This episode has at its core the implications of Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation, which figures the hard limits of rocket-based payload transportation to Earth’s orbit.

Furthermore, rockets are expensive, up to failure, risky and carry too little payload.

Making rockets more efficient reminds analogically of Henry Ford’s classic:

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.

One of the non-rocket approaches to get a fast, cheap, safe and repeatable transport to orbit is the Space Elevator concept which we are going to cover in the episode with our guest, the amazing Josh Bernard-Cooper, a University of St Andrews Physics and Philosophy student, International Space University alumni and Research Assistant at the International Space Elevator Consortium.

CONTENT

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:00 The basic concept of a space elevator

00:12:00 Google X, NASA

00:16:00 Motivation to build elevators

00:24:00 Design concepts

00:32:00 Speed of the climber and radiation

00:34:00 Main Challenges

00:37:00 Space debris and elevator collaps

00:38:00 Best place on Earth to install the elevator

00:40:00 Beta test the elevator on Moon and Mars?

00:41:00 Optimal Altitude for beta best

00:44:00 How many people are involved?

00:47:00 Non-rocket launcher ideas

00:49:00 Fundings, Prizes, Sponsors

00:52:00 Elevator in 10 years?

00:57:00 Realists vs Futurists

00:59:00 Why a lead blanket is useful in the Elevator