The Macrosite for News, Analysis and Opinion about the Future of the Internet
Mitch Wagner

Neal Stephenson: Let's Build a 20-km Tower to Launch Rockets

Written by Mitch Wagner
5/21/2013 13 comments
no ratings
DISCUSS     Email This

Neal Stephenson is best known as the author of science fiction novels such as SnowCrash and Anathem. But he does other things as well. Among them: He's assembled a team of scientists and engineers to figure out how to build a 20-kilometer-tall tower to use as a platform for launching rockets into space.

Speaking at the Starship Century symposium in San Diego on Tuesday, Stephenson said he was inspired by several research papers by NASA researcher Geoffrey Landis proposing construction of a tower 15 to 20 kilometers tall out of "mundane materials" such as steel. Launching rockets from that altitude -- giving them a headstart, so to speak -- would result in significant savings for spaceflight. And the audacity of the project could attract support, Stephenson said.

"I spent a lot of time looking at alternative space launch technologies, and they're pretty far out. They require exotic materials and technologies," Stephenson said. "Another way of saying that is they're hard to explain to Senators, whereas people get a 20 kilometer tower. It's inspiring."

Stephenson said his championing of the tower is related to his career as a science fiction writer. Science fiction inspires people, he said. It inspires engineers and scientists. But the current generation of science fiction is gloomy, pessimistic, and dystopian, which reflects a dispiriting societal outlook.

"Our tendency toward gloomy styles of science fiction might just be a passing literary trend except that it's catnip to the film industry," Stephenson said. "You can't have a conversation about science fiction with directors without it coming back to Blade Runner. They want to get out the hoses and make the streets wet."

Stephenson edited an anthology, Hieroglyph, designed to inspire future engineers and scientists with optimistic visions of an attainable future, and his own contribution to the anthology was about the Tall Tower.

The author brought a team of four researchers with him to speak at the conference, including CAD/CAM programmers who showed an illustration of the tower dwarfing the city of Flagstaff, Ariz., and nearby 12,000-foot Humphreys Peak, the tallest mountain in the state.

The tower would be 20 times taller than the current tallest building in the world, said Keith Hjelmstad, a professor of structural engineering at Arizona State University.

The highest levels would be subjected to powerful winds, as well as air thinning out to a fifth of the pressure of ground level. Construction robots would be needed to build the tower, and human builders would require breathing apparatus.

Could the tower be built? "It's on the outskirts of feasablity," Hjelmstad said. Every innovation needed to build the tower adds weight to the structure, which paradoxically makes it more difficult. "I fear we're always going to be one good idea from making it impossible."

More from the Starship Century conference: Interstellar Travel 'Almost Inevitable'

Related posts:

— Mitch Wagner Circle me on Google+Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn pageSubscribe to my Facebook feed, Editor in Chief, Internet Evolution



DISCUSS     Email This
Current display:       newest comments first       display in chronological order
Page 1 of 2   Next >
Mitch Wagner
Thinkernetter
Wednesday May 22, 2013 7:39:35 PM
no ratings

A friend says that the Tall Tower should be built "as long as David Letterman can drop things from it." Heh. 

mpouraryan
IQ Crew
Wednesday May 22, 2013 6:44:07 PM
no ratings

The founder of Tesla seems to have the "inside track" on private space development...and they've already had some success.    I do wish him well in his quest though...one should never discourage dreamers...:-)

Mr. Roques
Researcher
Wednesday May 22, 2013 5:52:41 PM
no ratings

Maybe Senators don't understand very complicated solutions but a 20km-tall launch pad is too simple for them to consider it seriously. 

Don't think they'll get anywhere with it.

jabailo
IQ Crew
Wednesday May 22, 2013 4:36:45 PM
no ratings

Clarke proposed the tether, or space elevator.   The idea of floating a cable many miles up into orbit that a satellite could be hurled along by the rotation of the earth producing centripedal forces, like hoding a whip in your hand while spinning around and releasing a donut along it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

One of the Space Shuttles experimented with a 9 km tether but there were some unexpected problems and possible experience with electrical conductance along it.  

Mitch Wagner
Thinkernetter
Wednesday May 22, 2013 2:47:51 PM
no ratings

shehzadi - Far-fetched? Sure. But the same would have been said by someone from 1913 about the idea that we might be able to fly from New York to Los Angeles in six hours. And that it wouldn't even be a big deal. 

Stephenson said he'd thought of some ideas for making the Tower financially self-sustaining even as it was being built, but he did not discuss them. 

Mitch Wagner
Thinkernetter
Wednesday May 22, 2013 2:46:31 PM
no ratings

Or compare Siriy and Google Now to the Star Trek ship's computer. 

