LiftPort Nanotech will be located in Millville, New Jersey

[phantom power]

LiftPort Group, the Space Elevator companies, recently announced plans for a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant, the company's first formal facility for production of the material on a commercial scale. Called LiftPort Nanotech, the new facility will also serve as the regional headquarters for the company, and represents the fruition of the company'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 of this year, LiftPort Nanotech will be located in Millville, New Jersey, a community with a history in glass and plastics production. Both the City of Millville and the Cumberland County Empowerment Zone are partnering to provide $100,000 in initial seed money for the new facility.

LiftPort Nanotech will make and sell carbon nanotubes to glass, plastic and metal companies, which will in turn synthesize them into other stronger, lighter materials (also known as composites) for use in their applications. Already being used by industries such as automotive and aerospace manufacturing, carbon nanotube composites are lighter than fiberglass and have the potential to be up to 100 times stronger than steel.

"We are pleased that LiftPort has selected Millville as the location for its new manufacturing facility and regional headquarters," said Sandra Forosisky, Executive Director of the Cumberland Empowerment Zone. "Millville has a strong history in manufacturing, and we believe it is ideally suited for the emerging carbon nanotube industry." Mayor James Quinn from the City of Millville added, "LiftPort's presence will give Millville a competitive advantage in the emerging use of nanotube composites within our existing manufacturing base and its ability to attract additional manufacturing companies resulting in the creation of many new well paying jobs for our community."

"We selected Millville due both to its central location to key business centers on the East Coast, as well as its experienced workforce," said Michael Laine, president of LiftPort Group. "In addition, we selected the area because of its growing reputation for supporting the development of cutting edge technologies in a variety of arenas, such as low-cost, green energy."

"We see the development of carbon nanotubes as critical to the building of the Space Elevator," said Laine. "Opening a commercial production facility enables us to generate revenues in the shorter term by meeting the growing market need for this material. At the same time, it enables us to conduct research and development in this arena for our longer term goal of a commercial Space Elevator."

http://www.liftport.com/nanotech.php

Contact:
LiftPort Nanotech
245 4th Street
Suite 508
Bremerton, WA 98337 USA
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]

[nashville_brook]

1. space elevator -- is this what i think it is?

??

[phantom power]

3. It's an elevator from the surface of the earth, past geosynchronous orbit.

Or, that's the plan.

[nashville_brook]

5. like this?

[phantom power]

6. That's pretty much the idea. Although LiftPort is planning to use...

the ribbon-deployer as the initial counterweight, not an asteroid.

[nashville_brook]

8. this would put the shuttle out of biz -- bout dang time

[madrchsod]

2. cool

i hope i live long enough to see this technology transform the planet..

[Salviati]

4. Well, they're shooting for a target date April 2018...

Which when I first heard it, sounded pretty unbelievable, but after going to a talk by Michael Laine a few months ago, actually sounds like it may be possible... Very exciting to say the least...

He was talking about a cost to orbit ~$400/lb (down from about $10,000/lb today) so it's time to start going on that diet!

[nashville_brook]

7. once yer in orbit yer halfway to everywhere

to paraphrase heinlein

[phantom power]

9. If you lauch from the counterweight, you get earth's energy for free.

it will fling you away. A slingshot powered by the angular momentum of an entire planet.

[nashville_brook]

10. oh wow! that's amazing!

like, don't we have to wait for years sometimes to get the slingshot effect when launching space probes. this would take us into a whole new space age.

i grew up near cape canaveral -- i have such a soft spot for all things space.

[phantom power]

11. If they make this work, it will give us the solar system.

And the solar system may be looking a lot more attractive in another decade or two.

Even if they don't make it work, it's likely to at least give us better composites. Far better. I like their business plan. They're going to start by just trying to produce commercially useful nanotube composites (or feedstock for same). If they get that far, they can fund the actual space-elevator with those composites. And if they can't get that far, the rest of the plan can't happen anyway.

[nashville_brook]

12. there has to billioooons of applications! light weight, super strong

flexible -- yowza.

and by 2018 -- i might still be alive! a reason to quit smoking.

[NNadir]

13. I cry NIMBY.

This is not what I need, space tourists filling up my state.

[phantom power]

16. Those would be some badly informed space tourists.

Any space elevator action will be along the equator.

[NNadir]

17. Good. Let the Africans or the South Americans deal with it.

As long as it's not in my back yard.

[Salviati]

18. I believe that liftport is planning to anchor it in the ocean

to a large floating platform.

[meow mix]

14. what happens when the cable snaps?

i like my feet plant firmly on the ground. no heights plz.

[phantom power]

15. Depends.

The "cable" is actually a ribbon. So, portions already in the atmosphere would react more or less as if you dropped a very long ribbon. There would be no "impact".

Assuming it broke in one place, everything on "high" end would follow the counterweight, probably into a higher orbit around earth, although maybe it would be moving at escape velocity.

Everything on the low end would fall to earth. Mostly slowly, although sections above the atmosphere might accelerate enough to burn on reentry.

Anything payloads to the cables would either fall, or follow the counterweight.

[freethought]

19. Holy Cow! This is happening faster than I thought!

I remember seeing a 'NOVA' on PBS some time ago. It profiled the scientists and the experience of discovering the Fullerene or 'Buckyball' molecule. I figured we were still several years away from commercial use. Holy Smokes!! Just goes to show you what is possible when good minds are put to good use. I wonder what other kinds of things they can do with this carbon nanotechnology? Wasn't it Yogi Bera who said "We don't know one tenth of one percent of anything."?

[phantom power]

20. I don't think they are producing anything commercial, yet.

Although I assume they are at least close, if they are planning a factory. I have a feeling this is still a bit speculative.

I want this to work so bad I can taste it. But... there's so many ways it can go wrong. It's agonizing, but I cannot look away.

[freethought]

21. Speculative? Hmmmm, maybe you're right.

None the less, they must feel they can accomplish something and have the expertise to back it up. I would like to know if they have financing set up or are they looking for investors. I don't think a smart capitalist would touch the technology unless there was money to be made.
I hope were on the same page here, I am more interested in the broader applications of the technology more than the elevator. The commercial applications of this technology range far and wide.

[phantom power]

23. Me? I want the elevator. It's our ticket out of here.

Earth is our womb. Every child has to get born, or the child and the womb both die.

But the spin-off material science ought to be fantastic too. Like you say, endless applications. It will make the spin-offs from the Apollo program look like childs play. Assuming they can make any of it work.

Their finances are run by a different subsidiary. "liftport finance" or some such. It's on their home page.

[dcfirefighter]

22. I did see something regarding nanotubes and algae

Apparently they can dangle the nanotubes in water like fiber optics, getting light deeper, and growing more algae per surface area.

Being that algae ponds, if they were PV, are about 1% efficient in the best case, I suppose there's a lot of room for improvement.