THE MESSAGE from the First International Space Elevator Conference, held here Aug. 12-13, is that the concept is an idea whose time has come … well, almost. World-class specialists in diverse fields — from materials science, bridge-building and aerospace technology to law, business and financing — contend the project is on the up-and-up.
“This is a vertical railroad,” said Brad Edwards, co-founder of HighLift Systems, a privately held, Seattle-based firm established this year.
“The space elevator has long been the stuff of science fiction. We’re turning a concept into a reality,” he told Space.com.
Edwards is a driving force behind the space elevator project. The work has been spurred into being by funding through the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts program.
When you hear the details, it’s clear no small thinking is allowed. Yet the proposed structure is steeped in simple physics.
At the heart of the space elevator is a ribbon that stretches some 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) from Earth to space. This high-wire act would be anchored to an offshore sea platform floating near the equatorial line in the Pacific Ocean. At the other end, high above Earth, the elevator is tipped by a counterweight.
Returning to down-to-earth physics: Just like a ball on a string that’s swung round and round over your head, the twine stays straight. Hold onto that thought.
“What we’re doing here is using the earth’s rotation. Because of that rotational acceleration, a space elevator cable is pulled outward. It has an upward tension, with gravity pulling down on the bottom. The cable is balanced and it hangs there … stable and vertical in space,” Edwards said.
Electrically powered “climbers,” energized by laser beam, would make their way up and down the ribbon, Edwards said. These automated devices are built for the long haul; they ride the length of the ribbon topped by spacecraft, construction materials and eventually passenger-carrying pods.
WANTED: UNOBTAINIUM
Making the difference in designing a true space elevator is finding a critical building material for the ultra-lengthy tether, cable or ribbon — whatever you want to call it.
The fact is that many writers in the past who have pondered the building of a space elevator just chalked up the mysterious super-substance to “unobtainium”.
That changed in 1991, thanks to Japanese researcher Sumio Iijima, an electron microscopist for NEC Corp. He is discoverer of what are now called nanotubes. Additional research has shown that carbon nanotubes possess incredible properties. One of those attributes is having a tensile strength 100 times stronger than steel at one-fifth the weight.
The nanotube research community sees super composites having wide application in automobile manufacturing and other high-tech vehicles, ranging even to ski poles and bikes.
Edwards said it appears that the unobtainium material for a space elevator has been found.
More of the story here.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/796283.asp?pne=msn#BODY
Space Elevator
Moderator: Vincent
Space Elevator
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