes of cargo - no-one else can with a beneficial environmental approach and timely delivery to multiple destinations.
Our new vision is:
Space Elevators are the Green Road to Space - they enable humanity's most important missions by moving massive tonnage to GEO and beyond. They accomplish this safely, routinely, inexpensively, daily and they are environmentally neutral.
This study report will show how the Space Elevator is a Massive Green Machine and should be called the "Green Road to Space." In addition, the study report will show how the Space Elevator enables missions that cannot reasonably be accomplished with rockets and thus can help improve the human condition on Earth.
The study reports on the "green missions" of Space Solar Power, Sun Moon L-1 Solar Shade, and permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste. In addition, it assesses the environmental impact from development and operations of Space Elevators. One of the main conclusions is that the movement off-planet demands the initiation of a Dual Space Access Architecture where future rockets and Space Elevators are complementary, compatible and not competitive. Indeed, others are ready to leap into the off-planet movement. However, Space Elevators, as a part of the Dual Space Access Architecture, have tremendous strengths that have not yet been included in their strategies for going to the Moon and beyond.
This new movement off-planet should include the Space Elevator's ability to:
• Depart the Apex Anchor at great velocity (7.76 km/sec)
• Support interplanetary missions (Fast Transit to Mars 61 days)
• Supply massive daily payloads (170,000 tonnes per year)
• Create entrepreneurial enterprises at GEO and the Galactic Harbors.
• Enable new environmentally significant missions (Space Solar Power, Solar Shades, hi-level nuclear waste disposal, etc.)
• Enable carbon negative operations for delivery to orbit
• Exit the gravity well using solar powered tether climbers and not rocket fuel and accomplish this daily, routinely, inexpensively and with carbon negativity
Indeed, the implementation of the Dual Space access Architecture should follow:
Rockets to open up the Moon and Mars with Space Elevators to supply and grow the colonies. In addition, Space Elevators will enable Green Missions such as, Space Solar Power and L-1 Sun Shades. This approach is compatible and complementary with future rockets while leveraging the strengths of both inside a Dual Space Access Architecture.
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