A giant elevator to space

Observation 1: Inherency
Shuttle ending means we need a new way to space

Jerry Hume 11 (http://www.wtxl.com/content/flpolitics/story/Legislature-tries-to-boost-space-industry/i2UL4sg68UGAK9K6BaGQzw.cspx, reporter,
Legislature tries to boost space industry 1/11/12)
The end of the space shuttle program may have meant the loss of thousands of jobs along Floridas Space Coast, but the space industry
has far reaching impacts on the state's economy, including here in the Big Bend. Wednesday was Space Day at the Capitol. According to NASA, in Leon County,
61 companies and over a thousand workers rely on aerospace and aviation. Every county in the state of Florida has business, an
offshoot of the efforts of the space program, NASA, said Jim McCarthy, honorary chair of Florida Space Days, there are manufacturing bases throughout the
state that participate in some supply chain that helps support the program. Commercial space flight appears to be the next frontier. Leaders in the space industry
came to the Capitol to urge lawmakers to passed some bills that will help bring more commercial space activity to the state. Members of Space Florida and the
Kennedy Space Center met with lawmakers, including the senate president and speaker of the house. There's a lot of uncertainty along the Space Coast, since
the retirement of the shuttle fleet last year. NASA now relies on Russia to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. But
space officials say they're working hard to develop commercial vehicles and NASA is still working on a heavy lift vehicle that can take them to the Moon, or Mars,
maybe even an asteroid. I think there's a lot of exciting things going on right now and you know we're working hard to be able to have a U.S. launch vehicle
again to be transporting our U.S. crew members to and from the space station, said Astronaut Nicole Stott. Stott, who took pictures with people at the Capitol,
has been on two missions to space, including last year's final flight of Shuttle Discovery.
Rockets make exploration and development impossibleReducing payload cost is critical to future
projects and reducing dependence on Launch vehicles.
Jonathan Coopersmith, 2001, (March 9, Texas A&M University, The cost of reaching orbit: Ground-based launch systems, Space
Policy, Volume 27 Issue 2, ScienceDirect.)
The high cost of launching payloads into orbit roughly $20,000/kg continues
to deter large-scale exploration and exploitation

of space. Ground-based launch systems may radically reduce costs to $200/kg, drastically altering the economics of spaceflight. Low costs
will encourage the creation of new markets, including solar-based power satellites and disposal of nuclear waste. The
US government should establish a goal of $200/kg by 2020 and provide the resources needed to develop such systems.Article Outline1.
Introduction2. Why chemical rockets? 3. Alternatives to chemical rockets4. Creating demand: if you build it, will they ome?
4.1. Space-based solar power4.2. Nuclear waste disposal 5. The challenge 6. Conclusion 1. IntroductionWhen I fly from North America to
Europe, I pay $612/ kg of me. When a satellite is launched into space, the customer (or taxpayer) pays roughly $20,000/kg. That figure is
the major challenge facing space flight: until
the cost of reaching orbit drastically decreases, the large-scale exploration and
exploitation of space will not occur. These high launch costs have restricted access to space to those governments, corporations and
organizations which can afford millions of dollars to launch a satellite. As a result, half a century after Sputnik, the annual total of all satellite
launches is only a few hundred tons, the equivalent of two 747 freighter flights.1 Ground-based alternatives to chemical rockets exist,
such as beamed energy propulsion and space elevators. While promising, they are all technically immature and will not develop
without a substantial government investment. Just as it pushed the development of rocket technology in the 1940s and 1950s, the US
government should set a grand challenge to radically reduce the cost of reaching orbit to $200 a kg by 2020. Meeting this goal must be accompanied by
resources and institutional support to move the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) of these technologies from the laboratory to commercial fruition.2.
Why chemical rockets? Since Sputnik launched the Space Age on 4 October 1957, chemical rockets have propelled every payload into orbit, a
monopoly that will continue for the foreseeable future. Rockets have two major problems: cost and reliability. Reaching orbit today
the failure
rate of rockets carrying communications satellites to geosynchronous orbit (GEO) in 19972006 was 8%. One consequence is
insurance rates of 1120%, two orders of magnitude greater than for a Boeing 747.3The high cost of reaching orbit means
satellites are built to maximize yield per kilogram with the tradeoff of high costs to develop, assemble, and test them. The ISS
costs about $20,000/ kg, a daunting barrier.2 While very reliable, rockets are not fully reliable even after five decades of experience:
cost $115,000 a kg and NEAR $181,000 in 2009 dollars, while the scores of Iridium satellites cost only $7300 a kg 4.If chemical rockets cost so
much and are unreliable, why use them? The reality is that they work well enough and the entire infrastructure for space exploration and
exploitation has developed around rockets. Nor is the technology static. Rockets and satellites have improved greatly in capability while the
cost/kg has dropped. A 2010 Tauri Group study found that sending a kg to GEO dropped from $32,000 to $21,000 (in inflation-adjusted 2008
dollars) or by 34% from 1999 to 2008.5 New generations of rockets will lower costs, but not radically. The SpaceX Falcon 9
will cost some $5000 a kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO), almost twice the $2850 per kg expected in 2003 for its cancelled Falcon 5.6 Similarly,
the 1997 Cassini cost $300,000 a kg in 1999 dollars compared with $480,000 for the 1975 Viking and $935,000 for the 1962 Mariner 4.7 What
rockets have not done and cannot do is radically reduce the cost of reaching orbit. Lack of effort is not the problem. Billions of dollars have been
spent over the past decades in exploring rocket-based alternatives such as single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO), reusable launch vehicles (RLVs), and
1
You are not seeing things, that is a giant elevator to space
other unsuccessful lines of development.8 As Jim Maser, President of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, stated in 2009, the technological base for
reaching orbit in 2020 will be Much like it is today. And that is not much different from what we were doing 50 years ago.9
2
Plan Text
Plan Text: The United State Federal Government should put all funds needed towards National
Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) to develop and launch solar sails to catch an asteroid
and bring it to near earth orbit then mine it of carbon to create the space elevator.
3
Observation 2: Explanation
What is a space Elevator?
Spaceward.org 08 (http://www.spaceward.org/elevator-what, website filled with a team of scientist for space elevator research)
The Space Elevator is a space transportation system that is a radical departure from rocket-based space travel. Contrary to
our first intuition, it is actually possible to construct a physical "railroad to space", such that leaving the planet will involve riding out rather than
rocketing out. Building this railroad system takes two steps - laying the track, and running the trains . The track for
the Space Elevator is a actually a cable, initially less than 1/4" in diameter, extending from the
surface of the earth to a mass in space. Similar to a spinning keychain, the rotation of the Earth about its axis
throws the mass outwards, and keeps the tether taut. Accounting for the centrifugal force, the Space Elevator is actually hanging from the
ground and into space! Because of the slow rate of rotation of the Earth (only one revolution per 24 hours) the cable has to be very long - theoretically at
least 25,000 miles, and in practice closer to 60,000 miles. The difficulty in building the Space Elevator is that this very long cable has to
carry its own weight without breaking. Until recently, we knew of no material that even came close to achieving this. Further work by Jerome Pearson (USAF) and
the discovery of Carbon
Nanotubes in 1991 by Dr. Sumio Iijima opened the door to the construction of the Space
Elevator, and research into making Carbon Nanotube tethers has been underway ever since. Once the cable is in place, electric
cars can travel on it using mechanisms not much different than those found on ski lifts . The trick lies in
powering the cars, since fuel or batteries end up weighing more than the cars can lift. The solution that was proposed in 2000 by Dr. Bradley Edwards
(then of Los Alamos National Laboratory) is to use a technique called "power beaming". The cars (called "climbers" in Space Elevator jargon) carry
photo-voltaic cells facing back towards the Earth, and a ground station projects a strong beam of light at them. The cells convert the light into electricity, and drive
the motors. The main benefit of power beaming is that it allows us to leave the fuel tank on the ground. Another proposal by Ben Shelef of the Spaceward
Foundation uses thin-film photovoltaic technology to power the climbers while relying mostly through solar power. With this proposal the climbers
practially "float" up the tether under their own self-generated power . Under both proposals, the climbers are very
simple machines, comprised basically only of solar cells and electric motors. As promised, the complete system is quite
revolutionary. It allows payloads to be launched to space for basically the cost of electricity to run the power beaming system. Each climber carries more payload
than its own self weight (compared to the 1% payload carried by a rocket) and never subjects the payload to high accelerations or vibrations. A
ride in the
Space Elevator is comparable to transport in a train. The climbers carry no fuel so are never in danger
of exploding, and travel at a lesurely 100-200 MPH along the cable. Space Elevators can be built to any
scale. The first design uses a 1/4" cable and can lift about 20 tons at a time, launching once per day. Larger Space Elevators
can then be constructed that will lift 100 or 1000 tons at a time , opening the way to commercial scale access to space.
Looking back from a point in time 100 years from now, it is the construction of the first Space Elevator that will be marked as the true beginning of the Space Age
and of the interplanetary civilization.
What is a Solar Sail?

