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US Patent 9085897: Space elevator

111 points by andyjohnson0 11y ago

andyjohnson0 11y ago
Press release from 21st July 2015: http://thothx.com/news-2/ http://thothx.com/news-2/
- shkkmo 11y ago
  I love how the renderings completely fail with physics. There is no way that you can land on top of a space elevator like that because of the lack of a centripetal force to hold the planes and rockets in place. Edit: Oh, that's because it is not a space elevator...
coldcode 11y ago
I sometimes wonder if patents should require building one first.
- baseballmerpeak 11y ago
  They used to. Patent models were required from 1790 to 1880.
- dantillberg 11y ago
  I thought there was some sort of requirement about "reduction to practice." But according to [0], there is also "constructive reduction to practice", which "occurs upon the filing of a patent application on the claimed invention." That's not the same thing! Someone definitely got the meaning of those words mixed up. And yes, I would love to see them try. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice
- danielweber 11y ago
  This patent will absolutely not stop anyone from making a space elevator, given that is going to take more than 20 years from now to build one.
- jccooper 11y ago
  That would solve a lot of problems. Seems to me it's hard to say you "invented" something if you haven't done it at least once. How do you know your method is practical otherwise?
- dnautics 11y ago
  Thomas Jefferson, who was the first Secretary of state (and the first patent executor) as the original congress put the PTO in the department of state was said to have very stringent reduction to practice requirements - and iirc you could count how many parents he signed off on on your fingers and toes. I think reduction to practice is still on the books but administratively ignored.
Retric 11y ago
I had this idea before basically stacking balloons, but the math does not work out as a space elevator. You could use it as a launch platform though.
- jonlucc 11y ago
  I haven't read through the patent, but I heard an interview with them that says they want to use it to launch SSTO spaceplanes. They also are hoping that some company like Boeing will pick up the actual building portion of the task.
  - uxp 11y ago
    Why have I heard this before... "I have a great idea for this app, I just need a programmer to help me build it. No, I can't pay you, but I can give you 15% of the company!"
- vidarh 11y ago
  It's a fascinating concept for building super-tall structures, but yeah, not a space elevator.
philip142au 11y ago
How can they patent an idea everyone's already had before?
- Udo 11y ago
  It's not what we would think of as a "space elevator", it's an inflatable tower 20km high with a landing strip on top.
tomswartz07 11y ago
Here's something that I've been mulling around for some time: Instead of a vertical structure, as pretty much every single space elevator contains, why not make one that is tangential to the surface of the planet? Yes, it will be substantially more materials, but if made such that the 'tail' of the elevator is trailing the rotation of the planet, it might be partially self sustaining. (Think of a string attached to the edge of a merry-go-round whipping outwards) One would literally pick a point on the planet and build due west. Due to the curvature of the planet, after X number of miles, you'll be several miles up in the air. Is this not anymore farfetched than a 100km tall tower?
- celticninja 11y ago
  so the spining of the earth would propel your cargo up/down the elevator into orbit? One thing is that west, east, north, soyth up and down are really on relevant on earth. As soon as you are talking about space everything is up(or down) but in relaity regardless of which whay yo go to get there you are fighting against gravity. I assuem this would be the reason your idea would not work but i may be wrong.
- delinka 11y ago
  Think of going vertical like just attaching a line to a geostationary satellite (but one in much lower orbit.) Now put a larger mass where the satellite is. It's supposed to be like putting a ball on a string and flinging it about in circles - the mass (ball, station) actually helps hold the connector (tether, tower, cable, w/e) "up" while counterweighting against the central anchor (your hand, earth.) There's no drag in space, so trailing Earth's rotation isn't necessary.
  - jdblair 11y ago
    You can't have a geostationary satellite in "much lower orbit." The orbital period of a satellite is set by its altitude. A lower orbit means a shorter period. Since a geostationary satellite is one with an orbit above the equator and a period of 1 day, so its orbit matches the earth, and the period is set by the altitude, a geostationary satellite can only exist in one orbit. That's why the geostationary band is getting a bit crowded.
vidarh 11y ago
It's quite amusing that they try to bill this as a space elevator, when it has almost nothing in common with what is typically considered a space elevator: It won't reach space; and it's envisioned as a building rather than a tether to a counter-weight. Seems like billing it as a space elevator is a pure PR move. Also, is 30% of fuel costs really going to be worth it? According to [1] Elon Musk claimed fuel is only 0.3% of the cost of current rockets. Even if we assume SpaceX slashes the overall cost to 1/10th without touching fuel costs, that still only brings fuel up to 3%. 1% additional savings doesn't seem like it's going to do much to help finance a 20km tower. Of course if single stage to orbit planes are viable from it, then that may make it more attractive, but it seems peculiar to focus on the fuel cost. [1] http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html
- berntb 11y ago
  Just the lower air pressure (and optimized engine nozzles) will help a lot. [Edit: Variable nozzles (or self regulating) is probably cheaper, of course...] (I assume you put the tower in a high place to start with, 25km up makes a big difference, ~ half atmosphere w/out Googling.)
- albeva 11y ago
  30% less fuel means smaller, lighter rockets. Compound cost savings over all.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    Exactly. Another way to say this is that this launch requires less Delta V. It's completely different than getting cheaper fuel of the same mass (which would be trivial).
