Throughout history the emergence of new technologies
has enabled unforeseen breakthrough capabilities that rapidly transformed
the world.
Some global examples from the twentieth century
include AC electric power, nuclear energy, and turbojet engines.
At the systems level, success of both Apollo
and the Space Shuttle programs depended upon taming hydrogen propulsion and
developing high-temperature atmospheric reentry materials.
Human space development now is stymied because
of a great need for breakthrough technologies and strategies.
We believe that new capabilities exist within
the present states-of-the-art that can be implemented to transform the
future of human space development.
It is a little known fact that an effort was made in
the mid-1990s by NASA HQ, Marshall Space Flight Center, and key private
innovators to change the basic paradigms of space access and development.
Generically these efforts involved
electromagnetic launch methods and new approaches for high power electrical
systems in space.
By 1970 low- temperature superconducting
technologies were already completely mature, and after1987 intense R&D
efforts were under way to industrialize high temperature superconductivity.
Based upon exploitation of superconductivity, a
completely new launch concept called
StarTram
was developed as a serious alternative for massive space access.
Because traditional rocket technologies were
clearly too expensive and limited in their capabilities to open space for
large scale human development,
StarTram was
conceived from first principles to reduce the cost and improve the
efficiency of space access by a factor of more than a hundred.
Further conceptual work showed that, in
addition to Earth-to-space launch, the same transformational technologies
could revolutionize in-space development and high-speed ground
transportation.
The overall feasibility and cost of the
StarTram
approach was validated in 2005 by a thorough “murder board” study conducted
at Sandia National Laboratory.
In this presentation, the principles and promise of
the StarTram work
will be summarized.
Then a case will be made that the resulting
breakthrough advantages will lead directly to cost-effective solar power
from space, utilization of near-earth asteroids for habitats immune to
ionizing radiation (together with protection of the Earth from impacts),
safe space tourism, and development of the moon, Mars and the outer solar
system.
Synergistically, ground transportation on the Earth
can be revolutionized, leading to enormous reduction in energy consumption
and creation of millions of jobs.
Two short movies will be shown to substantiate
the breakthrough nature of this twenty-first century technology.
A
logical daisy-chain of affordable transformative steps will be proposed.