Carl G. Sauer JR 99 (http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/17917/1/99-1367.pdf, SOLAR
SAIL TRAJECTORIES FOR

SOLAR-POLAR AND INTERSTELLAR PROBE MISSIONS Jet Propulsion Laboratoy C a l i f o r n i a I n s t i t u t e o f Technology
-Pasadena, California 91109)
For this trajectory definition study, the solar sail is modeled as a perfectly reflecting flat surface . This
assumption, while not quite achievable, does serve to define the upper limit for sail performance. A better approximation for the
the shape and

reflective properties of the sail than that which is currently available. Since there is no fuel consumed
during a solar sail mission, the performance index in the trajectory optimization is that of minimizing flight time for fixed
modeling of the sail, like that used in solar sail studies 20 years ago, requires a more detailed knowledge of
values of sail characteristic acceleration.+ The trajectories generated for these two missions are characterized by departure from the Earth at
zero excess speed ( parabolic escape). These trajectories can then be used for either an escape from Earth orbit using a chemical
injection stage or departure from Earth orbit using a solar sail spiral escape phase. Although performance can be improved by allowing t
acceleration is the force, which is the product of solar radiation pressure and sail area,
applied to a perfectly reflecting sail oriented normal to the Sun line at a heliocentric distance of
1 AU, divided by the total spacecraft mass. 2 a positive escape energy, this energy can not be optimized without considering the actual
The sail characteristic
physical properties of the sail and the launch vehicle performance. This would reduce the usefulness of these trajectories and examining
each trajectory for a number of values of escape energy would be prohibitive. Since the departure energy from the orbit of the Earth is
fixed, the effect of mass changes on sail acceleration due to changes in escape energy do not need to be considered and performance
can be determined independent of the mass and size of the solar array by examining each mission parametrically in sail characteristic
acceleration. Thus the performance presented for these two missions is appiicable to a wide range of assumptions such as the areal
4
density and size of the sail, payload mass and launch vehicle injection capability. Optimization of the sail steering profile is based on a
CaZcuZus of Variations (COV) approach to trajectory optimization employed in previous'sail trajectory studies.6 In addition orbit
parameters, not explicitly defined, are optimized by satisfyrng the transversality conditions that are inherent in the optimization process.
A feature of the trajectories in this paper, not previously considered for solar sail trajectories, is that of constraining the minimum solar
distance during the transfer trajectory. This constraint is necessary for Interstellar Probe missions since unconstrained optimal escape
trajectories would otherwise pass very close to the Sun. Minimum solar distance constraints of 0.1 AU to 0.4 AU are considered for these
solar sail Interstellar Probe missions and should be adequate to cover the range of minimum solar distances allowed for the various solar
sail materials. Conceptually the solar sail spacecraft can be divided into two mass components, a payload or net mass, MN, and a sail
mass, M , where the sail mass is the product of the sail area, So, and effective sail areal density, p, which includes the various supporting
structures required by the sail. The characteristic sail acceleration ac is then given by, where Pa is the solar radiation.pressure equal to
approximately 9 x 1 0-6 N.m-2 for a perfectly reflecting flat surface at 1 AU. For a real solar sail, the actual acceleration imparted to the
spacecraft at 1 AU and aligned normal to the Sun line will be less than the characteristic acceleration due to a less than 100% reflectivity
and deviations of the sail from flatness. For the missions described in this paper, an ideal sail is assumed and the radial and
circumferential sail accelerations are respectively, = 7 cos a a, 3 r adma,,, = + s i n a cos2 a r In the above equations r is the radial distance
from the Sun in AU and a is the angle between the sail thrust vector or sail normal and the Sun line. The sail angle a is determined
as part of the optimization process6 and, for an ideal sail, lies between 0 and 90 degrees.
5
Observation 3: Solvency
Solar Sails can move an asteroid
Clark 04 [Pamela Clark, Catholic University researcher associated with Goddard Space Flight Center, PAM: Biologically inspired
Engineering and Exploration System Mission Concept, Components, and Requirements for asteroid population survey
http://sciencestage.com/d/13133771/asteroid-extinction-hypothesis..html]
We first considered the Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm (ANTS) architecture for a future application, the PAM concept: a 1000-member
swarm of picoclass (1 kg) autonomous sciencecraft based on carbon-based NEMS technology and utilizing Super Miniaturized Addressable
Reconfigurable Technology (SMART) (3) [13]. The basic design elements are self-similar low-power, low-weight, addressable, reconfigurable
components and systems capable of operating as fully autonomous, yet adaptable units as called for by swarm demands and environmental needs.
use highly configurable solar sails capable of autonomous attitude control, a highly
maneuverable, no expendables propulsion system well suited to this application. The swarm would be
Craft
composed of 10 science specialist classes (approximately 100 members of each class), identical except for one specialty instrument. Classes
include Leader/Messengers (CPU/Communication enhanced), imagers, various spectrometers, altimeters, radio science, and magnetometers. The
swarm would be divided into 10 to 20 subswarms with approximately equal numbers of each class in each subswarm. Within each subswarm,
each class would operate autonomously at an asteroid target, because orbital configuration and viewing strategy for the classes are highly variable
and depend on the requirements of the class instrument. 10 to 20 subswarms would operate concurrently. Target observation times would be on
the order of one month. Typical distances of hundreds of thousands of kilometers between kilometer-size asteroids would allow detection (by
imagers) and selection of the next target even before departure from a given target, and travel to that target on the order of weeks. Thus, tens or
even hundreds of asteroids could be explored during a the anticipated 5 year traverse of the asteroid belt.
A great deal of Asteroids are in close proximity to the Earth

Durda 6
(Dr. Daniel D. Durda Southwest Research Institute Department of Space Studies, The Solar System beckons with resources unimaginable on
Earth. Ad Astra, Volume 18 Number 2, Summer 2006. QJ)
Planetary scientists estimate that there are some 1,100 asteroids larger than a kilometer
in diameter. Smaller, football-field-size objects are much more numerousmore than
100,000 of them orbit the Sun in near-Earth space (although at present we have catalogued only a few
percent of them). Objects so small exert only a feeble gravitational pull befitting their diminutive stature. The surface gravity of even a modestsize kilometer-diameter rocky asteroid is only of order 1/30,000 of a g. It is in fact the negligible surface gravity of these objects that makes
them such attractive targets for future mining activities; the materials mined from their surface need not be lifted back out of a deep
gravity well in order to be delivered to the places where the resources are needed. But this low gravity can cause serious operational
challenges as well. Simply moving around in the close vicinity of a lumpy and potentially rapidly rotating or tumbling NEA can be
counterintuitive. Rather than orbiting the smallest asteroids, oilplatform-like equivalents of future mining factories may instead "station keep" in
close proximity, rather like a Space Shuttle orbiter maneuvering around the International Space Station. Human and robotic mining engineers
moving about along the surface will similarly need their own on-board and very capable navigation systems for the real-time trajectory
calculations necessary in simply moving from point A to point B. The difficulties faced by the Hayabusa mission in trying to simply "drop" the
tiny MINERVA rover onto the surface of the 500-meter-diameter asteroid Itokawa show that we still have some work to do in even this most
basic area of mining operations.
An asteroid is incoming soon that will be best time to move it to NEO

Jean-Yves Prado, Alain Perret, Olivier Boisard 10 (http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/isss2010/ISSS2010Proceedingsvx.pdf,
each a scientist who managed to get submit their work for the 2nd international symposium on solar sailing in new York college of technology, city
university of new York July 20-22 2010)
Thousands of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are being catalogued. We can assume that, in a few decades, the inventory of NEAs will be
completed. Among them, only a few dozens of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) are expected to pose some concerns for our future.
APOPHIS is one of them. Asteroid 99942 APOPHIS
is estimated to have a 320 meters diameter and a mass of

4.6x10 10 kg [1]. On April 13, 2029, APOPHIS will have an Earth fly by so low (about 38,200 km[1] for the
minimum distance to the Earth centre) that its trajectory around the Sun will be significantly altered by the gravitational pull
from the Earth. Depending on the actual perigee radius of this fly by, which is presently estimated with an uncertainty of several thousands of
kilometres, APOPHIS will be moved on a new orbit , with a longer period, comprised between 417 and 427 days. A discrete
number of small areas in the target plane, or key holes (KH), of a few hundred meter diameter correspond to resonant APOPHIS orbits, ie
orbits of period Tapophis so that there exist two integer numbers m and n which verify Tapophis =m/n TEarth, TEarth being equal to one year or
365.25 days and m being the number of years after 2029 where the return will occur. The 103 - smallest value for m is 7, corresponding to n=6
and Tapophis=427.428 days and so a possible collision with the Earth seven years later, on April 13, 2036 . If we
consider on a long period (up to a century) all the m and n values that lead to a Tapophis comprised between 417 and 427 days, it appears that
there exist many possibilities for APOPHIS to be placed on a resonant orbit. We name ROKH (Resonant Orbit Key Holes) such regions of the
target plane, to make a distinction between short term KH that have been analyzed in depth and for which probabilities of impact can be
6
calculated and ROKH that correspond to possible impacts for the future but for which no probability can be presently estimated [2]. The
existence of such potentially risky areas makes the mitigation problem more complex than just avoiding an impact in the short-term: deflecting
APOPHIS so that it misses any of the short-term keyholes must not place it on a path for an impact in a far future. The deflection problem should
then be stated as: are there safe areas that do not correspond to any impact possibility for as long as several centuries and how to deflect
APOPHIS so that its 2029 pass is right in such areas? After showing that such safe areas can be identified, we propose a novel deflection method,
based on the simple idea that cancelling a natural force leads to the same result as adding an artificial one.
Use asteroid as the space anchor and mining for carbon

