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Space elevator
A space elevator would consist of a cable anchored to the Earth's surface, reaching into
space. By attaching a counterweight at the end (or by further extending the cable for the
same purpose), centrifugal force ensures that the cable remains stretched taut, countering
the gravitational pull on the lower sections, thus allowing the elevator to remain in
geostationary orbit. Once beyond the gravitational midpoint, carriage would be
accelerated further by the planet's rotation. Diagram not to scale.
The most common proposal is a tether, usually in the form of a cable or ribbon, spanning
from the surface to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. As the planet rotates, the inertia
at the end of the tether counteracts gravity because of the centripetal force that keeps the
cable taut. Vehicles can then climb the tether and escape the planet's gravity without the
use of rocket propulsion. Such a structure could theoretically permit delivery of cargo and
people to orbit with transportation costs a fraction of those of more traditional methods of
launching a payload into orbit.
Recent proposals for a space elevator are notable in their plans to incorporate carbon
nanotubes into the tether design, thus providing a link between space exploration and
nanotechnology.
Contents
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o 11.4 Articles
A space fountain would use pellets fired up from the ground by a mass driver, the pellets
traveling through the center of a tower. These pellets would impart their kinetic energy to
the tower structure via electromagnetic drag as they traveled up and again as their
direction was reversed by a magnetic field at the top. Thus the structure would not be
supported by the compressive strength of its materials, and could be hundreds of
kilometers high. Unlike tethered space elevators (which have to be placed near the
equator), a space fountain could be located at any latitude. Space fountains would require
a continuous supply of power to remain aloft.
Compressive structures would be similar to those used for aerial masts. While these
structures might reach the agreed altitude for space (100 km), they are unlikely to reach
geostationary orbit (35,786 km). Due to the difference between sub-orbital and orbital
spaceflights, additional rockets or other means of propulsion would be necessary to
achieve orbital speed. Arthur C. Clarke proposed a compressive space tower made of
diamond in his novel 2061: Odyssey Three, a second sequel to his famous 2001: A Space
Odyssey.
One concept for the space elevator has it tethered to a mobile seagoing platform.
There are a variety of tether designs. Almost every design includes a base station, a cable,
climbers, and a counterweight.
The base station designs typically fall into two categories—mobile and stationary. Mobile
stations are typically large oceangoing vessels, though airborne stations have been
proposed as well. Stationary platforms are generally located in high-altitude locations,
such as on top of high towers.
Mobile platforms have the advantage of being able to maneuver to avoid high winds,
storms, and space debris. While stationary platforms don't have these advantages, they
typically have access to cheaper and more reliable power sources, and require a shorter
cable. While the decrease in cable length may seem minimal (typically no more than a
few kilometers), that can significantly reduce the minimal width of the cable at the center,
and reduce the minimal length of cable reaching beyond geostationary orbit significantly.
[edit] Cable
The cable must be made of a material with an extremely high tensile strength/density
ratio (the stress a material can be subjected to without breaking, divided by its density). A
space elevator can be made relatively economically feasible if a cable with a density
similar to graphite and a tensile strength of ~65–120 GPa can be mass-produced at a
reasonable price.
By comparison, most steel has a tensile strength of under 2 GPa, and the strongest steel
resists no more than 5.5 GPa, but steel is dense. The much lighter material Kevlar has a
tensile strength of 2.6–4.1 GPa, while quartz fiber can reach upwards of 20 GPa; the
tensile strength of diamond filaments would theoretically be minimally higher.
Carbon nanotubes (a material that was first fabricated in the 1990s) appear to have a
theoretical tensile strength and density that is well above the desired minimum for space
elevator structures. The technology to manufacture bulk quantities[4] of this material and
fabricate them into a cable is in early stages of development. While theoretically carbon
nanotubes can have tensile strengths beyond 120 GPa, in practice the highest tensile
strength ever observed in a single-walled tube is 52 GPa, and such tubes averaged
breaking between 30 and 50 GPa.[5] Even the strongest fiber made of nanotubes is likely
to have notably less strength than its components. Improving tensile strength depends on
further research on purity and different types of nanotubes.
