SpaceElevatorBookRevision

This is Keith's opinions on Brad's next book.

The purpose of the bible is a non-fiction back of the envelope proof. Keep pushing the boundaries between good ideas and bad.

A fictional book would be good, but that is your next book.

Leaving the planet has new data and stories, better pictures, editing and more consistent layout, but it is not a proof. Something that is the best of both would be really awesome

Making a book 2x better will make sell 4x more copies. Market: 16-year old boys, Congressional staffers, etc. The goal is the the next book so good that friends demand their friends read it, and one that Oprah could understand, if not care to read. The 2003 book is close to that level if some things were removed.

Nontechnical suggestions

I believe these are important for market success

Anyone who goes to the trouble to read such a book will want a proof. It needs things like adaptic optics. You can make such a book readable by everyone and I am doing it with my book.

The Glass Giants Planets table has 1 or 2 too many columns. Your estimates of the cost of the 3rd and fourth ribbon are even more speculative so probably not necessary. Some of what is in your book isn't even your work. You can put them on a website. Any calculation which depends on 2 other calculations of yours is likely wrong. How confident are you even of the length it will be? Surely it is more settled than the payload, but is it truly settled?

Yes, there are many places that need to be cleaned up. In many of these cases we need to give basic information that is not completely settled but we should do a much better job of making it clear that in these cases what we are discussing is speculative and very uncertain. This will maintain our credibility through out as well as provide a complete discussion.

I think you should shoot down microwave power beaming, but only use one number to communicate that idea, not the page of them.

Agreed.

Specifics:

We could have the shipping capacity for space ships from 46 tons to the 200 ton ribbon to the 116 ships on the 500 ton ribbon if we stay within the FLP traffic size climbers; and up to 350 ton ships using max ribbon limit

Two problems with above: 1. That sentence has no new information. 2. The idea of using the max ribbon limit instead of using FLP is bad and you shouldn't advocate it throughout the book. You should discuss FLP early in your book as it is an interesting concept, then assume it will be implemented as you suggest throughout the rest.

This is true though it does depend a bit on what the payloads are and how many there will be - obviously things we can not determine. We can use either since there is a simple ratio between them. We can go with FLP, we just need to explain it up front and be consistent.

The force from the wind perpendicular to the ribbon face required to break the initial and weakest ribbon is: MATHMATHMATH To do the calculation correctly we need to calculate the aerodynamic drag on the two distinct material areas, the ribbon or the set of strings or rods

We have much more info on this which actually allows us to make the discussion simpler and more concise.

Note that I don't want to suggest you remove your deployment schedule chart, the budget summary table, etc. Your book needs to have a cost for the first elevator, and that needs lots of numbers to boil down to that number. Or your funny jokes. In total, I love the 2003 book. Please do not throw out the baby. I would feel horrible if you trimmed too much.

You might make 2 or 3x more money if you translate this book into the other big languages. I have translators who I'm sure would be interested.

We can certainly do this.

We need to solve the 200 mph situation, or have a solution for humans.

What about the space station and the moon station? These come up right after the elevator. There is too much about Jupiter, etc. and not enough back of the envelope information of what is at GEO.

There are too many predictions of dates and each one is a potential for error. Is Venus really a century away? Then why is it discussed?

Also, we need something that takes 1 week to 1 month to go to Mars. If there is so much matter and energy out there, let's use it. The back of an envelope should fully use available assets.

Technical suggestions

I'm not the expert, but I have several opinions I'd like to use this opportunity to mention. These ideas are not a part of any "contract", so I'm moving them to the discussion page.

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1. Keith Curtis

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