Remarkable Apex Anchor

The Modern-Day Space Elevator has matured into a permanent space access infrastructure concept with remarkable characteristics.?

?Introduction:??????? We must remember that Space Elevators are the transportation story of the 21st century.? Reliable, routine, safe, and efficient access to space is close at hand.? Space Elevators are an essential part of the global and interplanetary transportation infrastructure.? Daily, green, routine, inexpensive, efficient and massive movement of payloads to GEO and beyond – and release from other locations along Space Elevators – ?will allow high speed release towards the Moon and planets. This understanding will start discussions about space elevators strengths for supplying activities such as: factories, mining, distributing GEO satellites and other activities which can be accomplished easier in a weightless environment.? The?reality is when humanity decides to pursue off planet activities, there will be a tremendous need for logistic support and movement of manufactured goods as well as transporting people [especially?at low cost and routinely/daily]. ?The question on the table is: how can the strengths of space elevators’ new and unique capabilities providing a “train station” at 100,000 km altitude enable missions of all types, while having little or no environmental impact on our planet??

?When we look at the Moon and dream of spaceflight, we forget how extremely difficult it is to accomplish, both in energy and design complexity.? Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation consumes so much mass to achieve orbit that, historically, we have been restricted as to what we can deliver ?- as to size and weight.? Now that we have decided to go to the Moon and on to Mars in combined international, governmental, and commercial efforts, we need to expand our vision of 'how to.'? It would seem that the establishment of a Full-Service Transportation Node with an ability to assemble, repair, build and store – essentially beyond gravity – would open up Humanity’s movement beyond our planet.? Expanding space access architectures to include Space Elevators enables our robust movement off-planet.?

?Permanent Space Access Infrastructure;???? From a historical transportation perspective, canals, channels and deep-water ports are infrastructure while ships are vehicles.? In Space Elevator concepts, climbers are the vehicles while tethers, Earth Ports, with several termini and operational platforms, GEO Node construction stations (repair garages/refueling/assembly), and Apex Anchors are permanent, reliable space infrastructures.?These permanent transportation infrastructures define future space superhighways’ green road to GEO and beyond.? This will be accomplished with a Dual Space Access Strategy combing strengths of both advanced rockets and Space Elevators.??

Discussions about Modern Day Space Elevators impact our future movement beyond LEO and is transformational at a basic level. ?This new capability is revolutionary in approach, but evolutionary in scope. It major characteristics today are:??

·????? Space Elevators are entering engineering development,

·????? Space Elevators are the Green Road to Space,

·????? Space Elevators are a major portion of Dual Space Access Architecture with advanced rockets, and

·????? Space Elevators are a permanent transportation infrastructure moving massive cargo daily, routinely and safely].

Revolutionary Characteristics*: This new capability is revolutionary leading to operational Space Elevators.? The similarities to railroad operations are remarkable.? The following set of seven permanent transportation infrastructure characteristics will have the ability to enable customers’ missions.? The transformation of space access will be similar to moving to a permanent infrastructure moving cargo daily, routinely, safely, inexpensively, and with little environmental impact.

?During research efforts inside the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), space elevators have developed these transformational characteristics which greatly enhance their capability to fulfill the needs of future customers, focusing upon logistical support and the movement of huge amounts of mass.?

?·????? Unmatched delivery efficiencies as well as daily, routine, safe, and inexpensive [70% of liftoff mass released at GEO and beyond vs 2% of rocket pad mass to GEO].

·????? Unmatched logistical movement [Initial Operational Capability (IOC) at 30,000 tonnes/yr with Full Operational Capability (FOC) 170,000 tonnes/yr] to GEO and beyond,

·????? Unmatched high velocity (starting at 7.76 km/sec at 100,000 altitude enables rapid transits to the Moon, Mars and beyond – as fast as 61 days to Mars with daily releases, no 26 month wait for launch windows)

·????? As a Green Road to Space, it ensures environmentally neutral operations

·????? Reduction of? rocket fairing design limitations

·????? Assembly at the top of the gravity well

·????? Transforming the economics towards an infrastructure with access to more valuable, lucrative, stable and reliable investments.

Potential Space Elevator missions will be discovered as they show the tremendous impacts “enabled” by Space Elevators in the sense of timely delivery of required cargo.?? Each of these future remarkable missions depend upon the main strength of raising mass against the Earth’s gravity while being friendly to our environment. The beauty of the Space Elevator is that it raises massive tonnage with electricity [hence “the Green Road to Space”] and then releases from the GEO region or the Apex Anchor at remarkable velocities (3.1 km/sec at GEO, 7.76 km/sec at the Apex). The strengths of Apex Anchor releases originate within the permanent transportation infrastructure aspects of space elevators.?

Once the Modern-Day Space Elevator emerged in 2020, the concept of an active transportation node at the Apex Anchor became obvious.? The enhancement of the roles at an Apex Anchor showed how it will become a Full-Service Transportation Node for several significant missions centered around the “Logistics Center at the top of the Gravity Well.”? The capability to raise all manner of space system components and segments 100,000 km using solar energy – as a Green Road to Space – enables assembly of major space missions only dreamt of before.? The inherent rapid release velocity (7.76 km/sec) at an Apex Anchor – and the ability to release every day of the year towards any destination, such as the Moon, Mars and beyond – opens up the universe to humanity.? These capabilities at the Full-Service Transportation Node lead to the enabling of missions such as:

·????? A release point for interplanetary missions with space systems of any size (assembled at the top of the gravity well) to any planet with daily releases.

·????? Interplanetary human missions (after development of full Operational Capability) with space systems of any size to any planet with daily windows.

·????? Interplanetary full-service logistics, storage and resupply capability with “just in time delivery.”

·????? Cis-Lunar full-service logistics, storage and release for supply missions with “just in time delivery.”

·????? Astronaut Rescue staging area with storage of necessary rescue material such as oxygen, habitats, water, rocket fuel, power, and food. (only 14 hours from the Moon with daily releases)

·????? Planetary Defense asteroid detection sensors, with multiple 100,000 km tethers on each side of the Earth (206,000 km baseline) for stereoscopic vision of incoming asteroids from the Sun or out of the asteroid belts.? In addition, the storage of planetary defense spacecraft would enable rapid response to near-term threats within 24 hours. Flexibility of responses can be accomplished by storing with rapid assembly of various defensive segments of planetary protection space systems, depending upon the threat.?

?These capabilities also lead to a vision that is revolutionary and illustrates the impacts of these transformational characteristics.? The Apex Anchor is a Full-Service Transportation Node driving Space Elevators’ vision:

?Space Elevators are the Green Road to Space while they enable humanity's most important missions by moving massive tonnage to GEO and beyond.? This is accomplished safely, routinely, inexpensively, daily, efficiently, and they are environmentally neutral.

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*[Swan 2023]??? Peter A. Swan, Cathy W. Swan, Peter Robinson, Keynote:??? Jerome Pearson Memorial Lecture - RESEARCH INTO CHARACTERISTICS OF A PERMANENT SPACE ACCESS TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE,?? IAC-23-D4.3.1, International Astronautics Congress, Baku, Oct 2023.