Space Elevator In The Making
A Canadian space company took matters into their own hands and decided to shape the history of space travel. The company, known as Thoth Technology Inc, thought it would be a good idea to just make a giant elevator that could take people into space, rather than wasting fuel over and over again to send them in a rocket ship.
The company has been offered he necessary funds to create such a space elevator. It is going to be named ThothX Tower and it will be an “inflatable, freestanding structure” which will contain an electric elevator which could take people up to 20 km above Earth’s surface.
Brendan Quine, the tower’s designer, expressed his excitement about the magnificent structure and its utility.
“Astronauts would ascend to 20km by electrical elevator. From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refueling and reflight.”
Quine declared rockets as “extremely inefficient” due to the conditions required to exit the planet’s atmosphere. It is commonly known that reaching the 50 km altitude can be done only by rocket. Mass is expelled at very high velocity in this area, thus requiring a lot of energy to achieve the thrust required to move in an opposing direction.
Thus, an electric elevator would be more efficient as it would use less energy. Quine also explained why ships must spend a lot more energy: so that they counter the gravitational force that drags objects back towards Earth. If this force were a lot weaker, then exiting the planet’s atmosphere would be easier. Then again, humans would not be tied to the ground like they are now.
But by using an elevator system, the energy required drops drastically. This is because no expulsion is required and because the low-speed ascension would cause no atmospheric drag. It is a logical explanation and a good concept, but building the tower is not as easy as it sounds.
Anybody can imagine that a tower of such height would be extremely vulnerable to earthquakes. So there are some measures that need to be taken into consideration.
The tower either has to be very large in width or it has to be somehow balanced at greater heights. In case of an earthquake, the tower might remain intact at lower levels, but it could break at greater heights. Wind should also be taken into consideration.
However, if this plan is being taken into consideration, it is quite possible that details such as these might have already been taken into consideration. The idea is definitely not bad and it could help revolutionize space travel. It might be only a matter of time until we see this space marvel constructed here, on our little planet.
Photo Credits kinja-img.com
