Wondrous exchange of ideas for three days in London ! Thanks !! To the British Interplanetary Society !!!

The British Interplanetary Society (BIS) 21st Reinventing Space Conference was the first one I could make – that distant thing is tough sometimes.? This year’s title was “The Commercial Revolution” – of course addressing the space movement and the interest in moving to the Moon and beyond with commercial drivers.?

As a long-time member of the BIS (mid 80’s), I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of listening to new ideas and reinforcing others.? The second day was truly focusing upon its stated mission:? “explore the longer-term possibilities, critical challenges and key stepping stones required for the future exploration and development of space.”? In addition to the remarkable presentations and discussions, the interchange with students was rewarding and intriguing.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to provide two presentations and sit on the concluding panel.? Indeed, my preparation was aggressive as I wanted to explain how The Modern-Day Space Elevator should be in the middle of this discussion with its remarkable benefits to the future commercial movement of logistics.? As a result, I was able to present two significant ideas that should be emphasized and explained around our community:

• “Assembling Huge Space Systems for High-Speed Release at the top of the Gravity Well” – This concept is simple: if you have a truck stop at the top of the Space Elevator, they will provide not only great velocity (7.76 km/sec) upon release, but provide a location to assemble a huge space system by bringing up major segments one at a time and then putting them together.? Can you visualize the Starship Voyager being built on the top of Space Elevators and then going where ever it wants in our solar system with very little fuel needed? How about as fast as 61 days to Mars with daily releases providing “on-time” delivery.

And

• “The Green Road to Space” is the essence of developing commercial sustainable space operations – Currently, the world is working together to fulfill 17 UN Sustainability Developmental Goals (SDGs).? Under consideration is another one to incorporate all the strengths of the space economy [the commercial imperative is critical to this success]. This 18th SDG recognizes that the economic impact of space development will be important for so many other goals such as cheap, available electrical power [how about Space Solar Power?].?

The strength of the Modern-Day Space Elevator is that it is a permanent space access infrastructure that provides daily, safe, inexpensive, routine and is environmentally compatible as it does not leave debris in its path nor burn caustic fuels in our atmosphere as it delivers its payloads at an efficiency of 70% of pad lift to GEO [vs. rockets at 2% to GEO]. It would be a natural extension to the reality that Space Elevators are the essence of space sustainability – or the mission of UNSDG #18

The three day experience was remarkable and rewarding.? As such, I would like to thank a few people for their active participation [if I miss someone please forgive me - I appreciate the "care and feeding" of me while being in a special environment].

·????? John Knapman , Ph.D. FBIS, Board of Directors of ISEC

·????? Colin Philp , Simon Feast , John Lewin , Richard Soilleux, Mark Hempsell, Alistair Scott, Stuart Eves for accepting a long distant BIS supporter.