The Space Elevator Reference

Ongoing Commentary from Michael Laine on Liftport, Past, Present and Future

So what's it like to pour your soul into your vision and after years of building it up seeing it come crashing down? In an open and frank ongoing commentary on the Liftport blog, Michael Laine is chronicling how he got to this point in his quest to build a space elevator, what's happening now and what may happen in the future.

Here's an excerpt from one of his blog postings today:

"I will have many blog postings over the next several weeks, chronicling our success and progress – and if needs be, failure… We will go on. It is harder than it was before. It’s not commonly known, but I -personally- was the main person bankrolling this project. There were others, at a much much smaller level of financial commitment. The largest of our other investors had only $15k at risk. Most were in the $2-5k range. In contrast, I used my own resources to capitalize the day-to-day operations. I have only taken $30k in salaries in the last 5 years, combined. The project lived in my building – rent free – for the past 4 years. I have personally invested about $400k into the company. So, add that all up, and with deferred salary, deferred rent, and cash from my checkbook, and I have committed somewhere near $1M of my own assets to this idea, this vision, of how the world could be…"

Whether you agree with his approach to building his vision into reality you have to give him respect for the effort.

I too believe that building a space elevator is a noble cause. One that could someday open the way to a larger human presence in space. The image you see to the right of this post is just a small part of a larger painting that hangs on my office wall. I commissioned renowned space artist Michael Carroll to paint it. For the most part I have kept quiet as Michael and Liftport went about their business these past few years. The reason is simple, if they succeeded, well that would be good for all of us. However if they failed it would be bad for all of us. It was even suggested that once the problems surfaced at Liftport that it would be best if I kept quiet about it, after all it would hurt the effort. But you see, I approach the space elevator concept from a very no nonsense businesslike approach. Vision and passion will only take you so far in the real world. You need resources, read lots and lots of money, you need new materials, new technologies, well you get the point. So to get a space elevator built you need to start with practical matters, solve some of the basic problems, such as material development then move onto the next problem. Solving some of these practical problems can lead to spinoffs that can generate revenue that will fund the next stage of development. Take a look at the spinoffs from research and development at NASA to see what's come out of public R&D funding.

So why don't I get more involved in any one space elevator development? A fair question. First of all I don't have the resources to invest in such a venture at this time other than the creation of this site. And this site is still in its infancy. My two editor colleagues and myself have plans to expand and make the site more useful for people interested in tackling all the challenges that lie ahead. And for those people who read this site but don't know much about me, well I do keep busy. I'm the co-founder and developer of the SpaceRef network of sites which consists of 19 web sites. I'm also the co-founder and CEO of the Mars Institute which is a very active research institute working on several Mars projects with several space agencies, universities and companies. I also run an internet technology development company, aTerra, working on data aggregation and vertical search. As well I helped my fiancee start an online retail business last year. Someday I would like to put some of my resources into a venture that will help with taking the space elevator from a concept to reality. However at this time I have not found a company that company I would invest in and also have not decided to start one of my own.

For now I suggest people read the Liftport blog as Michael adds to it, watch what he and other companies, organizations do, get involved and hopefully one day the concept will turn into reality.

Scottie - Shields Up on the Space Elevator

So here's an interesting shield technology experiment being tried at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK:

Scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory plan to mimic nature. They will build a miniature magnetosphere in a laboratory to see if a deflector shield can be used to protect humans living on spacecraft and in bases on the Moon or Mars.

I wonder if the technology could someday be adopted to protect parts of a space elevator.

Liftport Regroups and Will Focus on Balloon-Borne Platforms

According to Alain Boyle over at the MSNBC's Cosmic Log Michael Laine and the Liftport Group have decided to regroup and focus on balloon-borne platforms.

From the article:

As of today, Laine said LiftPort will "shift 100 percent into commercialization of balloons." He said the plan would be to test balloons that could loft observation or communication platforms up as high as 150 feet for three- to 10-day windows, and extend that capability to monthlong stints at an altitude of 1,000 feet - depending on the regulatory go-ahead from the Federal Aviation Administration.

According to the article, Laine as decided to try and make a go of it until September to produce a commercially viable product.