Rachel Ross 03 (Toronto Star Ladder to space 2/10/03 reporter)
The idea is literally out of science fiction or Jack and the Beanstalk But scientists are working on it now a ribbon-road part-way to the moon
Rockets are a violent, jarring way to leave the Earth, forcing a way past gravity with the thrusting power of a controlled chemical explosion. But
shuttles aren't the only way to go into orbit, or return. Bradley Edwards is fleshing out plans for a calmer, efficient and economical way to get
people and equipment off the ground. Instead of shooting ourselves into space, Edwards wants us to ride an elevator. A physicist, Edwards
envisions laser-powered platforms gradually rising up a long, strong cable to 100,000 kilometres from Earth's surface. He sees satellites and solar
panels, astronauts and average people all taking a trip toward the stars. The idea isn't new. It's been percolating in minds around the world for
more than a hundred years. While it was made famous through the works of authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Kim Stanley Robinson, their
versions were only science fiction fantasy. The right kind of material to build the all-important cable wasn't available, not to mention other
supporting technologies. But with new, strong lightweight material made with carbon nanotubes, the space elevator could be on its way up.
"Other than transporters out of Star Trek, the space elevator represents the ultimate in travel from Earth to space," believes Edwards, founder and
chief technology officer of High Lift System in Seattle, Wash. "It is a fairly simplified system ... fairly quick and flexible in terms of what you can
use it for. "This is ambitious talk. But it has some blue-chip backing. NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) gave Edwards a grant to
develop the idea. And now there are potential rivals. Aerospace giant Lockheed-Martin last year took out a patent for technology using similar
principles. Edwards predicts an elevator would have such a dramatic effect on the price of space transportation that it would open up space for
development like railways opened up the North American West. "It's not going to cost $20 million (U.S.) to get up there. In the long term, it's
conceivable that it would cost about as much as a trip around the world." While that will still be out of range for some, it would most definitely
open up space to a much larger audience. "If you cut the cost of getting into space by a factor of a thousand, you can send things you'd never
considered sending up before," said Edwards. Tourism would be the least of it. By lowering the price to send up satellites, such systems could
increase our communications ability by a factor of a thousand, Edwards believes. "Data transmission rates across the world would be improved."
Solar cells could be launched into space on satellites and used generate power for Earth, "eliminating our need to use oil, coal and nuclear power."
But first he has to build it. Traditional rockets would carry the parts - the propulsion systems, fuel, and spools of cable - about 300 kilometres up
into lower-Earth orbit. Those pieces would be put together in mid-orbit. Assembly would be done by machines, with the help of astronauts. The
equipment's propulsion system would then send the structure another 30,000 kilometres into space. Once there, the spools would release the
cable, or ribbon, as it's often called. "Gravity will be enough to pull it down toward Earth," Edwards said. "As it is pulled down, the spools
unwind and the spacecraft moves up to higher orbit. Eventually, the ribbon touches down at Earth and is anchored." The end of the line would be
100,000 kilometres from Earth. But two spools of 8-inch ribbon won't carry much weight. So that's why Edwards would send in the "climbers."
These climbers are basically identical to the platform that will ultimately carry people and things up and down, except that as each one goes up, it
adds more cable to the middle. They would be powered by a laser located on the system's Earth station that would shine up at solar cells on the
underside of each platform. More than 200 of the devices would make their way up to the top and never come down. When completed, the
elevator's permanent laser-powered platform would be able to lift 13 tonnes of cargo at a time. That's not as much as the 22 tonnes a space shuttle
can carry, but several times more than the rockets used to send telecommunications satellites into orbit.Tethered to its ground station, the elevator
system would rotate with the Earth. That spin is important because it means the elevator could launch payloads deeper into space once they've
reach the top. Think of the elevator system as your arm, and the payload as rope with a ball on the end. If you spin the rope around your head and
let it go, the ball and rope will shoot off into the air. Edwards said payload could be launched in much the same fashion, with a well-timed
release. It would be a long trip to the top though. Imagine waiting in a pod for about two weeks before reaching the space station. Edwards thinks
many people would be inclined to get off after seven days, when they reached geosynchronous orbit, where you stay over the same spot on Earth.
And if you were about to be flung off deeper into space, that would only be the beginning of your trip! Like space travel now, there would be
risks. Lightning could pose a serious threat to the system. If only slightly damaged, the cable could be reeled back in for repairs. "But if we got
hit, there's a good chance it would sever the cable," Edwards said. And that could leave much of the project freely floating in orbit. Edwards
would tether the elevator to a base station in a region known for a general lack of lightning, to avoid trouble as much as possible. He said that
they'd also be designing the system so that it's "much less conductive." Meteor storms are another potential hazard, but Edwards has an answer
for that too. He said that by tethering the elevator to a floating base station off the coast of Ecuador, he could simply move the whole thing to
avoid an impending meteor shower. "Statistically, it should survive for 200 years," he said. The idea, at least, has already survived a century.
Russian researcher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is thought to have originated the idea of a space elevator around 1900, though it was later thought up
by researchers in the West who knew nothing of Tsiolkovsky's work. Other researchers have latched on to the idea from time to time, but a major
hurdle always stood in their way: there was no material in existence that suited such a cable. The line needs to be light so it can support its own
weight, but strong enough to carry several tonnes of equipment. Until the late 1950s, all researchers had to work with was fine-gauge steel wire,
ultimately too heavy to use as a space cable. In 1957, graphite whiskers were invented and a fresh crop of scientists jumped into the fray. Many
proposed the idea of using
an asteroid as both a counterweight and a source of carbon . The idea was they'd
mine the rock - in space - for graphite and build the cable from there. As Edwards outlines in his book, The Space
Elevator, this was a great idea for science fiction writers, but the real science behind the idea didn't make sense. Asteroids weren't as ideal
for graphite mining as initially thought and it turned out it would be far less expensive and time-consuming if the wire
was made here on Earth. The other problem, and it was significant, was that it would take 700,000 tonnes of graphite whiskers to
make the cable strong enough. That was unreasonable, so the idea languished until the late 1990s. Enter carbon nanotubes with their remarkable
physical properties. Carbon
nanotubes are long, thin tubes of carbon, like sheets of graphite rolled up into tubes. They are
7
very strong and relatively light, compared to steel and even graphite whiskers, because of their unique molecular structure. The
material was discovered in 1991, but it took a while to link this material and the space elevator concept. Once Edwards saw the opportunities, he
knew he had to pursue the space elevator idea. Edwards is so committed that he left his job at Los Alamos National Laboratory last year to work
on it full time. With help from NIAC, he set up a one-room office in downtown Seattle. The office where the Star interviewed him is a testament
to his practicality and frugality. He has one desk and three chairs. A drawing of the space elevator rests on the floor, beside a stack of books
about the project. No one could argue Edwards has blown the $570,000 grant from NIAC on frivolous office decor, but the money's running out
just the same. It costs a lot to work out the details behind such a revolutionary idea. Edwards' 280-page book is packed with equations, charts and
diagrams. It's a new tool for drumming up support for the project, intended to augment the in-person presentations he's given to people from
around the world. He's spoken to the European Space Agency and the United Nations, though he hasn't received a firm commitment from either
yet. The United Nations was concerned about leaving the Third World out of such a venture. But if the projects did bring down the cost of
launching satellites, Edwards argues it could potentially benefit countries with less money to spend. Edwards has also spoken to conference
rooms full of scientists, who make for a difficult, skeptical audience. "I'm sure initially there were people who came because they thought, 'This
will be funny. Let's go see the crackpot'." But try as they might, Edwards said, they discover no holes in his theory. Instead, they leave with a new
respect for the idea. "They tend to go from skepticism to overt support." That overt support comes in the form of dozens of reports sent to him by
experts in various fields who, after hearing Edwards' presentation, are eager to contribute their research to the project. "We've got a couple of
hundred volunteers," he said, picking up a copy of one such volunteer's statistical analysis of the tether's dynamics. "The idea really has been
embraced by the technical community worldwide," said Robert Cassanova, director of NIAC. But despite rave reviews from the agency that
provided the initial funding for the project, NASA has yet to offer any more financial support. "The space elevator is mentioned in the longrange strategic plan for NASA," Cassanova said. And he said it's only been embraced as one possibility for the future. NASA hasn't committed to
the idea yet. Edwards figures he needs a heftier sum - $10 billion - to build the elevator. He could go to stock market for money. But despite the
obvious interest from science fiction fans, right now Edwards said he isn't comfortable with the idea of issuing public shares in the company.
While it might be a good way to raise a little cash, he said he wouldn't want to play on people's hopes and dreams. Edwards wants investors who
are fully aware of the potential problems associated with a large scale, long-term project such as this one. Even if everything went well, Edwards
figures such a project is approximately 15 years away from being operational. But that's assuming he can nail down the international relations
required for such a system. "Technically, we believe it's very buildable," Edwards said. "Politics is another thing." Especially, he said, since such
a system could be used to launch military devices too. "China might have something to say about that. "Canada is a potential participant, but
nothing's panned out so far. Edwards said he has been invited to speak to the Canadian Space Agency but has been unable to make that
presentation to date. Carole Duval, a spokesperson for the agency, said it is not participating in the project "in any way" and declined to comment
on the viability of such a system. But Edwards said the Feb. 1 shuttle disaster has had an impact on his business. There's a new focus on
alternatives to shuttle craft now, and it's helped him line up some new meetings with investors. "It's still too early to tell just how much of an
effect it will have," Edwards said. "My guess is it will be looked at a lot more seriously in the future." There was a time when the idea of a transAtlantic cable for communications wasn't taken seriously. It was too large a project to be workable, too grandiose to be implemented. The mere
idea of a cable long enough to reach across the ocean! They needed great ships to carry huge reels of cable, and that ribbon of cable just kept
breaking. But, in time, the line was laid. What had once seemed impossible was real and a technology and communications revolution was
underway.
Carbon Creates Tether

