The enduring popularity of the space elevator is easy to grasp in light of the benefits having one would entail. Since the early Space Age, the concept has remained largely unchanged, as have the proposed benefits of such a structure.
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The “Tether” would extend from this to a “Counterweight” in space, which could be a captured asteroid, a space station beyond GSO, or a combination thereof.Ī series of “Climbers” (or cable cars) would deliver crews and payloads to orbit, which could be powered by solar panels, nuclear reactors, wireless, or direct energy transfer. These and other versions involved several shared design elements, starting with an “Anchor” attached to a fixed point on land or a mobile platform at sea. Examples include Soviet Engineer Yuri Artsutanov‘s (1959) proposal for an “ Electric train to the Cosmos” and the “Sky-Hook” proposed by a team of American engineers in 1966. He also noted that the idea was unrealistic since no known material was strong enough to support the weight of the standing structure.īy the onset of the Space Age, the idea was reexamined by Soviet and American scientists as a suspension structure. However, Tsiolkovsky’s version of the idea called for a compression structure rather than a suspension one. From this encounter, Tsiolkovsky conceived of a structure that reached to geostationary orbit (GSO), or an altitude of 36,000 km (22,370 mi). This proposal was inspired by his visit to Paris in 1895, where he witnessed the Eiffel Tower for the first time (construction had finished in 1889). In his more adventurous musings, he proposed how humanity could build rotating Pinwheel Stations in space and a space elevator. Considered to be the top contender for the title of the “Father of Rocketry” (the other two being Hermann Oberth and Robert Goddard), Tsiolokovsky is responsible for developing the “ Rocket Equation” and the design from which most modern rockets are derived. Like most time-honored revolutionary ideas for space exploration, the space elevator can be traced to Russian/Soviet rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). This engineering facility specializes in the rapid development and scaling-up of graphene and other 2D materials. Nixene’s flagship publication (the Nixene Journal) is an affiliate member of the University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC). John Knapman, a former AI specialist with IBM, a member of the British Interplanetary Society, and the Managing Director of the ISEC. He was joined by Dennis Wright - the vice president of the ISECIBM and a former researcher with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory - and Dr. The research was led by Adrian Nixon, a graphene and 2D materials scientist, a Royal Society of Chemistry member, founder and editor of Nixene Publishing, and a board member of StellarModal and the ISEC. But as it turns out, this issue may finally be resolved! According to scientists with the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), a cost-effective manufacturing process could produce graphene ribbons that are strong enough to fashion a tether! Their latest findings are detailed in a paper they will present at the upcoming 2022 International Astronomical Congress in Paris. The single-greatest challenge has always been the tether since no known material has ever been strong enough to handle the stresses involved. But every generation or so, new research comes along that causes engineers and space agencies to reevaluate the concept.
The engineering challenges and costs associated with such a structure have always been enormous. Our planet’s rotation would keep this tether taught, and a system of “climbers” would transport people and payloads to and from space. Originally proposed about a century-and-a-quarter ago, this concept calls for a tether of supermaterial that connects a station in orbit to Earth’s surface. The s pace elevatoris one of those ideas that seems to have an endless supply of lives.
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