Mitch Wagner
Thinkernetter
Wednesday May 22, 2013 2:45:55 PM
no ratings

Tobyd - Yes, Stephenson basically indicated that when it comes to dystopias, he's been part of the problem. 

And the Tall Tower is indeed a variation on the "beanstalk" idea, of building a tower from the Earth to near-Earth orbit. The Tall Tower would be shorter. 

Mitch Wagner
Thinkernetter
Wednesday May 22, 2013 2:44:36 PM
no ratings

jaballo - I wonder why Stephenson didn't think of that. It seems like a simple solution. 

shehzadi
IQ Crew
Wednesday May 22, 2013 11:07:43 AM
no ratings

To me it seem pretty far fetched. I think we would have to wait for a considerable time to see this dream into reality. The idea is quite quixotic at this time but to me cost and benefit ration is not something that prods us to for such alternative. 

Tobyd
IQ Crew
Wednesday May 22, 2013 11:05:58 AM
no ratings

@Alison: Often. In fact the current generation of phones with 4g Video conferencing features are as smart or smarter than what they had in Star Trek as a communicator.

Page 1 of 2   Next >
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
previous posts from Editor's Blog
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner   5/21/2013   8 comments
While interstellar travel presents huge challenges, it's "almost inevitable," according to a speaker at the Starship Century symposium here in San Diego.
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner   5/20/2013   5 comments
Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp reassured users on Monday that the service's freewheeling culture isn't changing.
Mitch Wagner
Mitch Wagner   5/19/2013   41 comments
Yahoo's reported $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr faces many obstacles. But it could be a big jolt of caffeine to help Yahoo wake up and work right.
Alison Diana
Alison Diana   5/17/2013   43 comments
Catch up on the week with one simple serving of Friday File. We've pieced together 10 interesting news bites you may have missed and put them together in bite-size morsels.
IETV: the thinkerNet on film
5
of
Kim Davis
Big-Data Can’t Always Sell Wine

5|21|13   |   2:23   |   3 comments


Whole Foods Global Wine Purchaser Doug Bell told me about some of the constraints on using analytics in the US wine market.
Paul J. Fleuranges
Digital Signage Keeps NYC Subway Straphangers on Track

5|6|13   |   3:51   |   No comments


New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Kim Davis
Fast Forward to the Future

4|23|13   |   2:29   |   20 comments


A look back at tech writing in the 90s makes us wonder where enterprise IT will be 20 years from now.
Mitch Wagner
Google Launches Its Most Depressing Service Yet

4|15|13   |   2:59   |   10 comments


Google's new Inactive Account Manager lets you control how Google disposes of your accounts when you die.
Second Shooter
Argument Over Top-Level Domains Is 'Stupid'

4|11|13   |   2:07   |   3 comments


The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
Kim Davis
Ladies, Your Tablet Awaits

3|21|13   |   2:22   |   37 comments


ePad Femme is the world’s first tablet “made exclusively for women.”
Wisdom of the Big Chair
NFC Moves Into the Mainstream

3|20|13   |   2:16   |   No comments


While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Wisdom of the Big Chair
Integrating Security Into Your Cloud Contract

3|19|13   |   3:35   |   No comments


Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Brian Baron
How Edmunds.com Collects Customer Information

3|18|13   |   1:15   |   No comments


Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Brian Baron
How Edmunds.com Uses Analytics to Customize Site

3|14|13   |   0:47   |   No comments


The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
an IBM information resource
sponsored content
big blue blog
an IBM information resource
sponsored content
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT
In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator.

READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE!

REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators
Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?

Please email: moderators@internetevolution.com
Internet Evolution – not for thickies
Keep Critical Data With a Knowledge Management System
Taimoor Zubair
Fortune 500 companies lose at least
$31.5 billion a year by failing to share knowledge. A Knowledge Management System (KMS) can help companies significantly reduce these costs.

CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet
David Weldon
In the 1970 science fiction thriller
Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.

CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet
David Weldon
In the 1970 science fiction thriller
Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.

CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet
David Weldon
In the 1970 science fiction thriller
Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.

CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet
David Weldon
In the 1970 science fiction thriller
Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.

CLICK FOR MORE
Yahoo Needs to Break Tumblr in Order to Fix It
Joe Stanganelli
As
Mitch Wagner discussed today, Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr. The big Internet debate at the moment is whether Tumblr will be good or bad for Yahoo. Regardless of their stances on the future of Yahoo itself, many claim that Yahoo will somehow ruin Tumblr.

CLICK FOR MORE