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Welcome to my new blog, Dornick n' Gleipner, where I plan to document my thoughts on the space elevator, with occasional diversions to other hobbies.

I'd read Clarke's Fountains of Paradise in the early eighties, and became a fan of the current studies shortly before the 3rd Annual International Space Elevator Conference in 2004. I attended the conference in Washington, D.C., and my wife and I provided some of the promotional materials given to attendees and presenters.

Dornick n' Gleipner sounds like the name of a pub. They are two words that rattled around my head the first time that I read the first space elevator book.

A dornick is a stone of throwable size, from when farmers were clearing their fields. Getting rid of a dornick was easier than something larger that needed to be carried away. The climber payloads for a space elevator are like dornicks, since they are designed to fit within the lifting capacity of a elevator ribbon.

In Norse mythology, the gods repeatedly failed to bind the Fenrir wolf with heavy chains, until the dwarves crafter the magic ribbon Gleipner. It is stronger than any chain, and binds him until Ragnarök. The carbon nanotube ribbon for the elevator reminds me of gleipner.

If a space elevator is ever built, and proves successful, then I hope that space exploration and travel will become more commonplace than its been in the last fifty years. If it does, then perhaps a large space station can be built at geosynchronous orbit, serviced by a ribbon, as a way station for travelers coming and going from the Earth. If you get a chance to go there, maybe you can stop on by the Dornick n' Gleipner, and we'll all hoist a few pints to the path that got us there.