  - kailuowang 11y ago
    smaller light rockets with a huge tower attached to it
  - vidarh 11y ago
    That's a good point, but then it is an odd thing for them to care about the fuel savings vs. their claim of not needing the first stage and allowing for single stage to orbit with a plane type launcher, which is a far bigger deal in terms of cost savings. E.g. consider that Musk a few years ago estimated the fuel and oxidizer costs for a Falcon 9 v1 at ca $200k per launch, with a list price for the launches at $54m to $59.5m. Cutting the cost of the rockets themselves on the other hand, whether by reuse or making them smaller/cheaper will matter much more. I guess whether eliminating the first stage entirely vs. reuse will matter much will depend on how many times recovered stages can be reused and how much it will cost to prepare them for reuse, as the potential fuel savings are basically rounding errors.
f_allwein 11y ago
here's xkcd on Space Elevators (and fountains): https://xkcd.com/536/ https://xkcd.com/536/
ommunist 11y ago
Feed that with gravitricity. Could be funny and efficient.
jdimov9 11y ago
This is the first chapter of Neal Stephenson's book "Hieroglyph".
Justsignedup 11y ago
Would this ever hold up in court? This describes the idea of one, without the impl. It is like me stating "I am planning on building a rocket, it will have stuff coming out this end, and it will fly to space". Isn't the point of patents the how as well as the what? Any lawyers able to comment?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- josaka 11y ago
  IAAL. The patent must enable what is claimed. Here is the USPTO's instructions to examiners on the topic: The information contained in the disclosure of an application must be sufficient to inform those skilled in the relevant art how to both make and use the claimed invention. However, to comply ..., it is not necessary to “enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use a perfected, commercially viable embodiment ...”
- damoncali 11y ago
  You're assuming one will be built before the patent expires.
- rhino369 11y ago
  Legally the patent has to disclose to someone skilled in the relevant art, how to enable the invention. So basically, if you handed this patent to engineers at Boeing, NASA, SpaceX, MIT, or UIUC or whomever, could they actually carry out the invention. The written description also has to be sufficient enough to show that you actually possess the invention when the patent is filed. So technically, if this can't be built today because we don't know of any materials that can actually behave this way, it's not a valid patent. I'm not totally sure what happens in cases where the invention is possible but so prohibitively expensive that it's not really possible. I'd imagine that is valid. Traditionally, invalidating a patent based on written description or enablement issues was hard. But the Fed Circuit has made it easier in recent decades. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be valid, but I'm not familiar with the sort of building materials necessary to build a space elevator. My understanding is that nothing we have today could do it, but that's based on light reading. EDIT: I'd also be willing to bet that some popscience mag or text book discloses this general idea anyway, so it'd be invalid based on prior art too.
aurizon 11y ago
Take a rabbit, also called a hare, consider that this was conceived and patented by rabbits - yes, definitely a hare brained scheme.- On the analysis side, we have a picture of a 20 kilometer high sail, standing up at right angles, through areas where the air currents go as high as 300 Kilometers per hour(jet stream) and they feel this will stay standing. In my opinion, this will never be built. Small scale models will show the folly of this. By the way, at 65,000 feet, the lift of the helium filled top pocket will have near zero lift. Fools errand
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Better idea: superconducting magnet floats platform up through Earth's magnetic field to low orbit. Conservative field: net zero energy to cycle up and down.
joering2 11y ago
an article I submitted day ago is worth reading and commenting on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070990
jhoechtl 11y ago
Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise
tremon 11y ago
Oh good. That means that in 20 years, when this sort of thing becomes feasible, new patents can all be challenged based on prior art. Right?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- brink 11y ago
  Complacency. It's not like there's a risk of a competing government coming in with a better website and taking over.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
dnautics 11y ago
Can we bring back 'reduction to practice'?
rynop 11y ago
This should be re-branded as a nuclear waste ejector, maybe it (and nuclear power option) would get some [more] traction.
Spearchucker 11y ago
This reminds me of a thought I had a while ago. What's the bet the first lot of buildings on Mars will include a copyright office, a patent office, and a court.
vectorjohn 11y ago
I didn't read all of it but searched, and saw no mention of weather. Wouldn't a strong wind have a ton of leverage to push this over?
OliverJones 11y ago
I wonder if space elevators should be added to perpetual motion machines as inventions for which the USPTO will demand working models. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents
- rue 11y ago
  I highly doubt it. As I understand it, a traditional space elevator is quite possible to build (we just lack the materials and motivation, chiefly), whereas a perpetual motion machine seems to be ruled out by current understanding of physics.
jjcm 11y ago
Project Heiroglyph actually has a short story that was written along side a technical paper describing how to make this work, it's worth checking out: http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/project/the-tall-tower/ http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/project/the-tall-tower/
rcthompson 11y ago
How could you possibly hope to patent-troll someone with deep enough pockets to build a space elevator?
nanocyber 11y ago
I was excited until I looked at the images included in the patent application and discovered that the space elevator is made out of paper towel tubes.