"We have enough in the checkbook to last until Sept. 1, so I'm drawing a line in the sand that says if we're not making 25 grand a month by September, then we will close," he told me. "But we don't have to close as a result of me losing the building. That my personal money ran out does not mean that the project is over. What it means is that we have to find another sources of capital."

The article is an interesting read and gives you an insight into an entrepreneurial mind. It's obvious Liftport stretched itself thin like so many startups do to try and make a go of it. What's also interesting is how this has been reported mostly in blogs and hardly in the mainstream media. By this I mean that information has been hard to come by. Liftport has yet to release anything officially and if you were just coming upon the their website you would be hard pressed to know that anything was wrong with the company. Their news section makes no mention of problems. You have to navigate to their blog to get any information and even there you have to try and put the pieces together.

Liftport over the years built up four companies into a group of companies. They raised money and they have private shareholders and even though they are private you would hope that they would release something official for both the public and their private shareholders providing them with clear guidance as to what is happening. While the turn of events that we are aware of have been difficult to say the least, Michael Laine is not the only one affected here. Liftport has 14 employees that are going through this difficult time and shareholders that over the years have helped fund this company.

Liftport - The Space Elevator Companies Shuts Down

Editorial by Marc Boucher

Starting a business from the ground up is extremely tough. I know, I've done it a few times. So I'm not surprised to read that Liftport has shut down operations. This is according to what's posted by Brian Dunbar in the Liftport blog.

Building a Space Elevator will not be an easy endeavour. The hurdles to overcome are numerous. Currently a community effort, led by Bryan Laubscher, is underway to build a roadmap that outlines the steps needed to build the first space elevator. Some companies will choose to follow the roadmap, others will not, others still will focus on a particular niche of the roadmap. No one company today will start from scratch with the stated business aim of building a space elevator and succeed, it’s too soon. Companies today interested in the space elevator need to focus on technologies, materials needed for the space elevator and produce tangible spinoff products that can be made the foundation of a business. The space elevator is no ordinary product, so applying traditional business models and fundraising techniques won't work.

Liftport created their own roadmap, one in which they stated that in 25 years they would start sending cargo up an elevator. What investor today who is thinking about a return on investment would consider such a long term investment? None who have the funds to get such an endeavour off the ground. And in applying traditional business models this is in part where Liftport went wrong. And I feel for those who made emotional decisions to invest in the Liftport Group. In fours years Liftport went from one company to a group of four companies. This was all part of the fundraising strategy. And while they got a lot of people excited, raised expectations and did do some work, for the most part what was produced was hype. And hype is not a product, and without a product and with your expenses mounting the day will come when your business fails.

But space elevator enthusiast should take heart in knowing that while this effort is dead others are going strong and the community is growing as is our knowledge base. Ben Shelef works tirelessly with the SpaceWard Foundation to put on the Space Elevator Games which has been growing each year and generating community involvement on scale I don't think he even expected. The shared knowledge, collaboration that is the result of the games is priceless. There is also the private ventures which aspire to build the foundation first. And by this I mean new materials development which is at the core of any space elevator effort. Companies like Black Line Ascension led by Brad Edwards are working on a technique for creating mass quantities of carbon nanotube material which can be used for more than just the foundation of space elevator cables. Others still like Tether’s Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) are working on other technologies which have real world applications today. In fact TUI reached a milestone as their MAST experiment reached orbit today on Dnepr rocket.

So while some people may mourn the passing of Liftport I would say that the community is stronger than ever, private efforts are making progress and the passing of Liftport will not have an effect on the effort to some day build a space elevator.

Note: Full disclosure. Bryan Laubscher and Brad Edwards are unpaid editors for the Space Elevator Reference. SpaceRef Interactive Inc., publishers of the Space Elevator Reference has no financial interest in Black Line Ascension or any other space elevator related company.

Tethers Unlimited's Multi-Application Survivable Tether Experiment Reaches Orbit

Tethers Unlimited's "Multi-Application Survivable Tether" (MAST) Experiment today reached orbit as a secondary payload on a Dnepr rocket as a part of the University CubeSat program.

The MAST experiment consists of three picosatellites. For launch, these three picosatellites stack together into a volume about the size of a loaf of bread. Once on orbit, the picosatellites will separate and deploy a 1,000 meter long Hoytether™ structure.