2024-10-08 19:28:08
An idea, which arose in the mind of a physicist from the Soviet Union in the 18th century, is slowly becoming a reality among the plans of several engineers around the world. The project is about a extraordinary elevator that will connect the Earth with space, allowing the transportation of people and scientific cargo on a vertical journey of more than 10,000 kilometers, where the exosphere, the last layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, ends.
This mega-work of engineering, inspired by science-fiction literature, is receiving a strong push from scientists from countries such as the United States, China and Japan, since it promises to make space travel safer and more comfortable, save costs and energy, and not depend on climatic adversities that interrupt rocket launches.
Illustration of a space elevator in overhead view. Photo: Glenn Clovis
What will the space elevator be like?
The idea of the space elevator was initially proposed in 1895, by the Russian scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskyand was taken up in the last century by his compatriot Yuri Artsutanovwho updated the sketches with the scope of modern technology in his article To the cosmos by electric train.
Based on these advances, scientists and various technology companies have developed their own designs for space elevators, all agreeing that these cabins must be supported by an ultra-resistant and ultra-tense cable that hangs from a satellite, located above the geosynchronous orbitwhich, according to NASA, begins approximately 36,000 km above the surface.
In the sketches of the space elevator Obayashi Corporationa Japanese company that plans to start building it by 2050, for example, this cabin will hold up to 30 people inside and will travel at a speed of 200 km/h, propelled by the power of an electric motor.
If this were the case, a trip to space would take approximately 8 days. Although this time is longer than a rocket takes, passengers on board would not experience high acceleration or the dangers of traveling inside a vehicle with tons of fuel, which could explode.
The overall system, whose cost would be approximately $9 billion and would be composed of “a 96,000 km carbon nanotube cable, a 400-meter-diameter floating land port, and a 12,500-ton counterweight,” the company indicated, in a 2015 statement.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), other space elevator projects vary significantly in design and there is no consensus on which would be the most optimal. There are those that would use sunlight as a source of energy and others that would use the surface of the Moon as an anchoring point, as is the case of the one proposed in an article by scientists Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford.
How will the space elevator be built?
Most engineers who have dedicated themselves to designing space elevators and running computer simulations agree that they should be built from top to bottom, with a taut rope, which will follow the direction of the Earth’s spin, from west to east.