Lisa Zyga 09(http://www.physorg.com, 1/23/09, Long, Stretchy Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Space Elevators Possible freelance writer
who has covered subjects including physics, astronomy, health/medicine, technology, music, business and more. University of Illinois in
Champaign-Urbana with a bachelor's degree in Rhetoric.)
And a space elevator - if it ever becomes reality - will be quite long. NASA needs about 144,000 miles of nanotube to build one. In theory, a cable
would extend 22,000 miles above the Earth to a station, which is the distance at which satellites remain in geostationary orbit. Due to the competing forces of
the Earth's gravity and outward centrifugal pull, the elevator station would remain at that distance like a satellite. Then the cable would extend another
40,000 miles into space to a weighted structure for stability. An elevator car would be attached to the nanotube cable and powered into
space along the track. NASA and its partner, the Spaceward Foundation, hope that a space elevator could serve as a cost-effective and
relatively clean mode of space transportation. NASA's current shuttle fleet is set to retire in 2010, and the organization doesn't have enough funds
to replace it until 2014 at the earliest. To fill the gap, NASA is hiring out shuttles to provide transportation to the International Space Station from
private companies. So NASA could use a space elevator, the sooner the better. Space elevators could lift material at just one-fifth the cost of a
rocket, since most of a rocket's energy is used simply to escape Earth's gravity. Not only could a space elevator offer research expeditions for
astronauts, the technology could also expand the possibilities for space tourism and even space colonization. Currently, the Cambridge
team can make about 1 gram of the new carbon material per day, which can stretch to 18 miles in length. Alan Windle,
professor of materials science at Cambridge, says that industrial-level production would be required to manufacture NASA's request for 144,000
miles of nanotube. Nevertheless, the web-like nanotube material is promising. "The key thing is that the process essentially makes carbon into
smoke, but because the smoke particles are long thin nanotubes, they entangle and hold hands," Windle said. "We are actually making elastic smoke, which
we can then wind up into a fiber." Windle and his colleagues presented their results last month at a conference in Luxembourg, which attracted
hundreds of attendees from groups such as NASA and the European Space Agency. John Winter of EuroSpaceward, which organized the
conference, thought the new material was a significant step. "The biggest problem has always been finding a material that is strong enough and
lightweight enough to stretch tens of thousands of miles into space," said Winter. "This isn't going to happen probably for the next decade at least,
but in theory this is now possible. The advances in materials for the tether are very exciting."
8
Observation 4: Advantages
The space elevator has lower costs, environmental, and exploration benefits.
Kate Burkett and Nari Kim, 2010, University of Kansas, Celestial Railroad The Space Elevator,
http://www.kateburkett.com/SpaceElevator.pdf
Whybuildaspaceelevator?
Reducedcosts
the cost of transporting the cargo to

space would decrease significantly. Instead of costing $10,000 per pound, supporters of the space elevator predict that
the invention will lower the price tag by 99- percent, to $100 a pound (Chang, 2003). In addition, the advancement of recent
Although the space elevator takes longer to reach GEO than a traditional space shuttle,
research has lowered the estimate for building the elevator to $6 billion. This is in comparison to the estimated total cost of the International
Space Station, which has exceeded $100 billion (Chang, 2003). If Dr. Edwards were to receive $5 billion in funding today he estimates that, "In
15 years we could have a dozen cables running full steam putting 50 tons in space every day for even less than $100 a pound. Each space
elevator built will make the next one cheaper, lowering the cost to $2 billion, because the first elevator would be the vehicle lifting the materials
into space (Dorneanu, 2007). ThegreenelevatorThe easier economical access to space would also allow important projects not currently practical
Undertaking actions helpful to the environment like sending large numbers of

solar powered satellites into space to collect sunlight and beam energy back down to Earth would be seen as less lavish.
Others suggest that the elevator could be used to shuttle and dispose of nuclear waste (Steere, 2008).
to be further considered.
EarthsorbitandbeyondMuch like the transcontinental railroad, proponents of the space elevator believe it will usher in a new era of human
civilization. Like the American west was opened by the transcontinental railroad, the space elevator has the capability to open up transportation
to the stars and revolutionize space travel by creating a permanent connection between Earth and space. Since the problem of defeating Earths
gravity will be overcome, trips beyond the moon will become actual possibilities. If supported, the space elevator could become the vehicle to
explore a new frontier.9
9
Advantage 1 No Fuel
Space elevator car uses solar power and power beaming
Ben Shelef 08 (head of the spaceward foundation, PDF Solar Based Space Elevator Architecture)
As was argued in [7], the weaker-than-predicted properties of CNTs can be compensated for by a more capable power system. A possible
candidate for such a power architecture is the Solar Augmented climber a hybrid laser/solar
climber design capable of achieving 10 times the power levels possible with power beaming . The
enabler for this design is the recent development of very low weight thin-film photovoltaic technology, able to provide as much as 5
kWatt/kg. Figure 1 shows a self-deploying solar panel demo weighing 32 kg (with deployment hardware labeled 1) and able to provide
50 kWatt of electric power under A0 illumination. The array size is 20m x 20m, and so operates at slightly under 10%. The
power density of the complete panel (foil and booms) is 1.6 kWatt/kg. The superstructure weighs as much as half the complete panel, and the
combined mass-area density is 0.08 kg/m2. It is reasonable to expect the efficiency level of such panels to increase to around 20%, and to be able
to keep at least the same structure-to-foil weight ratio as we go to larger panels. It will be a challenge to keep the same mass ratio for a 1-g
structure, but as well show below, this is possible. Figure 1: Space Solar Panel Demo Moving forward, well assume an overall power density of
2.5 kWatt/kg, a mass density of 0.1 kg/m2, and a raw collection efficiency of roughly 20%. With these parameters, a 1-ton panel provides 2.5
MWatt of electricity, though is more than 100 m in diameter. For a mere 8 tons, we can provide the climber with 20 MWatt of climbing power!
Section 2 deals with the interactions of the solar-powered architecture and the 24-hour day-night cycle, which establish a unique set of constraints
on the system. Section 3 deals with the challenges of deploying and controlling very large solar panels in variable gravity. In the panel shown, the
deployment hardware weighs more than half of the total mass. Using gravity to help in the deployment, we can do better than that.
Rockets will help the US economic collapse

Dan Vergano 11 (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2011-06-25-space-rockets_n.htm, reporter, 6/25/2011)
Ah, The Jetsons, with their fabulous flying cars, Mars vacations and moon dome homes. What's stopping us from living the life of George, Jane,
Judy and the little boy, Elroy? Rockets, says one technology historian. Time to move on from the today's technology to something better.
"If space is the final frontier, why are we still using the same technology that took Yuri Gagarin into orbit a half-century ago," asks Jonathan
Coopersmith of Texas A&M University in College Station. "The answer is economics: Rockets just cost too much and are inherently
limited in how cheap they can get.In the current Space Policy journal, Coopersmith looks at the history of cost-cutting for getting
pounds of stuff into orbit with rockets, the contenders for replacement technologies and reasons we might want to consider spending tax money
on them. Why? Amid a fierce fight today among firms to build a rocket to replace the space shuttle retiring with next month's final Atlantis
launch, he suggests some of the development dough would be better spent on a newer technology than one invented by Chinese alchemists at
least eight centuries ago, chemical rockets. All chemical rockets, whether using solid fuels like the space shuttle's side-mounted booster engines
or liquid fuels such as kerosene or liquid hydrogen, rely on chemical energy, in a process better known as burning, to thrust a rocket skyward.
There is only so much energy released in breaking the bonds between atoms that this entails. Aerospace engineers rate the efficiency of
propellants in terms of "specific impulse," the change in momentum each pound of fuel provides, a quantity measured in seconds. For chemical
rockets, this value tops out around 453 seconds, seen in the space shuttle's main engines. That's pretty low. For comparison, the ion thrusters
aboard NASA's Dawn mission now closing in on the asteroid Vesta, which rely on radio waves liberating electrons from Xenon gas atoms, have a
specific impulse of 3,100 seconds. Sadly, ion rockets provide thrusts far too weak to get a piece of paper off the ground, much less a satellite.
"Rockets work well enough for the people who are able to pay for them," Coopersmith says. But not well enough those dealing with limited
budgets, he says, noting the insurance premium on satellites can run 11% to 20% of its cost, a hundred times more expensive than insuring
a Boeing 747. "It's worse than paying for a teenage driver," he says. From a historical perspective, he compares the situation to paying craftsman
to create linen shirts for rich folks in colonial times. "They worked great for people who could afford them," he says. "But we needed a new
technology before everyone could wear nice shirts. So, while costs of rocketing a pound of cargo into a high stationary orbit have dropped from
$32,000 to $21,000 from 1999 to 2008, a 34% drop, that still is way too high for spaceflight to become practical, Coopersmith concludes. "What
rockets have not done and cannot do is radically reduce the cost of reaching orbit. "What to do? Time to start spending some money on
alternatives, such as beamed energy propulsion, where ground-based lasers or microwaves burn propellant coating the bottom of a rocket,
providing thrust. Or space elevators, where tethers equipped with elevators would connect a satellite parked in a stationary orbit 22,300-miles
above the ground, an idea science fiction fans will recall from Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise. "Failure is normal with new
technologies in history, so the imporant thing is we try to develop a lot of them," he says. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
apparently agrees, making news with its 100-Year Starship Project, a $1 million effort to foster ideas that will enable "long-distance manned
space flight a century from now." And NASA sponsored a visit by a beam-powered unmanned helicopter to Capitol Hill earlier this month. But
the space agency also closed its Institute for Advanced Concepts four years ago to focus money on building a replacement for the space shuttle, a
rocket that has since been canceled. A 2009 National Research Council report concluded "there is no NASA organization responsible for
solicitation, evaluation and maturation of advanced concepts," as a result. "The challenge for a lot of these technologies is thinking big. We spent
billions on developing rockets in the 1950's," Coopersmith says. Of course, a lot of that development, he acknowledges, was spawned by the
desire to beat the Russians to the moon and threaten their cities with intercontinental ballistic missiles in the midst of theCold War, problems we
thankfully don't have now. And with budget deficits the main concern in Washington D.C. these days, NASA's budget looks unlikely to grow.
"We need a reason to grow these new technologies," he says, suggesting space-based solar power as one industry that would blossom with
cheaper launch technologies. "The economics limiting rockets have been staring us in the face for a long time."
US economic collapse would lead to extinction.

