LiftPort Group of Space Elevator Companies - Building the world's first Space Elevator - Site includes information about carbon nanotubes, robotics, and the space elevator.

Budując pierwszą windę na orbitę - informacje o projekcie, materiałach i urządzeniach... Biorąc pod uwagę że można wygrać w sumie kilka milionów dolarów, to nie jest chyba taka fantastyka naukowa

"Aim high, or you're liable to shoot your toes off..."

We used to aim high. In 1961, President Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon "within a decade". At the time, the US has barely achieved orbital spaceflight. We aimed high, and the future indeed turned out closer than we thought possible.

45 years later, it is time to aim high again. If the moon is a rocky lifeless island near our shore, Mars is the continental shoreline across the ocean. Granted, it is a little bit harder to get to, but the promise and possibilities are infinitely greater. If we're going to risk the ocean, we need to set a course for a worthy destination.

45 years later, it is also time to investigate alternatives to rocket propulsion. Governed by the famous Rocket Equation, space-bound rockets must always be composed of at least 95% fuel, and will likely never carry more than 1% or 2% payload, so rocket travel will likely never be safe or affordable. The Space Elevator is the only viable alternative on the drawing boards today, offering very scalable, low-cost, and safe trasnsport to space.

45 years later, the Spaceward Foundation has set the goal of breaking the Space Program out of Earth Orbit and into worthy destinations. Mankind has clearly outgrew its habitat, and it's time to move on.

The Spaceward Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public-funds non-profit organization dedicated to furthering space science and technology in education and in the public mindshare.

Crab Nebula - ROSAT Credit: S. L.Snowden USRA, NASA/GSFC

Crab Nebula - Chandra
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date.

Chandra is designed to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars. The two images of the Crab Nebula supernova remnant and its pulsar shown below illustrate how higher resolution can reveal important new features.

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