The technology to spin regular VdW-bonded yarn from carbon nanotubes is just in its
infancy: the first success to spin a long yarn as opposed to pieces of only a few
centimeters has been reported only very recently (March 2004); but the strength/weight
ratio was not as good as Kevlar due to the inconsistent quality and short length of the
tubes being held together by VdW.
Note that as of 2006, carbon nanotubes have an approximate price of $25/gram, and
20,000 kg - twenty million times that much - would be necessary to form even a seed
elevator. This price is decreasing rapidly, and large-scale production would reduce it
further, but the price of suitable carbon nanotube cable is anyone's guess at this time.
A possible complication not mentioned in most of the literature is the potential 'pretzel-
effect' of a carbon nanotube ribbon which would, without wind mitigation, ultimately
twist into a pretzel shape in the areas of the ribbon exposed to the atmosphere. The added
tensile stress from these forces could break the ribbon and it admits no simple solution. If
the constant minimum load tension in the ribbon is sufficient (some have suggested 20
tons) such twisting may be mitigated by this tension alone. A cylindrical cable shape
eliminates this concern entirely as the twisting need only be mitigated at the end points.
Due to its enormous length a space elevator cable must be carefully designed to carry its
own weight as well as the smaller weight of climbers. The required strength of the cable
will vary along its length, since at various points it has to carry the weight of the cable
below, or provide a centripetal force to retain the cable and counterweight above. In an
ideal cable, the actual strength of the cable at any given point would be no greater than
the required strength at that point (plus a safety margin). This implies a tapered design.
Using a model that takes into account the Earth's gravitational and "centrifugal" forces
(and neglecting the smaller solar and lunar effects), it is possible to show[7] that the cross-
sectional area of the cable as a function of height is given by:
Where A(r) is the cross-sectional area as a function of distance r from the Earth's center.
This equation gives a shape where the cable thickness initially increases rapidly in an
exponential fashion, but slows at an altitude a few times the Earth's radius, and then
gradually becomes parallel when it finally reaches maximum thickness at geostationary
orbit. The cable thickness then decreases again out from geosynchronous orbit.
Thus the taper of the cable from base to GEO (r = 42,164 km),
Using the density and tensile strength of steel, and assuming a diameter of 1 cm at ground
level, yields a diameter of several hundred kilometers at geostationary orbit height,
showing that steel, and indeed most materials used in present day engineering, are
unsuitable for building a space elevator.
The equation shows us that there are four ways of achieving a more reasonable thickness
at geostationary orbit:
• Using a lower density material. Not much scope for improvement as the range of
densities of most solids that come into question is rather narrow, somewhere
between 1000 kg·m-3 and 5000 kg·m-3.
• Using a higher strength material. This is the area where most of the research is
focused. Carbon nanotubes are tens of times stronger than the strongest types of
steel, hugely reducing the cable's cross-sectional area at geostationary orbit.
• Increasing the height of a tip of the base station, where the base of cable is
attached. The exponential relationship means a small increase in base height
results in a large decrease in thickness at geostationary level. Towers of up to
100 km high have been proposed. Not only would a tower of such height reduce
the cable mass, it would also avoid exposure of the cable to atmospheric
processes.
• Making the cable as thin as possible at its base. It still has to be thick enough to
carry a payload however, so the minimum thickness at base level also depends on
tensile strength. A cable made of carbon nanotubes (a type of fullerene), would
typically be just a millimeter wide at the base.
[edit] Climbers
Most space elevator designs call for a climber to move autonomously along a stationary
cable.
A space elevator cannot be an elevator in the typical sense (with moving cables) due to
the need for the cable to be significantly wider at the center than the tips. While designs
employing smaller, segmented moving cables along the length of the main cable have
been proposed, most cable designs call for the "elevator" to climb up a stationary cable.
Climbers cover a wide range of designs. On elevator designs whose cables are planar
ribbons, most propose to use pairs of rollers to hold the cable with friction.