10
Newsflavor 2009 (Newsflavor is a network of journalists that cover current events, political coverage, world news, and opinions, April 9,
Will an Economic Collapse Kill You? http://newsflavor.com/opinions/will-an-economic-collapse-kill-you/)
It may or may not sound likely to you, but the economy is on the brink of collapse. The stock market is riding a sled down a steep hill.
The United States government is spending money faster than it can print it. opinRight now the government is passing bills and proposals that will
give trillions of dollars to failing companies and bankrupt manufacturers. They believe that by giving these companies resources to invest and
expand, the economy will expand. The problem with this plan is that the same companies that are receiving billions of dollars in aid arent
prepared to handle this money better than they used capitol in the past. Chances are these companies still have the same investors and
management that they did pre-bailout, so whos to say that they wont make the same mistakes theyve made in the past? The most likely thing to
happen is that these companies are going to spend this money the same way they have in the past and that these companies are going to go
bankrupt, again. These companies are the lynchpin of the economy, such as major insurance providers, banks, investment firms, manufacturers,
etc. If these companies or firms were to collapse, the economy would be falling down the same pit as these companies. Not just the United States
economy, because the U.S. is a major trade partner in this world, and most other countries are dependent on the United States one
way or another, a United States collapse would cause a domino effect on the worlds economy. If the United States
economy failed, for example, we could see Iraq, Iran, and Russia fall with them, because all of their economies are reliant off the selling of
oil. Then the nations who are reliant on their economies would fail, etc. Now its time to look at the consequences of a failing world economy.
With five official nations having nuclear weapons, and four more likely to have them there could be major consequences of
another world war. The first thing that will happen after an economic collapse will be war over resources . The United States currency will become
useless and will have no way of securing reserves. The United States has little to no capacity to produce oil, it is totally dependent on foreign oil.
If the United States stopped getting foreign oil, the government would go to no ends to secure more, if there were a war with any other major
power over oil, like Russia or China, these wars would most likely involve nuclear weapons. Once one nation launches a
nuclear weapon, there would of course be retaliation, and with five or more countries with nuclear weapons there
would most likely be a world nuclear war. The risk is so high that acting to save the economy is the most important issue facing us in the
21st century.
11
Advantage 2 Ozone Safe

Reducing reliance on launch vehicles is key to stop ozone depletion
Foust 9, Editor of the Space Review (Jeff, June 15, Space and (or versus) the Environment,
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1395/1)
While the current rate of ozone loss is considered insignificant, the paper examined what would happen if there was a sharp increase in launch
rates. If launch rates doubled every decade, they found, rising emissions from rockets would offset the decline in other
ozone-depleting substances by around 2035, causing ozone depletion rates to rise again. The effect would be sooner and
sharper if launch rates tripled every decade. The authors conclude that, in such a scenario, there would be a move to regulate rocket emissions that
could, in the worst case, sharply restrict launch activity. With todays launch systems, though, such an outcome seems unlikely: most forecasts for
the next decade project relatively flat levels of launch activityabout 6070 orbital launches a yearthat is far short of a doubling or tripling .
However, a wild card here is space tourism and other suborbital launch activity, which is projected to grow from
effectively zero today to hundreds or even thousands of launches a year by the end of the next decade, if systems enter
service as planned and demand for such flights matches existing projections. The Astropolitics paper doesnt take such missions, or interest in
point-to-point suborbital or hypersonic travel, into account. Martin Ross, lead author of the paper at the Aerospace Corporation, said in an email
last week that this is an area they will be looking at. They will also be studying the effect on ozone by emissions from hybrid rocket motors like
the one being developed for SS2, something that he said there currently isnt any information about. In an op-ed in last weeks issue of Space
News, Ross urged the space industry to address this issue head-on rather than avoid it in the hopes it might go away on its own. It is clear that
the risk of regulation that would cap or even tax space systems according to the amount of ozone depletion they
cause is small, but it is real, he wrote. He added: Historically, technical activities with high visibilitysuch as space operationsoften
excite unpredictable public and regulatory attention. Combined with a lack of scientifically reliable environmental effects data, the risk of
idiosyncratic and overly restrictive regulation is high.
Ozone Depletion causes Extinction

Greenpeace, 1995 Full of Homes: The Montreal Protocol and the Continuing Destruction of the Ozone Layer,
http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/holes/holebg.html.
When chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina first postulated a link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone layer depletion in 1974, the
news was greeted with scepticism, but taken seriously nonetheless. The vast majority of credible scientists have since confirmed this hypothesis.
The ozone layer around the Earth shields us all from harmful ultraviolet radiationfrom the sun. Without the ozone
layer, life on earth would not exist. Exposure to increased levels of ultraviolet radiation can cause cataracts, skin cancer, and immune
system suppression in humans as well as innumerable effects on other living systems. This is why Rowland's and Molina's theory was taken so
seriously, so quickly - the stakes are literally the continuation of life on earth.
12
Advantage 3 Repeatable
Space elevator does not help to the debris in space and dependence on launches means debris
cascade effect is inevitablethis will make space unusable
Lynda Williams 10, Professor of Physics @ Santa Rosa Junior College, Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization Peace Review, The
New Arms Race in Outer Space 22.1 Spring 2010 [HT]
Available Online @ <http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf>
Since the space race began 50 years ago with the launch of Sputnik, the space environment around Earth has become
overcrowded with satellites and space debris, so much so, that circumterrestrial space has become a dangerous place with an
increasing risk of collision and destruction. Thousands of pieces of space junk created from launches orbit the Earth in
the
same orbit as satellites, putting them at risk of collision. Every time a rocket is launched, debris from the rocket
stages are put into orbital space. In 2009 there was a disastrous collision between an Iridium satellite and a piece of space junk that
destroyed the satellite. In 2007 China blew up one of its defunct satellites to demonstrate its antiballistic missile capabilities, increasing the debris
field by 15%. There are no international laws prohibiting anti-satellite actions. Every year, since the mid 1980s, a treaty has been introduced into
the UN for a Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), with all parties including Russia and China voting for it except for the US.
How can we hope to pursue a peaceful and environmentally sound route of space exploration without international laws in place that protect
space and Earth environments and guarantee that the space race to the moon and beyond does not foster a war over space resources? Indeed, if
the space debris problem continues to grow unfettered or if there is war in space, space will become too trashed for
launches to take place without risk of destruction.
This independently causes miscalculation and accidental nuclear war

