Imagine that you need to go into orbit, or you need to get some materials up there. Instead of taking a rocketship, you take an elevator that rises into the sky like Jack's mythical beanstalk.
Impossible? Only for now. We've covered carbon nanotubes and other necessary components back in 2002. This June, Glenn's Winds of Discovery report indicated that space elevators could be closer than we thought.
Late June 2004 saw the Third International Conference on Space Elevators. The meeting is now over, and while we wait for the official archive of the presentations, we're starting to get a bit of information about what went on. Worldchanging.com has an optimistic article on future nanotech costs, and a fine collection of interesting space elevator materials.
It's amazing to me to see the amount of interest on this idea lately. I suppose there's nothing like an idea whose time has come. I read a pretty good article about it in the latest issue of Discovery Magazine, which goes into the process of building such a system as forwarded by one Brad Edwards (sadly, it is available in its entirety to subscribers only).
Anyone perusing a newsstand looking for interesting science reading would be remiss to not pick up a copy and give it a glance.
A space elevator will be THE engineering project of the 21st century. It will be the Golden Gate of the future.
While ideas like flying cars, spaceships, nuclear fusion power plants, and genetic engineering have slowly seeped into the public consciousness, (despite their fiction) the idea of a space elevator is rather foreign to most. Many misconceptions exist about its feasibility, desirability and usefulness. If the necessary fundamental progress is made in the manufacture of strong carbon fibers allowing the extremely high strength composite fiber to be made, then a space elevator may well be constructed.
Such a structure poses many engineering challenges. These have been studied and are addressed at length:
http://www.isr.us/SEFAQs.asp?m=3
Somewhat surprisingly, the project seems to be well within the realm of possibility -- other than a demonstration of the necessary fundamental carbon fiber strength. Problems like orbital debris impacts, material degradation, cyclonic storms, lightning, and power transmission have all been addressed. Even risks like environmental and terrorists events have been looked at and mitigated.
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be creating the market for space travel. An elevator makes the most sense from an investment perspective when it is highly used. Such a market for space travel doesn't exist yet because of its current high cost.
A small but perhaps growing space travel market has begun. The Russians have been selling seats into space to government astronauts, journalists, commercial entities and even tourists. The price for these quite limited opportunities has been between $10 and $20 million per person/flight.
In the US, private organizations have begun designing and flying sub-orbital rocket planes.
http://x-prize.org
A space elevator promises a drastic reduction in cost to space after the high initial investment is amortized.
--Fred
We're jumping the gun with talk of space elevators. It would be better to build a long tether first. It doesnt' have to touch the Earth and thus removes the majority of serious problems. A tether designed long enough to dip real close to the atmosphere allows even x-prize winners to dock and could launch payloads all over the place without the risk of the whole thing being hit by terrorists or waiting for nanotubes to be ready. It also avoids the problem with satelites in geosynchronus orbit. It could be built today with the money and the will to do it.
If we do push for an elevator I would suggest placing the base in Equador which is on the equator, has some very high locations near to major airports, seaports, and train hubs and which should be out of the way of hurricanes and easily defended. Equador could use the economic help as well.
The market for space elevator cargo is pretty much waiting for the space elevator. There are all sorts of projects that have been worked out but are impractical because the launch costs are way too high. Take two zeros off the cost to launch a pound in orbit and you've got a large number of applications that can be taken off the shelf and quickly developed.
The space elevator is 100 years away AT BEST. I find it hard to imagine a short (70 mile) tether in 50 years
abc123: I know it can be very difficult to imagine, but they are saying they could set a SE in 15 years!
I think we need some venture capitol here. It won't go through with the gov -- the space shuttle program is one of the most beurocratic and politisized programs....we need some venture capitol here.