The Lunar Elevator, 1st ed. 2019
Bringing the Riches of the Moon Down to Earth
Astronautical Engineering Series

Authors:

Language: English
Publication date:
· 15.5x23.5 cm · Hardback
Publication Abandoned

This book in our subseries called New Space Ventures discusses the advantages of building a lunar elevator and how it would afford access to some of the resources the Moon has to offer. We could potentially reduce poverty and improve Earth's environment using such a technology. Human civilization could more easily expand to Earth orbit or the Moon, and perhaps beyond. The book sets out the road map of how this could be achieved.

The lunar elevator is a long tether anchored on the Moon, with the other end free and hanging towards Earth. Such a tether can now be built at a relatively low cost using commercially available materials such as Zylon, Dyneema or M5. This first generation lunar elevator will be able to deliver payloads to the lunar surface, each weighing 100 kg, and retrieve the same amount of material from the lunar surface. The alternative of using chemical rockets to soft land on the Moon [or return material] is prohibitively expensive.

The critical shortage of helium-3, which sells for $1 million per ounce on the market, could be resolved by transporting it from the Moon with the elevator. The lunar elevator can also transport oxygen from the Moon to low Earth orbit, where it can refuel tugs to take satellites from LEO to GEO, a significant revenue source.

Introduction.- Part 1: The Current Landscape and How We Got Here.- Part 2: System Hardware Elements and Process Flow.- Part 3: Economics and Business Case.- Part 4: Social, Legal and Political Issues.- Conclusion.- Appendices.- Glossary.

Charles Radley is a spacecraft systems engineer who has worked on manned and unmanned spacecraft development and operations since 1981. He has a B.S. in Physics, M.S. in Systems Engineering and 20+ years of aerospace experience. He is an EIT Engineer in Training registered in the State of California, and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In 1981, he started work on communications satellite systems integration, launch campaigns and range safety. He was instrumental in developing proposals for lunar space missions for the 1990 Space Exploration Initiative. He was a member of the subcontractor teams for the Galileo and Magellan space probes, the International Space Station, experiments for Spacelab-MSL-1 and several communications satellite projects (e.g. Intelsat-6, Olympus, HS-601, HS-376, Inmarsat-2, Marecs). He worked on the Mobile Transporter and the power system for NASA Space Station Freedom which became ISS. He is an inter-disciplinary engineer, specializing in systems safety and hazards analysis as well as mission operations. He was principal author of the NASA Guidebook for Safety Critical Software and has written extensively on space-based solar power. He was a contributor to the 2007 Department of Defense study on Space Based Solar Power managed by the National Space Security Office. For the last 30 years, he has continued to work on the original O'Neill vision with the addition of a lunar elevator. He pursues concepts for space manufacturing using lunar resources. In recent years, he has been engaged mainly as a software quality engineer in commercial and government IT environments. 

Jerome Pearson is President of STAR, Inc., a small business in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina that has developed aircraft and spacecraft concepts for NASA and DOD. He began his engineering career by working on the Apollo lunar landing program for NASA, and later headed an Air Force test facili

Shows how new technology can make commercial lunar resources more available to Earth

Proposes technology that is more affordable than the previously proposed Skylift

Details how the lunar elevator is the logical extension to current thinking on extraterrestrial space development

Provides a new stimulus and excitement to the large community of readers who would love to see humans expand into space