Power is a significant obstacle for climbers. Energy and power storage densities, barring
significant advances in compact nuclear power, do not yet provide the desired rate of
climb performance. While the technology is current, no batteries of an adequate size have
yet been constructed. Current Direct Energy Conversion radioisotopic batteries can
deliver approximately 35 watts per kilogram continuous (based on Sr-90 fuel), allowing
for a cargo to battery mass ratio of approximately 1 and an upward travel rate, making
generous efficiency assumptions, of approximately 35 miles per hour (56 km/h). These
devices do not require recharging. Some other potential solutions have involved laser or
microwave power beaming, and solar power.
The primary power methods (laser and microwave power beaming) have significant
problems with both efficiency and heat dissipation on both sides, although with
optimistic numbers for future technologies, they are feasible. Advancements in carbon
nanotube production and manipulation would work directly into this; some carbon
nanotube configurations exhibit photovoltaic properties, and some have exceptional
thermal conduction properties.
Climbers must be paced at optimal timings so as to minimize cable stress and oscillations
and to maximize throughput. The weakest point of the cable is near its planetary
connection; new climbers can typically be launched so long as there are not multiple
climbers in this area at once. An only-up elevator can handle a higher throughput, but has
the disadvantage of not allowing energy recapture through regenerative down-climbers.
Additionally, an up-only elevator would require some other method to return people to
Earth. Finally, only-up climbers (that do not return to Earth) must be disposable; if used,
they should be modular so that their components can be used for other purposes in space.
In any case, smaller climbers have the advantage over larger climbers of giving better
options for how to timetable trips up the cable, but may impose technological limitations.
[edit] Counterweight
There have been two dominant methods proposed for dealing with the counterweight
need: a heavy object, such as a captured asteroid or a space station, positioned past
geosynchronous orbit, or extending the cable itself well past geosynchronous orbit. The
latter idea has gained more support in recent years due to the relative simplicity of the
task and the fact that a payload that went to the end of the counterweight-cable would
acquire considerable velocity relative to the Earth, allowing it to be launched into
interplanetary space.
As the car climbs, the elevator takes on a 1 degree lean, due to the top of the elevator
traveling faster than the bottom around the Earth (Coriolis effect). This diagram is not to
scale.
The horizontal speed of each part of the cable increases with altitude, proportional to
distance from the center of the Earth, reaching orbital velocity at geosynchronous orbit.
Therefore as a payload is lifted up a space elevator, it needs to gain not only altitude but
angular momentum (horizontal speed) as well.
This angular momentum is taken from the Earth's own rotation. As the climber ascends it
is initially moving slightly more slowly than the cable that it moves onto (Coriolis effect)
and thus the climber "drags" on the cable, carrying the cable with it very slightly to the
west (and necessarily pulling the counterweight slightly to the west, shown as an offset of
the counterweight in the diagram to right, slightly changing the motion of the
counterweight). At a 200 km/h climb speed (if the relative mass of the elevator and cable
have certain values) this generates a 1 degree lean on the lower portion of the cable. The
horizontal component of the tension in the non-vertical cable applies a sideways pull on
the payload, accelerating it eastward (see diagram) and this is the source of the speed that
the climber needs. Conversely, the cable pulls westward on Earth's surface,
insignificantly slowing the Earth, from Newton's 3rd law.
Meanwhile, the overall effect of the centrifugal force acting on the cable causes it to
constantly try to return to the energetically favourable vertical orientation, so after an
object has been lifted on the cable the counterweight will swing back towards the vertical
like an inverted pendulum. Provided that the Space Elevator is designed so that the center
of mass always stays above geosynchronous orbit[8] for the maximum climb speed of the
climbers, the elevator cannot fall over. Lift and descent operations must be carefully
planned so as to keep the pendulum-like motion of the counterweight around the tether
point under control.
By the time the payload has reached GEO the angular momentum (horizontal speed) is
enough that the payload is in orbit.
The opposite process would occur for payloads descending the elevator, tilting the cable
eastwards and insignificantly increasing Earth's rotation speed.
We can determine the velocities that might be attained at the end of Pearson's 144,000 km
cable. The tangential velocity is 10.93 kilometers per second which is more than enough
to escape Earth's gravitational field and send probes as far out as Saturn. If an object were
allowed to slide freely along the upper part of the tower, a velocity high enough to escape
the solar system entirely would be attained. This is accomplished by trading off overall
angular momentum of the tower for velocity of the launched object, in much the same
way one snaps a towel or throws a lacrosse ball. After such an operation a cable would be
left with less angular momentum than required to keep its geostationary position. The
rotation of the Earth would then pull on the cable increasing its angular velocity, leaving
the cable swinging backwards and forwards about its starting point.