111 points by andyjohnson0 11y ago

andyjohnson0 11y ago

Press release from 21st July 2015: http://thothx.com/news-2/ http://thothx.com/news-2/

shkkmo 11y ago
I love how the renderings completely fail with physics. There is no way that you can land on top of a space elevator like that because of the lack of a centripetal force to hold the planes and rockets in place. Edit: Oh, that's because it is not a space elevator...

coldcode 11y ago

I sometimes wonder if patents should require building one first.

baseballmerpeak 11y ago
They used to. Patent models were required from 1790 to 1880.
dantillberg 11y ago
I thought there was some sort of requirement about "reduction to practice." But according to [0], there is also "constructive reduction to practice", which "occurs upon the filing of a patent application on the claimed invention." That's not the same thing! Someone definitely got the meaning of those words mixed up. And yes, I would love to see them try. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice
danielweber 11y ago
This patent will absolutely not stop anyone from making a space elevator, given that is going to take more than 20 years from now to build one.
jccooper 11y ago
That would solve a lot of problems. Seems to me it's hard to say you "invented" something if you haven't done it at least once. How do you know your method is practical otherwise?
dnautics 11y ago
Thomas Jefferson, who was the first Secretary of state (and the first patent executor) as the original congress put the PTO in the department of state was said to have very stringent reduction to practice requirements - and iirc you could count how many parents he signed off on on your fingers and toes. I think reduction to practice is still on the books but administratively ignored.

Retric 11y ago

I had this idea before basically stacking balloons, but the math does not work out as a space elevator. You could use it as a launch platform though.

jonlucc 11y ago
I haven't read through the patent, but I heard an interview with them that says they want to use it to launch SSTO spaceplanes. They also are hoping that some company like Boeing will pick up the actual building portion of the task.
- uxp 11y ago
  Why have I heard this before... "I have a great idea for this app, I just need a programmer to help me build it. No, I can't pay you, but I can give you 15% of the company!"
vidarh 11y ago
It's a fascinating concept for building super-tall structures, but yeah, not a space elevator.

philip142au 11y ago

How can they patent an idea everyone's already had before?

