Space Elevator

A space elevator? Read Robert Freer’s article below to see how it might be possible.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

If one enjoys the often rare opportunity to gaze up at a clear nighttime sky, free from the distortions of society’s ambient light, he or she will notice dim stars that never rise or set, fixed motionless in the heavens. These are the growing number of satellites that hang in geosynchronous orbit (21,700 miles altitude) moving above the equator at the same speed as the revolving earth, remaining forever in the same spot. These industrial pinholes in the blanket of night, shape our everyday lives in escalating proportions. Governments and corporations depend on them for communication and data, and consequently, so do many of us, citizens of a shrinking world dependent on cellular phones, Google searches, NFL Sunday Ticket, and other now commonplace marvels in our lives. Space, still the final frontier, has become, unnoticed an integral part of our daily existence.

The President and NASA hope to return to the moon and put a person on Mars. However, despite our nation’s more than forty years of space exploration experience, a space shuttle’s 15,000 miles-per-hour blastoff from Earth’s gravity and atmospheric friction still proves extremely dangerous and expensive. Increasingly those favoring a more reasonable alternative are being heeded. Miracle materials and nano technology are paving the way for a far better solution. Why not enjoy an elevator ride beyond gravity’s demanding tug and remain suspended like a great yoyo in space tethered to the earth below? No, this is not a suggestion to re-read Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, but rather to be thrilled by the very attainable goal that scientists and engineers now are exploring with carbon-nanotube technology.

In his 1978 novel, The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke asked: “If the laws of celestial mechanics make it possible for an object to stay fixed in the sky, might it not be possible to lower a cable down to the surface, and so to establish an elevator system linking earth to space?” Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky conceptualized this elevator nearly a century before Clarke, and Kim Stanley-Robinson’s 1990s Mars Trilogy recalled its wondrous possibilities to the minds of science-fiction readers. Currently the notion of a smooth ride up 62,000 miles of cable is being propelled into reality by physicist Bradley Edwards, who is backed by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts, and Ray Baughman, director of the Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas. There is even an upcoming Space Elevator engineering contest, Elevator: 2010, hosted by The Spaceward Foundation, which hopes their competition will provoke technical advances as well as demonstrate the feasibility and simplicity of the Space Elevator concept to a wide audience.

For a Space Elevator to work, a cable with one end anchored to the earth’s surface stretches upwards, rising clear through the atmosphere and beyond to a space station tethered in gyro synchronous orbit. Then the competing forces of gravity at the lower end and outward centripetal acceleration at the farther end keep the cable under tension. The simple physics of the design would allow a climber vehicle powered by electric motors to carry anything from people to scientific or industrial materials into space in safety and at lower cost. The cost of transporting matter could drop from the $20,000 a kilogram on a space shuttle to as little as $250 a kilogram because of the reduced amount of energy used.

In theory the idea is simple and achievable. The toughest challenge for moving forward has been developing a strong enough cable material, and the answer lies in the commercial construction of carbon nanotubes. The current challenge is that nobody has yet woven the miniscule nanotube ribbons together in a way to make sheets that are as strong as their individual fibers. Still, scientists and engineers working on the concept consider it little more than ten years and ten billion dollars away.

Besides re-instilling people’s sense of scientific awe, currently dulled by the continuous unending stream of ever smaller music machines and multitasking phones, the construction of a Space Elevator has global political implications. Because of the equator’s relative nearness to space, plausible designs would anchor the elevator to the ground of an equatorial country. Consequently, equatorial countries will profit significantly from whatever cargoes are shipped from their real estate into the sky. If international developers stress good business practices and the necessity of operating in a politically stable environment, this could positively alter the balance of power along the equator, a region where up until now, turmoil has seemed relatively commonplace.

Several millennia after zealots were rebuked for building the Tower of Babel, this project is no pipe dream. A modern stairway to the heavens lies within reach. It beckons us to accept its promise. Hopefully its possibility and man’s quest for the heavens will coincide in the next decade to give us and our posterity a more economical and cost effective stairway to the stars. Its completion in the next 15 years will serve as an inspiring and uniting pathway to the future, and a real shot in the economics of the Andean region.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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