For higher velocities, the cargo can be electromagnetically accelerated, or the cable could
be extended, although that would require additional strength in the cable.
A space elevator could also be constructed on some of the other planets, asteroids and
moons.
A Martian tether could be much shorter than one on Earth. Mars' surface gravity is 38%
of Earth's, while it rotates around its axis in about the same time as Earth. Because of
this, Martian areostationary orbit is much closer to the surface, and hence the elevator
would be much shorter. Exotic materials might not be required to construct such an
elevator. However, building a Martian elevator would be a unique challenge because the
Martian moon Phobos is in a low orbit, and intersects the equator regularly (twice every
orbital period of 11 h 6 min). A collision between the elevator and the 22.2 km diameter
moon would have to be avoided through active steering of the elevator, or perhaps by
moving the moon itself out of the area. One simpler way to resolve the problem of
Phobos (1.1 degree orbital inclination) or Deimos (1.8 degree orbital inclination)
interaction is to position the tether anchor perhaps five (5) degrees off the Martian
equator. There would be a small payload penalty, but the tether would pass outside the
orbital inclination of the two moons. Also, the tether would depart the Martian anchor at
5–10 degrees from vertical.
Conversely, a Venusian space elevator would need to be much longer. Although a tether
placed at the stationary orbit of the slowly rotating Venus would intersect the Sun, one
could be constructed that rotated with the fast-moving cloud decks of the planet which
take only four Earth days to make a complete cycle. The cable would need to exceed
100,000 kilometers long but, counter-intuitively, would experience less stress due to the
slightly smaller gravity exerted on the cable. Such an elevator could service aerostats or
floating cities in the benign regions of the atmosphere.
A lunar space elevator would need to be very long (more than twice the length of an
Earth elevator) but due to the low gravity of the Moon, can be made of existing
engineering materials. Alternatively, due to the lack of atmosphere on the Moon, a
rotating tether could be used with its center of mass in orbit around the Moon with a
counterweight (e.g. a space station) at the short end and a payload at the long end. The
path of the payload would be an epicycloid around the Moon, touching down at some
integer number of times per orbit. Thus, payloads are lifted off the surface of the Moon,
and flung away at the high point of the orbit.
Rapidly spinning asteroids or moons could use cables to eject materials in order to move
the materials to convenient points, such as Earth orbits; or conversely, to eject materials
in order to send the bulk of the mass of the asteroid or moon to Earth orbit or a
Lagrangian point. This was suggested by Russell Johnston in the 1980s. Freeman Dyson,
a physicist and mathematician, has suggested using such smaller systems as power
generators at points distant from the Sun where solar power is uneconomical.
It may also be possible to construct space elevators at the three smaller gas giants, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune. These would all involve tapering several times greater than those of
the inner solar system, and would need to be approximately 50–60 thousand kilometers
long, yet are still within the limits of advanced nano-tubes. These outer space elevators
could facilitate the exchange of supplies and helium-3 between floating mining colonies
in the atmospheres and local moon settlements. However, difficulties such as the
equatorially orbiting lower rings and moons of these giant planets would first need to be
overcome.
[edit] Construction
The construction of a space elevator would be a vast project, requiring advances in
engineering and physical technology. NASA has identified "Five Key Technologies for
Future Space Elevator Development":
1. Material for cable (e.g. carbon nanotube and nanotechnology) and tower
2. Tether deployment and control
3. Tall tower construction
4. Electromagnetic propulsion (e.g. magnetic levitation)
5. Space infrastructure and the development of space industry and economy
One early plan involved lifting the entire mass of the elevator into geosynchronous orbit,
and simultaneously lowering one cable downwards towards the Earth's surface while
another cable is deployed upwards directly away from the Earth's surface.
Tidal forces (gravity and centrifugal force) would naturally pull the cables directly
towards and directly away from the Earth and keep the elevator balanced around
geosynchronous orbit. As the cable is deployed, coriolis forces would pull the upper
portion of the cable somewhat to the West and the lower portion of the cable somewhat to
the East, this effect can be controlled by varying the deployment speed.
