
US Patent 9085897: Space elevator - andyjohnson0
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=9085897
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vidarh
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)

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albeva
30% less fuel means smaller, lighter rockets. Compound cost savings over all.

~~~
vidarh
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.

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Justsignedup
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?

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DannyBee
I'm an IP lawyer :)

The patent covers a pressurized space elevator tower.

However, note that the part they have really patented here is the "plurality
of segments and pressurized cells" part. The claims were amended during
prosecution, in light of the examiner rejecting them all as anticipated by
various references :)

The way to discover this is to go to the USPTO's "public pair" system, enter
the application or patent number, click "image file wrapper", and you can see
all the correspondence between the examiner and the applicant. You are looking
for the rejections and the amendment/claims parts that happened.

In response to this rejection, the applicant added the "divided into a
plurality of segments along a length of the space elevator tower, each of said
plurality of segments containing a plurality of cells defining a core, and a
plurality of stabilization devices distributed along the length of the space
elevator tower; wherein the plurality of cells are pressurized with a gas to
support the pneumatically pressurized structure; and wherein said plurality of
stabilization devices is configured to provide active stabilization of the
space elevator tower using a harmonic control strategy." requirements in claim
1.

This means a space elevator tower which was not exactly this would not be
covered in any way (because they have given up doctrine of equivalents by
amending the claims).

That is just on it's face. In court, if someone came up with a reference for a
space elevator with these features, it would be invalid there too ;)

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Justsignedup
"stabilization devices"

"plurality of segments", "plurality of cores"

It's just describing building a tower using multiple sections which is in
itself sub-divided. this sounds like a pure concept as well. And still very
broad as they didn't specify the size of the sections. Nor did it specify what
the stabilization devices are.

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DannyBee
"his sounds like a pure concept as well"

What do you mean by "pure concept" that's not a patent thing :)

Do you mean an abstract idea?

Because it isn't. It's a method of constructing a physical thing. "And still
very broad as they didn't specify the size of the sections."

They don't have to, as long as it's possible to build it.

Again, your complaint seems to be the examiner didn't search hard enough to
find references. This is not a simple problem to solve (Trust me, I have
worked on it for years)

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tomswartz07
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?

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TheLoneWolfling
Yes, substantially so.

First off, the way stresses work it is substantially easier to build straight
up than in any other direction.

And secondly, you're missing something. Namely, that the only reason why a
string attached to an edge of a merry-go-round whips tangentially is because
of air resistance. In a vacuum, or if the air was moving with the merry-go-
round, the string would be radially-pointing. (There's also a component of
"the merry go round is slowing down", but that also isn't particularly
relevant.)

As such, it makes no sense to build something this way. About the only case
where not building straight up would make sense is if you're slightly off of
the equator - in which case you should move to the equator.

Although I suspect you have the wrong impression of a space elevator. You
don't build up, you build _down_. You have a satellite / asteroid / etc in
geosynchronous orbit. You start spooling out two lengths of wire - one down,
one up. When the lower one reaches the surface, you anchor it. Then attach a
counterweight out beyond geosynchronous orbit.

~~~
abduhl
Actually, building straight down is substantially easier than straight up.

You are incorrect with your statement about "the way stresses work". The
reason it is substantially easier to build straight up is due to our implicit
basis where up is towards space. This is getting rather high level but
stresses are actually tensors and hence are dependent on the chosen basis. If
your basis has up pointed towards the north then it is substantially easier to
build a different direction than up.

This may seem like a semantic argument but it is actually an extremely
important distinction when discussing any tensor (position, velocity,
stresses).

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OliverJones
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
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.

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coldcode
I sometimes wonder if patents should require building one first.

~~~
dantillberg
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)

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aurizon
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

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andyjohnson0
Press release from 21st July 2015:
[http://thothx.com/news-2/](http://thothx.com/news-2/)

~~~
shkkmo
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...

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tremon
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?

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philip142au
How can they patent an idea everyone's already had before?

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Udo
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.

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jdimov9
This is the first chapter of Neal Stephenson's book "Hieroglyph".

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Spearchucker
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.

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JoeAltmaier
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.

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jjcm
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/)

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

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jhoechtl
Reminds me of

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise)

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nanocyber
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.

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Retric
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
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
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!"

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vectorjohn
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?

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

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ommunist
Feed that with gravitricity. Could be funny and efficient.

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dnautics
Can we bring back 'reduction to practice'?

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joering2
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)

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

