LiftPort Group
Encyclopedia
LiftPort Group is a privately held Washington State corporation. It was founded in April, 2003 by Michael J. Laine and is dedicated to creating cheap, reliable, and safe access to space. The company is focused on the construction of a space elevator
using carbon nanotube
s.
as an interim goal before attempting a terrestrial elevator. At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) , LiftPort CTO Marshall Eubanks presented a paper on the Lunar Elevator co-authored by Michael Laine.
Space elevator
A space elevator, also known as a geostationary orbital tether or a beanstalk, is a proposed non-rocket spacelaunch structure...
using carbon nanotube
Carbon nanotube
Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material...
s.
History
- April 2003, LiftPort Group founded.
- April 12, 2004, LiftPort Group cosponsored the Official Yuri's NightYuri's NightYuri's Night is an international celebration held on April 12 every year to commemorate space exploration milestones. The event is named for the first human to launch into space, Yuri Gagarin, who flew the Vostok 1 spaceship on April 12, 1961. In 2004, people celebrated Yuri's Night in 34...
celebration in Seattle Washington. - November 12, 2004, Demonstrated a lifter at the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
by having it climb up a ribbon approximately 90 meters tall, during a snowstormWinter stormA winter storm is an event in which the dominant varieties of precipitation are formed that only occur at low temperatures, such as snow or sleet, or a rainstorm where ground temperatures are low enough to allow ice to form...
. - April 29, 2005 Announced plans for a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant, the company's first formal facility for production of the material on a commercial scale. The new facility was to serve as the regional headquarters for the company, and represent the fruition of LiftPort Group's three years of research and development efforts into carbon nanotubes, including partnering work with a variety of leading research institutions in the business and academic communities. Set to open in June 2005, LiftPort Nanotech was to be located in MillvilleMillvilleMillville may refer to:United States*Millville, Arizona, a ghost town in Cochise County*Millville, California*Millville, alternate name of Burkeville, California*Millville, Delaware*Millville, Florida...
, New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. - September 20, 2005, LiftPort Group designed and built a better lifter, longer ribbon (Tether) and load bearing Balloon to further illustrate proof of concept and progress. The lifter climbed the 1000 feet (304.8 m) ribbon which was suspended from the balloon.
- January 2006 LiftPort successfully launched an observation and communication platform a full mile (a kilometer and a half) in the air and maintained it in a stationary position for more than six hours while robotic lifters climbed up and down a ribbon attached to the platform. The platform, a proprietary system that the company has named "HALE" (High Altitude Long Endurance), was secured in place by an arrangement of high altitude balloonBalloonA balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
s, which were also used to launch it. The robotic lifters measured five feet, six inches (1.7 meters) and climbed to a height of more than 1500 feet (457.2 m), surpassing its last test record by more than 500 feet (152.4 m). - June 11, 2007, SlashdotSlashdotSlashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
reported that LiftPort was to be penalized due to an alleged illegal offering of shares of the company. - June 2007, Michael Laine from LiftPort Group responded, explaining the issue as a paperwork mistake which resulted in threat of a $20,000 fine..
- February 16, 2010, LiftPort Group entered into a Consent settlement with the State of Washington agreeing to cease and desist specified activites, and no fine was imposed.
Lunar space elevator
In October 2011 on the the LiftPort website Laine announced that LiftPort is pursuing a Lunar space elevatorLunar space elevator
A lunar space elevator is a proposed cable running from the surface of the Moon into space.It is similar in concept to the better known Earth space elevator idea...
as an interim goal before attempting a terrestrial elevator. At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) , LiftPort CTO Marshall Eubanks presented a paper on the Lunar Elevator co-authored by Michael Laine.