Udo 11y ago
It's not what we would think of as a "space elevator", it's an inflatable tower 20km high with a landing strip on top.

tomswartz07 11y ago

Here's something that I've been mulling around for some time: Instead of a vertical structure, as pretty much every single space elevator contains, why not make one that is tangential to the surface of the planet? Yes, it will be substantially more materials, but if made such that the 'tail' of the elevator is trailing the rotation of the planet, it might be partially self sustaining. (Think of a string attached to the edge of a merry-go-round whipping outwards) One would literally pick a point on the planet and build due west. Due to the curvature of the planet, after X number of miles, you'll be several miles up in the air. Is this not anymore farfetched than a 100km tall tower?

celticninja 11y ago
so the spining of the earth would propel your cargo up/down the elevator into orbit? One thing is that west, east, north, soyth up and down are really on relevant on earth. As soon as you are talking about space everything is up(or down) but in relaity regardless of which whay yo go to get there you are fighting against gravity. I assuem this would be the reason your idea would not work but i may be wrong.
delinka 11y ago
Think of going vertical like just attaching a line to a geostationary satellite (but one in much lower orbit.) Now put a larger mass where the satellite is. It's supposed to be like putting a ball on a string and flinging it about in circles - the mass (ball, station) actually helps hold the connector (tether, tower, cable, w/e) "up" while counterweighting against the central anchor (your hand, earth.) There's no drag in space, so trailing Earth's rotation isn't necessary.
- jdblair 11y ago
  You can't have a geostationary satellite in "much lower orbit." The orbital period of a satellite is set by its altitude. A lower orbit means a shorter period. Since a geostationary satellite is one with an orbit above the equator and a period of 1 day, so its orbit matches the earth, and the period is set by the altitude, a geostationary satellite can only exist in one orbit. That's why the geostationary band is getting a bit crowded.

vidarh 11y ago

It's quite amusing that they try to bill this as a space elevator, when it has almost nothing in common with what is typically considered a space elevator: It won't reach space; and it's envisioned as a building rather than a tether to a counter-weight. Seems like billing it as a space elevator is a pure PR move. Also, is 30% of fuel costs really going to be worth it? According to [1] Elon Musk claimed fuel is only 0.3% of the cost of current rockets. Even if we assume SpaceX slashes the overall cost to 1/10th without touching fuel costs, that still only brings fuel up to 3%. 1% additional savings doesn't seem like it's going to do much to help finance a 20km tower. Of course if single stage to orbit planes are viable from it, then that may make it more attractive, but it seems peculiar to focus on the fuel cost. [1] http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html http://www.space.com/21386-spacex-reusable-rockets-cost.html

berntb 11y ago
Just the lower air pressure (and optimized engine nozzles) will help a lot. [Edit: Variable nozzles (or self regulating) is probably cheaper, of course...] (I assume you put the tower in a high place to start with, 25km up makes a big difference, ~ half atmosphere w/out Googling.)
albeva 11y ago
30% less fuel means smaller, lighter rockets. Compound cost savings over all.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  Exactly. Another way to say this is that this launch requires less Delta V. It's completely different than getting cheaper fuel of the same mass (which would be trivial).
- kailuowang 11y ago
  smaller light rockets with a huge tower attached to it
- vidarh 11y ago
  That's a good point, but then it is an odd thing for them to care about the fuel savings vs. their claim of not needing the first stage and allowing for single stage to orbit with a plane type launcher, which is a far bigger deal in terms of cost savings. E.g. consider that Musk a few years ago estimated the fuel and oxidizer costs for a Falcon 9 v1 at ca $200k per launch, with a list price for the launches at $54m to $59.5m. Cutting the cost of the rockets themselves on the other hand, whether by reuse or making them smaller/cheaper will matter much more. I guess whether eliminating the first stage entirely vs. reuse will matter much will depend on how many times recovered stages can be reused and how much it will cost to prepare them for reuse, as the potential fuel savings are basically rounding errors.

f_allwein 11y ago

here's xkcd on Space Elevators (and fountains): https://xkcd.com/536/ https://xkcd.com/536/

ommunist 11y ago

Feed that with gravitricity. Could be funny and efficient.

jdimov9 11y ago

This is the first chapter of Neal Stephenson's book "Hieroglyph".

