1. Space Elevator By Charles Graves Cluster 2

2. What is a Space Elevator? A structure that is in geosynchronous orbit but is also attached to the surface of the planet A means of transportation into space http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

3. What is needed to build a SE? A ribbon of carbon nanotubes that extend 144,000 km from the Earth’s surface Light weight climbers to pull nanotubes up A large counterweight at the space end of the elevator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

4. Why Carbon Nanotubes? The amount of steel to build the SE would collapse under its own weight Extremely light weight and holds large amounts of weight

5. What do we have now? Single walled carbon nanotubes 4 cm long Boron welding of single walled carbon nanotubes Designs and theories on the construction of the Space Elevator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

6. Benefits of a SE Will lower the cost of getting objects into orbit by a large magnitude Travel to different planets is much faster Scientific research in space becomes more feasible May be built on other planets using same principles

7. Problems with a SE Acquiring funding for the elevator is extremely difficult Many political issues because of international public inclusion policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/money

8. How far are we from building a SE? Need to develop a way to make nanotubes much longer Solve the problem with nanotubes being constantly cut Liftport wants to have the Space Elevator operational by April 12, 2018

9. Works Cited http://www.liftport.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/ http://www.isr.us/Downloads/niac_pdf/chapter2.ht ml http://pubs.acs.org/cgi- bin/abstract.cgi/nalefd/2005/5/i06/abs/nl050627l.h tml