David Ritchie, IT Business Relationship Manager at SELEX S&AS, 1982, Spacewar, http://spacedebate.org/evidence/1768/
the greatest danger posed by the militarization of space is that of war by accident . At any given time, several thousand
satellites and other pieces of equipment -- spent booster stages and the like -- are circling the earth, most of them in low orbit.
Perhaps
The space immediately above the atmosphere has begun to resemble an expressway at rush hour. It is not uncommon for satellites to miss each
other by only a kilometer or two, and satellites crashing into each other may explain some of the mysterious incidents in which space
vehicles simply vanish from the skies. One civillian TV satellite has been lost in space; it never entered its intended orbit, and no signals were
heard from it to indicate where it might have gone. Collision with something else in space seems a reasonable explanation of this disappearance.
Even a tiny fragment of metal striking a satellite at a relative velocity of a few kilometers per second would wreck the satellite, ripping through it
like a Magnum slug through a tin can. Now suppose that kind of mishap befell a military satellite -- in the worst possible
situation, during a time of international tension with all players in the spacewar game braced for attacks on their spacecraft. The
culpable fragment might be invisible from the ground; even something as small and light as a paper clip could inflict massive
damage on a satellite at high velocity. Unaware of the accident, a less than cautious leader might interpret it as a
preconceived attack. Wars have begun over smaller incidents.
13
Advantage 4 Uses
List of uses that the space elevator can do
David Raitt and Bradley Edwards 04 (David Raitt Senior Technology Transfer Officer, Technology Transfer & Promotion Office,
European Space Agency, Bradley Edwards President, X Tech Corp, THE SPACE ELEVATOR: ECONOMICS AND APPLICATIONS,
http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/iac-2004/iac-04-iaa.3.8.3.09.raitt.pdf)
The Space Elevator will be capable of placing into various orbits, including LEO and GEO and beyond, large payloads such
as very long optical booms, huge radio dishes, complex planetary probes, and manned modules including hotels and
penal colonies. It will be particularly suited to oversized, awkwardly-shaped and/or fragile structures and components since
there will be no restrictions on size (up to a point, of course), nor will the payloads be subject to launch forces. This in turn implies that spacecraft can
be constructed more cheaply since delicate components will not need to be protected against vibration to the same degree. Examples of payloads and
applications include telescopes, interplanetary spacecraft and probes, Moon and Mars access, space tourism, power
beaming, asteroid mining, telecommunications, weather stations, and asteroid detection to mention but a few. And no doubt the
military will also be interested for its own activities. One major use envisioned at the outset is that of launching solar energy platforms which will
collect the limitless energy of the sun and beam it down to Earth for a constant source of clean, renewable power. This would have enormous
implications for the environment and sustainable development by cutting fossil fuel consumption and thus eliminating harmful greenhouse gases.
It would also avoid the necessity of constructing tall solar towers which, of necessity, have huge ground footprints. The solar tower under development in
Australia, for instance, will have a collector nearly 6km in diameter and require over 50 square kilometers for the construction. Current costs put the capital
investment needed for a space solar power system well in the tens of billions of dollars. Such systems would be able to supply power at approximately $0.2/kWhr which is still above conventional power production rates of competitive terrestrial options such as fission plants and wind turbines. The major hurdle has been
the launch costs required to place 20 million kilo systems at geosynchronous altitude. Conventional rocket systems can place 5000kg in geosynchronous for
roughly $200m (Atlas V or Delta IV). This would place the total launch costs at 800bn. However, recent work suggests that these costs would drop with the Space
Elevator. Total launch costs would be around $30bn and allow for roughly $0.1$/kW-hr power production. This is competitive with terrestrial-based power
supplies. More R&D work is needed to bring the technology to maturity for such a programme but countries such as Japan have stated a commitment to
construct a space solar power system by 2040. In a period when the days of the ISS seem numbered, the Space Elevator could step in to fulfill the promise of
providing facilities to test and develop new drugs and materials in microgravity. Specialist automated labs could be placed at various locations adjoining the
ribbon to create and manufacture components for the pharmaceutical and electronics industries. Other labs could house space gardens to grow plants and crops
not only to develop improved varieties for terrestrial use, but also to provide food for people living and working in space. One tremendous problem that the
Space Elevator could easily solve is the disposal of nuclear waste which is accumulating at three million kilos per year in the United States alone.
Over 43million kg of nuclear waste are already in temporary storage. The same picture is to be found in other nuclear nations. There have been several ideas for
getting rid of spent fuel including letting it melt its way down through the Antarctic ice cap until it reached bedrock and dumping it at sea. These options are
banned under international treaty. Another option, being looked at in the US, is burying it under a mountain forever. Even though safeguards will be put in place,
there is still the worry, as with all nuclear power stations, that there will be inevitable environmental contamination. Yet another possibility is blasting nuclear
waste off towards the sun. The fear here is that if the rocket carrying the nuclear waste exploded on take-off then that would be an unacceptable disaster
spreading radioactive fallout over a wide area. But, nuclear waste containers could be easily and safely transported up the Space Elevator to a suitable point and
then launched from there towards the sun with an absolute minimum risk to life and the environment on Earth. The idea of a Space Elevator was first mooted
in 1895 by a Russian scientist who was inspired by the construction of the Eiffel Tower, although the concept may have originated much earlier in the old
childrens story of Jack and the Beanstalk. When it is in place, the Space Elevator could be used for another, more scientific, purpose it could be used as a
giant sticky flypaper to trap cosmic dust all along its length. Cosmic dust comprising particles from distant stars, from nearby planets,
from deserts, forest fires and coral reefs on Earth is there in abundance and much can be gleaned from the relatively few grains that can be captured by
current methods. Having dust traps all along a length of 100.000 km would enable a fascinating picture to be built up of the transport and content of dust through
the various layers of the atmosphere and space.
This advantage can solve for at least 15 Aff cases but here are 2 sub-points:
14
Sub-point A) Solar Panels

SBSP would transform the US economy generating enough resources for sustainable growth
Medin Winter 2010, (Kristin Chief Industrial Designer, NewSpace DesignLabs Disruptive Technology: A Space-Based Solar Power Industry Forecast
http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/medin.html Issue No. 16: Solar Power Satellites.)
A first step is to define and illustrate the potential significance of space-based solar power for the future evolution of civilization.
Using historical precedence is one way to make the argument for solar power satellites in terms of types of government support and private industry initiatives
and investment needed. For example, the indirect benefits of SBSP can be presented in the context of future population
growth, increasing requirements for electrical power, declining natural resources and heightened environmental and
other risks. Advancements in human civilization can be marked by the appearance of disruptive technologies, those
unanticipated innovations that rapidly surpassed current state-of-the-art and dramatically improved quality of life.
Development of the printing press illustrated this principle as the rapid reproduction of books enabled public literacy and the invention of
steam engines for trains and ships enabled faster travel and quicker distribution of information. Advancements associated with transporting commodities
launched revolutions that forever changed society. When the United States of America was in its infancy, and its populations were clustered predominantly on its
eastern Atlantic coast, the development of a Transcontinental Railroad enabled the import and export of goods to and from its western Pacific Coast. Instead of
waiting for ships to sail around the tip of South America, goods were loaded onto the railroads and shipped across the continent. What is important to remember
about this example is that the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad was backed by the government, but operated as a commercial enterprise initiated by
the private sector.[1] With the comparatively quicker exchange of commodities between the east and west coasts, entrepreneurs found themselves with
increased access to the materials needed to achieve their vision. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad sped along the American industrial
ascendancy. The rail innovation encouraged the manufacturing of products for distant markets, prompting mass production. The development of new water, coal
and oil powered machines helped to fabricate the items that made life seem more civilized. From the mid-1800's to the turn of the century, the mass-production of
goods - ranging from hairpins to horseless carriages - and the introduction of new technologies affecting the lifestyle of average citizens marked a time when
there was a significant leap in socioeconomic well being.
List of uses that the space elevator can do, SBSP portion SBSP also solves for ozone extinction
scenario by creating new green energy
The Space Elevator will be capable of placing into various orbits, including LEO and GEO and beyond, large payloads such as very long optical booms, huge
radio dishes, complex planetary probes, and manned modules including hotels and penal colonies. It will be particularly suited to oversized, awkwardly-shaped
and/or fragile structures and components since there will be no restrictions on size (up to a point, of course), nor will the payloads be subject to launch forces.
This in turn implies that spacecraft can be constructed more cheaply since delicate components will not need to be protected against vibration to the same
degree. Examples of payloads and applications include telescopes, interplanetary spacecraft and probes, Moon and Mars access, space tourism, power
beaming, asteroid mining, telecommunications, weather stations, and asteroid detection to mention but a few. And no doubt the military will also be interested for
its own activities. One major use envisioned at the outset is that of launching solar energy platforms which will collect the limitless
energy of the sun and beam it down to Earth for a constant source of clean, renewable power. This would
have enormous implications for the environment and sustainable development by cutting fossil fuel
consumption and thus eliminating harmful greenhouse gases. It would also avoid the necessity of
constructing tall solar towers which, of necessity, have huge ground footprints. The solar tower under development in Australia, for instance, will
have a collector nearly 6km in diameter and require over 50 square kilometers for the construction. Current costs put the capital investment needed for a space
solar power system well in the tens of billions of dollars. Such systems would be able to supply power at approximately $0.2/kW-hr which is still above
conventional power production rates of competitive terrestrial options such as fission plants and wind turbines. The major hurdle has been the launch costs
required to place 20 million kilo systems at geosynchronous altitude. Conventional rocket systems can place 5000kg in geosynchronous for roughly $200m
(Atlas V or Delta IV). This would place the total launch costs at 800bn. However, recent work suggests that these costs would drop with the Space Elevator. Total
launch costs would be around $30bn and allow for roughly $0.1$/kW-hr power production. This is competitive with terrestrial-based power supplies. More R&D
work is needed to bring the technology to maturity for such a programme but countries such as Japan have stated a commitment to construct a space solar
power system by 2040. In a period when the days of the ISS seem numbered, the Space Elevator could step in to fulfill the promise of providing facilities to test
and develop new drugs and materials in microgravity. Specialist automated labs could be placed at various locations adjoining the ribbon to create and
manufacture components for the pharmaceutical and electronics industries. Other labs could house space gardens to grow plants and crops not only to
develop improved varieties for terrestrial use, but also to provide food for people living and working in space. One tremendous problem that the Space Elevator
could easily solve is the disposal of nuclear waste which is accumulating at three million kilos per year in the United States alone. Over 43million kg of nuclear
waste are already in temporary storage. The same picture is to be found in other nuclear nations. There have been several ideas for getting rid of spent fuel
including letting it melt its way down through the Antarctic ice cap until it reached bedrock and dumping it at sea. These options are banned under international
treaty. Another option, being looked at in the US, is burying it under a mountain forever. Even though safeguards will be put in place, there is still the worry, as
with all nuclear power stations, that there will be inevitable environmental contamination. Yet another possibility is blasting nuclear waste off towards the sun.
The fear here is that if the rocket carrying the nuclear waste exploded on take-off then that would be an unacceptable disaster spreading radioactive fallout
over a wide area. But, nuclear waste containers could be easily and safely transported up the Space Elevator to a suitable point and then launched from there
towards the sun with an absolute minimum risk to life and the environment on Earth. The idea of a Space Elevator was first mooted in 1895 by a Russian
scientist who was inspired by the construction of the Eiffel Tower, although the concept may have originated much earlier in the old childrens story of Jack and
the Beanstalk. When it is in place, the Space Elevator could be used for another, more scientific, purpose it could be used as a giant sticky flypaper to trap
cosmic dust all along its length. Cosmic dust comprising particles from distant stars, from nearby planets, from deserts, forest fires and coral reefs on Earth is
15
there in abundance and much can be gleaned from the relatively few grains that can be captured by current methods. Having dust traps all along a length of
100.000 km would enable a fascinating picture to be built up of the transport and content of dust through the various layers of the atmosphere and space.
SBSP will create millions of jobs, solve energy wars, and provide the spark for an explosion of tech
spinoffs solves for economy DA
Medin Winter 2010, (Kristin Chief Industrial Designer, NewSpace DesignLabs Disruptive Technology: A Space-Based Solar
Power Industry Forecast http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue16/medin.html Issue No. 16: Solar Power Satellites.)
Now, multiple nations are exploring the prospects for launching a new breed of satellites
designed to harvest solar power in space, transmitting it from geosynchronous orbit to terrestrial receivers. If these plans
turn out, solar power satellites will radically change the ways we harness and
distribute energy. Solar power from space is far more efficient than terrestrial capture
due to the filtering effects of our atmosphere and the day and night cycles experienced
everywhere on earth. Solar power is thought to be our most likely candidate
for a clean-base, renewable and dependable source for energ y. According to Dr. Feng Hsu,
Technical Lead and Manager over Integrated Risk Management at NASA, Goddard , roughly 350,000,000 terawatt hours of energy
falls towards earth per year.[5] SMSP has obvious selling points, but this development presents advantages
of a higher order. That is, the implementation of solar power satellites has the prospect
of enabling development of other technologies, which can send waves of creative
innovation throughout global society. Is it hard to imagine its implications for
international peace keeping? Wars are fought over access to energy. Sun's
energy is abundant and free, if we can learn how to tap it. Is it hard to imagine
that capturing and delivering sun's energy to global users is a global
business, and that thousands of careers and millions of jobs will be created
in the process of bringing it to reality?
Todays energy unsustainable for future energy needs