Justsignedup 11y ago

Would this ever hold up in court? This describes the idea of one, without the impl. It is like me stating "I am planning on building a rocket, it will have stuff coming out this end, and it will fly to space". Isn't the point of patents the how as well as the what? Any lawyers able to comment?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
josaka 11y ago
IAAL. The patent must enable what is claimed. Here is the USPTO's instructions to examiners on the topic: The information contained in the disclosure of an application must be sufficient to inform those skilled in the relevant art how to both make and use the claimed invention. However, to comply ..., it is not necessary to “enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use a perfected, commercially viable embodiment ...”
damoncali 11y ago
You're assuming one will be built before the patent expires.
rhino369 11y ago
Legally the patent has to disclose to someone skilled in the relevant art, how to enable the invention. So basically, if you handed this patent to engineers at Boeing, NASA, SpaceX, MIT, or UIUC or whomever, could they actually carry out the invention. The written description also has to be sufficient enough to show that you actually possess the invention when the patent is filed. So technically, if this can't be built today because we don't know of any materials that can actually behave this way, it's not a valid patent. I'm not totally sure what happens in cases where the invention is possible but so prohibitively expensive that it's not really possible. I'd imagine that is valid. Traditionally, invalidating a patent based on written description or enablement issues was hard. But the Fed Circuit has made it easier in recent decades. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be valid, but I'm not familiar with the sort of building materials necessary to build a space elevator. My understanding is that nothing we have today could do it, but that's based on light reading. EDIT: I'd also be willing to bet that some popscience mag or text book discloses this general idea anyway, so it'd be invalid based on prior art too.

aurizon 11y ago

Take a rabbit, also called a hare, consider that this was conceived and patented by rabbits - yes, definitely a hare brained scheme.- On the analysis side, we have a picture of a 20 kilometer high sail, standing up at right angles, through areas where the air currents go as high as 300 Kilometers per hour(jet stream) and they feel this will stay standing. In my opinion, this will never be built. Small scale models will show the folly of this. By the way, at 65,000 feet, the lift of the helium filled top pocket will have near zero lift. Fools errand

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Better idea: superconducting magnet floats platform up through Earth's magnetic field to low orbit. Conservative field: net zero energy to cycle up and down.

joering2 11y ago

an article I submitted day ago is worth reading and commenting on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070990

jhoechtl 11y ago

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise

tremon 11y ago

Oh good. That means that in 20 years, when this sort of thing becomes feasible, new patents can all be challenged based on prior art. Right?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

brink 11y ago
Complacency. It's not like there's a risk of a competing government coming in with a better website and taking over.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

dnautics 11y ago

Can we bring back 'reduction to practice'?

rynop 11y ago

This should be re-branded as a nuclear waste ejector, maybe it (and nuclear power option) would get some [more] traction.

Spearchucker 11y ago

This reminds me of a thought I had a while ago. What's the bet the first lot of buildings on Mars will include a copyright office, a patent office, and a court.

vectorjohn 11y ago

I didn't read all of it but searched, and saw no mention of weather. Wouldn't a strong wind have a ton of leverage to push this over?

OliverJones 11y ago

I wonder if space elevators should be added to perpetual motion machines as inventions for which the USPTO will demand working models. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents

rue 11y ago
I highly doubt it. As I understand it, a traditional space elevator is quite possible to build (we just lack the materials and motivation, chiefly), whereas a perpetual motion machine seems to be ruled out by current understanding of physics.

jjcm 11y ago

Project Heiroglyph actually has a short story that was written along side a technical paper describing how to make this work, it's worth checking out: http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/project/the-tall-tower/ http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/project/the-tall-tower/

rcthompson 11y ago

How could you possibly hope to patent-troll someone with deep enough pockets to build a space elevator?

nanocyber 11y ago

I was excited until I looked at the images included in the patent application and discovered that the space elevator is made out of paper towel tubes.