Located near Ottawa, Canada’s capital, Thoth was founded in 2001 and is principally known for design and development of payloads for satellites and robotic systems. The patent for the space elevator is the company’s first foray into large-scale systems.
The elevator would be a freestanding space tower reaching 20 kilometers (12 miles) above the Earth surface. It would measure 230 meters (755 feet) in diameter and would be pneumatically pressurized to maintain structural integrity.
Why 20 kilometers high? Commercial aviation can only get to about 15 kilometers above the Earth surface. And above 19 kilometers atmospheric pressures are so low blood would boil upon exposure to the outside. At 20 kilometers much of the atmosphere and atmospheric drag lies would be below the launch platform, and that would deliver huge cost advantages for getting to near-Earth orbit (NEO). Fuel savings alone would amount to 30%.
But is what Thoth is patenting truly a space elevator? Not quite the same as that foreseen by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Arthur C. Clarke who described a space elevator tethered to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) above the Earth. Instead Thoth’s invention is more modest, a far less costly compromise that uses known materials and if built could prove advantageous for launching payloads to space. It could be built with multiple decks for rocket launchings delivering satellites to NEO at an estimated $220 per kilogram ($100 per pound). Compare that to today’s costs at $25,000 per kilogram ($11,000 per pound).
Made of inflated core segments forming the inner and outer walls, the tower would feature a hollow middle to provide for the elevator which would not use a cable system. Conventional materials today could not support a 20 kilometer tether. Instead elevator cars would grip and climb the interior walls of the hollowed shaft.
Manufacturing would be a significant challenge. The patent describes the proposed method of construction including extruding core segments from a fluid core material, and embedding the control and stabilization machinery (flywheels) within each segment as extruded. To raise the tower the filing describes a system of rollers and pneumatics.
What would prevent it from collapsing? The flywheels (gyroscopes like those incorporated into rockets and satellites but much larger in scale) which would compensate for all the forces exerted upon it including the Earth’s spin and wind shear.
There is no mention of the cost to build. But there is no doubt that elevators such as this could prove highly advantageous not just as launch platforms, but also as a stationary Earth observation towers capable of providing significant scientific benefits. And because the cost is anticipated to be far less than the Tsiokovsky-Clarke space elevator, Thoth’s design could usher in a new age of space.
The images appearing below are from the 19-page July 21, 2015 filing #9,085,897 B2.
]]>
The MIT conference took place on March 21 to 23 and commemorated the 25th anniversary of the announcement by Pons and Fleischmann that introduced us to a process they called cold fusion. I have written a number of postings about cold fusion, a technology which spontaneously transmutes one element into another with the byproduct being anomalous heat. As of yet, however, from all those working on experiments in cold fusion, no one has yet to produce a working low energy nuclear reactor that can be packaged into a power generator for the kinds of applications promised like heating a house or providing the power plant to drive a car. It appears from the few postings that have emerged from the MIT conference that the commercial dream for cold fusion remains elusive. Those dedicated to the subject are still tinkering. So are we a year, 5 years, 10 years away from a commercial cold fusion reactor? My hunch is the 10-year timeline is too optimistic.
Why do I say that? Because no one in a patent office seems convinced there is anything to the technology. At least that’s the case at the U.S. Patent office with its latest preliminary rejection of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat patent filing. Rossi, who recently sold his LENR rights to an American company, Industrial Heat, just can’t seem to get a break from those issuing patents in almost every country where he attempts to file. I quote from E-Cat World’s publication of the patent examiner’s comments in which he states:
Which brings me to Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, and the development of a technology referred to as focus fusion. Unlike Rossi’s E-Cat LENR, what Lawrenceville is doing has received a U.S. patent. What’s involved?
Dense plasma fusion uses a device containing two cylindrical copper or beryllium electrodes enclosed in a vacuum chamber with low-pressure gas injected to fill the space between them. When an electrical pulse is introduced the gas heats and an intense magnetic field creates a plasma which travels the length of the electrode where it becomes dense and forms a plasmoid. This induces two beams to flow, one containing electrons, the other ions. The electrons heat the plasmoid to billions of degrees Celsius. The ions collide and fuse contributing more heat to the plasmoid. All this happens in a mere 10 nanoseconds (10 billionths of a second). The net result – more energy out than in and the potential for a commercial fusion reactor that would produce environmentally clean, cheap energy with little to no radioactive waste. The byproduct of fusion using this process is helium, a much sought after gas here on Earth. The only radioactive byproduct, low-energy neutrons can be handled by housing the reactor in a few layers of shielding.
So how close are we to a commercial device? Well don’t count on something appearing on the market soon because it appears that a commercial dense plasma fusion reactor is as close to market as we humans are willing to fund it. Lawrenceville appears to be spending as much time seeking funds as it is doing research. It has used crowdfunding, small grants from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and institutional and private investment to bankroll it to date. This hasn’t amounted to a lot of money. The company has even posted a wish list seeking donations of equipment to help it continue its research. Sounds very much like a startup and a company flying by the seat of its pants. So a commercial fusion reactor on the market soon? Don’t hold your breath!
