[Noumenon]

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articl ... 25-ON.html

Associated Press
Jun. 25, 2004 12:50 PM


WASHINGTON - President Bush wants to return to the moon and put a man on Mars. But scientist Bradley C. Edwards has an idea that's really out of this world: an elevator that climbs 62,000 miles into space.

Edwards thinks an initial version could be operating in 15 years, a year earlier than Bush's 2020 timetable for a return to the moon. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors.

"It's not new physics - nothing new has to be discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch," he says. "If there are delays in budget or delays in whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic estimate for when we could have one up."

Edwards is not just some guy with an idea. He's head of the space elevator project at the Institute for Scientific Research in Fairmont, W. Va. NASA already has given it more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.

"A lot of people at NASA are excited about the idea," said Robert Casanova, director of the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts in Atlanta.

Edwards believes a space elevator offers a cheaper, safer form of space travel that eventually could be sued to carry explorers to the planets.

Edwards' elevator would climb on a cable made of nanotubes - tiny bundles of carbon atoms many times stronger than steel. The cable would be about three feet wide and thinner than a piece of paper, but capable of supporting a payload up to 13 tons.

The cable would be attached to a platform on the equator, off the Pacific coast of South America where winds are calm, weather is good and commercial airplane flights are few. The platform would be mobile so the cable could be moved to get out of the path of orbiting satellites.

David Brin, a science-fiction writer who formerly taught physics at San Diego State University, believes the concept is solid but doubts such an elevator could be operating by 2019.

"I have no doubt that our great-grandchildren will routinely use space elevators," he said. "But it will take another generation to gather the technologies needed."

Edwards' institute is holding a third annual conference on space elevators in Washington starting Monday. A keynote speaker at the three-day meeting will be John Mankins, NASA's manager of human and robotics technology. Organizers say it will discuss technical challenges and solutions and the economic feasibility of the elevator proposal.

The space elevator is not a new idea. A Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, envisioned it a century ago. And Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Foundations of Paradise," published in 1979, talks of a space elevator 24,000 miles high, and permanent colonies on the moon, Mercury and Mars.

The difference now, Edwards said, is "we have a material that we can use to actually build it."

He envisions launching sections of cable into space on rockets. A "climber" - his version of an elevator car - would then be attached to the cable and used to add more lengths of cable until eventually it stretches down to the Earth. A counterweight would be attached to the end in space.

Edwards likens the design to "spinning a ball on a string around your head." The string is the cable and the ball on the end is a counterweight. The Earth's rotation would keep the cable taut.

The elevator would be powered by photo cells that convert light into electricity. A laser attached to the platform could be aimed at the elevator to deliver the light, Edwards said.

Edwards said he probably needs about two more years of development on the carbon nanotubes to obtain the strength needed. After that, he believes work on the project can begin.

"The major obstacle is probably just politics or funding and those two are the same thing," he said. "The technical, I don't think that's really an issue anymore."

I think this idea really has merit. Although as a libertarian, I think it would have to be privately funded of course. But if our government is dead set on going back to the moon, I hope it takes this cheaper alternative.

[Boondock Saint]

This reminds me of the Simpsons episode with the escalator to nowhere

Seriously though ... too many variables.

Just make ships safer and faster and more efficient.

[Iain]

A space elevator seems like a great idea to me. There are a lot of problems to be solved, but probably no more than with any other form of space travel. Once it was working, the extent by which the cost of getting into space would be cut would have a tremendous affect on our long term ability to explore space.

This is a serious idea in the early stages rather than some loopy proposal.

[Garibaldi]

I can't believe anyone would take this seriously. An elevator to space? The first problem to occur would be the fact that the moon isn't fixed in a geostationary orbit. The second problem is that you'd have a thin elevator leading up to the moon, and gravity would most likely pull it down before it was completed. Even if it did manage to be completed, by the shear length alone it would be highly prone to bombardement from space objects. Finally, it's a fucking elevator to the moon; doesn't that just tell you it's gona fail?

[ZenWilsonian]

Would not such a thing be an eyesore to pretty much the whole world? And what if there were to be a power failure? So many things are wrong about that idea.

[Iain]

[I removed 5 one-line posts pertaining to below - Ocker]

Once again, no one is suggesting a cable connecting the Earth to the moon. That is not the proposal and would be a silly idea, so far beyond our current technology as to not be worth thinking about.

What is being proposed is a elevator running from the surface of the Earth to a space platform/station in geostationary orbit. Since the vast majority of the cost of launching a space ship is getting it out of the atmosphere, and in the case of the shuttle safely back down afterwards, having a cheap way of getting people and materials into space would vastly cut the costs of getting to the moon along with other space exploration.

Here is a good article explaining how a space elevator would work

[Wilhelm]

I saw it some time ago in HowStuffWorks. It is a very good idea, and I'd put my money on it (if I were a rich bastard with billions of dollars, that is).

The elevator needs minimal power, as it accelerates at a very low rate, but reaches very high speeds. The human body does not suffer at great speeds, but does suffer at great accelerations. So it reaches a great speed and gets to the space platform in no time.

You'll see, space elevators will be taking us to space.