Atkinson 09 (Nancy, Universe Today, New Company Looks to Produce Space Based Solar Power Within a Decade
http://www.universetoday.com/25754/new-company-looks-to-produce-space-based-solar-power-within-a-decade/ DOA: 7/19/11)
According to a white paper written by aerospace engineer James Michael Snead, The End of Easy Energy and What Are We Going To Do About
in order to meet the worlds projected increase in energy needs by 2100 which likely will be at
sustainable energy production must expand by a
factor of over 25. Under that scenario, even if the US were to build 70 new nuclear plants, add the
equivalent of 15 more Hoover Dams, expand the geothermal capacity by 50 times what it
is today, install over a million large land or sea wind turbines covering 150,000 square
miles, build 60,000 square miles of commercial solar voltaic farms, and on top of that
convert 1.3 billion dry tons of food mass to bio fuels, still only 30% of the power needs
would be filled by 2100, or perhaps even earlier.
It,
least three times what is being produced today, todays
Space Elevators are necessary for Space Based Solar Power

Marks 09 (Paul Marks is the chief technology correspondent for the New Scientist)
(http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/01/space-elevators-needed-for-spa.html)
It might sound like the piling of one unlikely science fiction idea on top of another - but the small band of enthusiasts who believe machines
a space
elevator - which would theoretically ride between Earth and geostationary orbit on a 1-metre-wide ultratough ribbon - is the only
affordable way to place the vast solar arrays of a space-based solar power (SBSP) system
16
called space elevators could one day become a reality say their technology could one day save the planet. The reason? They say
in Earth orbit. Many space scientists agree that cleanly supplying the Earth's energy
needs by placing vast solar arrays in space - and beaming down the energy they collect in the form of microwaves
for conversion to electricity - is eminently possible with today's technology (though it may not - as yet - be highly
efficient). And the idea is so promising it has hit the US political agenda in recent weeks with the issue getting play on www.change.gov - Barack
Obama's policy discussion site - and also within NASA amongst members of the Obama transition team. The problem is that getting the massive
arrays into geostationary orbit is unaffordable with any known chemical rocket technology. To match the electricity output of a single fossil-fuel
it currently costs between

$10,000 and $25,000 to launch every kilogram of payload into geostationary orbit.
"Half the cost of everything you put in space is down to the launch cost," former spaceflight
power station, an SBSP satellite would weigh around 3 million kilograms (3000 tonnes). And
engineer Peter Swan told the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, UK, in October 2008. "The economics of space-based solar power
don't work with current launch costs. So we have to figure out how to do it without chemical launch." Enter the elevator, Swan says. He's a
former spaceflight engineer and is now a leading light and a coordinator in the global space elevator advocacy community. "One of the major
issues is power. How do we distribute power? Do we continue to burn carbon? In
the event of a space elevator

becoming operational, we could change the condition of humanity," Swan told IAC delegates.
How SBSP works

Michael Totty October 19, 2009 Five Technologies That Could Change Everything
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461342682276898.html
technology may sound like science fiction, but it's simple: Solar panels in orbit about
22,000 miles up beam energy in the form of microwaves to earth, where it's turned into
electricity and plugged into the grid. (The low-powered beams are considered safe.) A
ground receiving station a mile in diameter could deliver about 1,000 megawatts
enough to power on average about 1,000 U.S. homes. The cost of sending solar collectors into space is the
The
biggest obstacle, so it's necessary to design a system lightweight enough to require only a few launches. A handful of countries and companies
aim to deliver HAEL TOTTY space-based power as early as a decade from now.
17
Sub-point B) Nuclear Waste

Too much nuclear waste, no where to put it
MARK MAREMONT 11(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904292504576484133479927502.html Reporter 8/9/11)
Imagine a football field packed 20 feet high with highly radioactive nuclear waste. That's about the volume of the 65,000 metric
tons of spent nuclear fuel stranded at dozens of nuclear sites across the U.S. A caution sign marked an area around a pool that protected spent nuclear
fuel at the Indian Point power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., in 2007. It
isn't just a potential public health hazard, as Japan's recent

nuclear disaster showed, but a growing burden on the federal government's groaning finances. A decades-old promise to dispose
of the waste has become another unfunded liability, starting with a $25 billion ratepayer fund gone astray and $16 billion or more in estimated legal
judgments to compensate utilities for their storage expenses. The costs of the ultimate disposal project also are sure to rise, with no plan in sight to
replace the now-canceled plan to entomb the waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. In a draft report issued late last month, a presidential panel
recommended overhauling the waste-disposal project to make it more selffinancing. But that would increase the federal budget deficit, a long shot in
light of current deficit politics. The Obama administration has requested no funding for the disposal program in its fiscal 2012 budget, officials say.
Former waste-project officials say that the lack of assured long-term funding is a critical flaw in a decades-long
capital project, and that over the years it exposed the Yucca Mountain plan to political meddling and budget cuts that added delays and contributed
to its demise. The project's funding arrangement is "fundamentally broken," said Ward Sproat, who headed the civilian nuclear-waste program during
the latter part of President George W. Bush's administration. He said overhauling it was "absolutely essential. "Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the
Department of Energy, said that "we fully intend to meet our contractual obligations for long-term disposal of these materials." He noted the panel's final
report wasn't due until January, and said, " We
are committed to finding a sustainable approach to assuring safe, secure, longterm disposal of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.When the federal government took responsibility for nuclear-waste disposal three
decades ago, taxpayers weren't supposed to be on the hook. Under a "polluter pays" doctrine, the 1982 law required nuclear utilities to shoulder the
cost through an annual fee paid to the federal government. The fee was to be deposited in a newly created Nuclear Waste Fund that the U.S.
Department of Energy could tap to fund the storage project. The fee, which ultimately comes from nuclear-electricity customers as a surcharge of
1/10th of a cent per kilowatt hour, now amounts to about $750 million a year. Counting past expenditures and interest earned, the fund's balance is
about $25 billion. But that cash doesn't really exist. Since the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, Congress and successive
administrations have changed the plan so that the fees paid by utilities essentially are treated like taxes and go into the government's general coffers.
"It sounds like there's a piggy bank and there's all this money that is available for a future [nuclear] repository," said Richard Stewart, a New York
University law professor and co-author of a book on nuclear waste policy. "But there isn't. Congress has spent it on other things." The $25 billion, he
and others say, amounts to little more than a federal IOU that will need to be repaid. At the same time, the nuclear-waste program was required to
compete with other programs for annual appropriations from Congress. The bottom line: Spending on the program is counted against the deficit,
instead of the self-funding intended in the original law. Because the government failed to start taking spent fuel as promised beginning in 1998, utilities
are suing it to cover their additional storage costs. Federal officials have estimated it will cost $16.2 billion to pay legal judgments owed to utilities by
2020assuming the U.S. is able to start taking waste from utilities starting thenand $500 million a year after that. A group of state regulators and the
Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade organization, are suing the Department of Energy, seeking to suspend collection of the annual fees utilities pay into
the waste fund. "There's no sense paying a fee if you're not getting a program for it," said NEI's Steven Kraft. The need to safely dispose of the nuclear
waste at the dozens of sites, including nine where now-closed reactors once stood, has taken on new urgency in recent months, after an earthquake in
March spawned a tsunami that devastated a Japanese nuclear plant. The plant operator had to take emergency measures to keep pools of spent fuel
stored at the site from being drained and releasing more radiation from the accident. The draft report issued July 29 by the panel, the Blue Ribbon
Commission on America's Nuclear Future, said the U.S. nuclear-waste disposal program had "all but broken down" and suggested a series of fixes.
One recommendation was an overhaul of what it called the "dysfunctional" Nuclear Waste Fund arrangement. The panel was formed last year by
President Barack Obama, after the administration's decision to halt the Yucca Mountain project. The panel includes former elected officials from both
major parties, along with academic experts and representatives of industry and labor. One of the panel's proposals was to cut the annual fees collected
from utilities to match the level of federal spending on the program. Uncollected funds would go into utility-run trust funds, to be tapped when needed
for the waste project. That would put the project onto sounder fiscal footing, the panel said, but would add to the near-term federal deficit because
some of the utility fees wouldn't be counted as current revenue. Still, the panel draft report said, "the bill will come due at some point," because the
government is contractually bound to remove the spent fuel. Legal challenges to the Yucca decision are pending. The Energy Department in 2008
estimated that building the Yucca Mountain facility and then transferring waste to it would cost $83 billion in 2007 dollars, most of it over a six-decade
span, on top of the $13.5 billion already spent.If the plan is dead and the government has to find a new site, the ultimate cost of disposal almost
certainly will rise. Beyond disposal costs, taxpayers are also potentially liable for damages suffered by the public from a nuclear accident, including
those stemming from the spent fuel stored at commercial power plant sites. Under a 1950s law, plant operators currently must carry $375 million of
liability insurance for each reactor, after which an industry insurance plan would take over, covering damages up to $12 billion. Any personal injury or
property damages in excess of that would be borne by the federal government.
18
Space is best place to put nuclear waste

