Monday, December 10, 2007

Take an Elevator Into Space in 23 Years, 320 Days, 21 Hours, and 35 Minutes From Now


By Jan Gray

The Liftport Group is a collaboration of various companies in various industries uniting under a single goal, to get a space elevator built. They are serious. They have an exact date when they expect to be done and even a countdown clock emblazoned on the top of there website. Tickets are being sold for about $400 a pound to buy today.


The idea is simple. Simply fasten a line on the ground. Then attach a counterweight to the opposite end. The counterweight will be in geosynchronous orbit hovering over the base of the line. The line will be kept taut by the centrifugal force from the rotation of the earth. Simply attach an elevator to the line and bam there is a space elevator.

Of course the reality of the matter is that there are many more things to consider. First the line must be about 35,786 km in length. The base station holding the line to the ground must be somewhere in the ball park of 50 km tall itself for the whole thing to work. The counterweight must be a massive structure and some scientists, according to NASA, have even theorized about using an asteroid for this. The elevators would be electromagnetic, much like the Maglev trains in Europe, allowing the elevator to accelerate to speeds beyond a 1,000 km/h.

The base tower which extends 50 kilometers in the air would have to be built on the equator for this is where the counterweight and the base can remain in geosynchronous and this is where the centrifugal force is at maximum. The tower, being stretched so far into the skies would be undoubtedly susceptible to the elements, mainly winds. This would have to be taken into account and a location would have to be found where wind is minimal.

The line or cable must be made out of a material that has yet to be made. I am of course referring to the carbon nanotube. This material has recently undergone some controversy as to where and when it was created. Most say that it was invented in Japan in 1991 however some say that it was invented in Russia during the Cold War. Regardless, the material still has not been perfected. When it is done, it will be the strongest, toughest, and just outright rudest material on the planet. Only then can the space elevator become a reality. Some think were already there.

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