Jonathan Coopersmith, 2005, (8/22, Texas A&M University, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/437/1)
When I fly from Texas to Europe, I pay $36 a pound, depending on how well I do buying a ticket. When a satellite or shuttle is launched into
space, the customer (or taxpayer) pays over $10,000 a pound. That is the major challenge of space flight: until the cost of going into space
drastically decreases, the large-scale exploration and exploitation of space will not occur. The world currently sends approximately 200 tons of
payloads, the equivalent of two 747 freighter flights, into space annually. At $50500 million a launch, very few cargoes can justify their cost. We
have here the classic chicken-and-egg situation. As long as space flight remains very expensive, payloads will be small. As long as payloads
remain small, rockets will be expensive. If annual demand were 5,000 tons instead of 200, the equation would shift. Engineers would have the
incentive to design more efficient launch systems. Large, guaranteed payloads could significantly reduce the cost of reaching orbit, ushering in a
new, affordable era in space for governments, businesses, universities, and, hopefully, individuals. Where would this much new cargo come from?
Fortunately, there is an answer. Unfortunately, its not intuitively attractive, at least at first glance: its high-level nuclear waste, the 45,000 tons
and 380,000 cubic meters of high-level radioactive spent fuel and process waste and detritus (as opposed to the more abundant but far less
dangerous and shorter-lived low-level waste) from six decades of nuclear weapons programs and civilian power plants. There are three good
reasons to send nuclear waste into space. First, it is safe. Second, space disposal is better than the alternative,
underground burial. Third, it may finally open the door to widespread utilization of space. Because of the obvious and real
concern about moving such dangerous material anywhere, let alone into space, this proposal justly raises the question of safety. Can nuclear waste
be safely launched into earth orbit? The answer is yes. By keeping the launch system on the ground instead of putting it on the vehicle, designing
and building unbreakable containers, and arranging multiple layers of safety precautions, we can operate in a judicious and safe manner.
List of uses that the space elevator can do, nuclear waste portion solve for international problems
The Space Elevator will be capable of placing into various orbits, including LEO and GEO and beyond, large payloads such as very long optical booms, huge
radio dishes, complex planetary probes, and manned modules including hotels and penal colonies. It will be particularly suited to oversized, awkwardly-shaped
and/or fragile structures and components since there will be no restrictions on size (up to a point, of course), nor will the payloads be subject to launch forces.
This in turn implies that spacecraft can be constructed more cheaply since delicate components will not need to be protected against vibration to the same
degree. Examples of payloads and applications include telescopes, interplanetary spacecraft and probes, Moon and Mars access, space tourism, power
beaming, asteroid mining, telecommunications, weather stations, and asteroid detection to mention but a few. And no doubt the military will also be interested for
its own activities. One major use envisioned at the outset is that of launching solar energy platforms which will collect the limitless energy of the sun and
beam it down to Earth for a constant source of clean, renewable power. This would have enormous implications for the environment and
sustainable development by cutting fossil fuel consumption and thus eliminating harmful greenhouse gases. It would also avoid the necessity of
constructing tall solar towers which, of necessity, have huge ground footprints. The solar tower under development in Australia, for instance, will have a
collector nearly 6km in diameter and require over 50 square kilometers for the construction. Current costs put the capital investment needed for a space solar
power system well in the tens of billions of dollars. Such systems would be able to supply power at approximately $0.2/kW-hr which is still above conventional
power production rates of competitive terrestrial options such as fission plants and wind turbines. The major hurdle has been the launch costs required to place
20 million kilo systems at geosynchronous altitude. Conventional rocket systems can place 5000kg in geosynchronous for roughly $200m (Atlas V or Delta IV).
This would place the total launch costs at 800bn. However, recent work suggests that these costs would drop with the Space Elevator. Total launch costs would
be around $30bn and allow for roughly $0.1$/kW-hr power production. This is competitive with terrestrial-based power supplies. More R&D work is needed to
bring the technology to maturity for such a programme but countries such as Japan have stated a commitment to construct a space solar power system by 2040.
In a period when the days of the ISS seem numbered, the Space Elevator could step in to fulfill the promise of providing facilities to test and develop new drugs
and materials in microgravity. Specialist automated labs could be placed at various locations adjoining the ribbon to create and manufacture components for the
pharmaceutical and electronics industries. Other labs could house space gardens to grow plants and crops not only to develop improved varieties for terrestrial
use, but also to provide food for people living and working in space. One tremendous problem that the Space Elevator could easily
solve is the disposal of nuclear waste which is accumulating at three million kilos per year in the United States
alone. Over 43million kg of nuclear waste are already in temporary storage. The same picture is to be found in other
nuclear nations. There have been several ideas for getting rid of spent fuel including letting it melt its way down through the Antarctic ice cap until it
reached bedrock and dumping it at sea. These options are banned under international treaty. Another option, being looked at in the US, is burying it under a
mountain forever. Even though safeguards will be put in place, there is still the worry, as with all nuclear power stations, that there will be inevitable environmental
contamination. Yet another possibility is blasting nuclear waste off towards the sun. The fear here is that if the rocket carrying the nuclear waste exploded on
take-off then that would be an unacceptable disaster spreading radioactive fallout over a wide area. But, nuclear waste containers could be
easily and safely transported up the Space Elevator to a suitable point and then launched from there towards the sun
with an absolute minimum risk to life and the environment on Earth. The idea of a Space Elevator was first mooted in 1895 by a
Russian scientist who was inspired by the construction of the Eiffel Tower, although the concept may have originated much earlier in the old childrens story of
19
Jack and the Beanstalk. When it is in place, the Space Elevator could be used for another, more scientific, purpose it could be used as a giant sticky flypaper to
trap cosmic dust all along its length. Cosmic dust comprising particles from distant stars, from nearby planets, from deserts, forest fires and coral reefs on Earth
is there in abundance and much can be gleaned from the relatively few grains that can be captured by current methods. Having dust traps all along a length of
100.000 km would enable a fascinating picture to be built up of the transport and content of dust through the various layers of the atmosphere and space.
20

A giant elevator to space

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A giant elevator to space

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Observation 1: Inherency

Shuttle ending means we need a new way to space

to deter large-scale exploration and exploitation

What is a Solar Sail?

SAIL TRAJECTORIES FOR

the shape and

A great deal of Asteroids are in close proximity to the Earth

An asteroid is incoming soon that will be best time to move it to NEO

is estimated to have a 320 meters diameter and a mass of

Use asteroid as the space anchor and mining for carbon

Carbon Creates Tether

the cost of transporting the cargo to

Undertaking actions helpful to the environment like sending large numbers of

Rockets will help the US economic collapse

US economic collapse would lead to extinction.

Advantage 2 Ozone Safe

Ozone Depletion causes Extinction

launches to take place without risk of destruction.

This independently causes miscalculation and accidental nuclear war

preconceived attack. Wars have begun over smaller incidents.

Sub-point A) Solar Panels

Todays energy unsustainable for future energy needs

least three times what is being produced today, todays

Space Elevators are necessary for Space Based Solar Power

it currently costs between

the event of a space elevator

How SBSP works

Sub-point B) Nuclear Waste

isn't just a potential public health hazard, as Japan's recent

Space is best place to put nuclear waste

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