Bradley C. Edwards, former Director of Research for the Institute for Scientific Research
(ISR), based in Fairmont, West Virginia has presented a plausible scheme showing how a
space elevator could be built in little more than a decade, rather than the far future.
He proposes that a single hair-like 18 metric ton (20 short ton) 'seed' cable be deployed in
the traditional way, giving a very lightweight elevator with very little lifting capacity.
Then, progressively heavier cables would be pulled up from the ground along it,
repeatedly strengthening it until the elevator reaches the required mass and strength. This
is much the same technique used to build suspension bridges.
Although 18 tonnes for a seed cable may sound like a lot, it would actually be very
lightweight — the proposed average mass is about 200 gram per kilometer. In
comparison, conventional copper telephone wires running to consumer homes weigh
about 4 kg/km.
These are far less well developed, and will be mentioned here only in passing.
If the cable provides a useful tensile strength of about 62.5 GPa or above, then it turns out
that a constant width cable can reach beyond geosynchronous orbit without breaking
under its own weight. The far end can then be turned around and passed back down to the
Earth forming a constant width loop. The two sides of the loop are naturally kept apart by
coriolis forces due to the rotation of the Earth and the cable. By exponentially increasing
the thickness of the cable from the ground a very quick buildup of a new elevator may be
performed (it helps that no active climbers are needed, and power is applied
mechanically.) However, because the loop runs at constant speed, joining and leaving the
loop may be somewhat challenging, and the strength of the loop is lower than a
conventional tapered design, reducing the maximum payload that can be carried without
snapping the cable.[9]
[edit] Satellites
If nothing were done, essentially all satellites with perigees below the top of the elevator
would eventually collide with the elevator cable. Twice per day, each orbital plane
intersects the elevator, as the rotation of the Earth swings the cable around the equator.
Usually the satellite and the cable will not line up. However, except for synchronized
orbits, the elevator and satellite will eventually occupy the same place at the same time,
almost certainly leading to structural failure of the space elevator and destruction of the
satellite.
Most active satellites are capable of some degree of orbital maneuvering and could avoid
these predictable collisions, but inactive satellites and other orbiting debris would need to
be either preemptively removed from orbit by "garbage collectors" or would need to be
closely watched and nudged whenever their orbit approaches the elevator. The impulses
required would be small, and need be applied only very infrequently; a laser broom
system may be sufficient to this task. In addition, Brad Edward's design actually allows
the elevator to move out of the way, because the fixing point is at sea and mobile. Further,
transverse oscillations of the cable could be controlled so as to ensure that the cable
avoids satellites on known paths—the required amplitudes are modest, relative to the
cable length.
Meteoroids present a more difficult problem, since they would not be predictable and
much less time would be available to detect and track them as they approach Earth. It is
likely that a space elevator would still suffer impacts of some kind, no matter how
carefully it is guarded. However, most space elevator designs call for the use of multiple
parallel cables separated from each other by struts, with sufficient margin of safety that
severing just one or two strands still allows the surviving strands to hold the elevator's
entire weight while repairs are performed. If the strands are properly arranged, no single
impact would be able to sever enough of them to overwhelm the surviving strands.
Far worse than meteoroids are micrometeorites; tiny high-speed particles found in high
concentrations at certain altitudes. Avoiding micrometeorites is essentially impossible,
and they will ensure that strands of the elevator are continuously being cut. Most methods
designed to deal with this involve a design similar to a hoytether or to a network of
strands in a cylindrical or planar arrangement with two or more helical strands.
Constructing the cable as a mesh instead of a ribbon helps prevent collateral damage from
each micrometeorite impact.
It is not enough that other fibers be able to take over the load of a failed strand — the
system must also survive the immediate, dynamical effects of fiber failure, which
generates projectiles aimed at the cable itself. For example, if the cable has a working
stress of 50 GPa and a Young's modulus of 1000 GPa, its strain will be 0.05 and its stored
elastic energy will be 1/2 × 0.05 × 50 GPa = 1.25×109 joules per cubic meter. Breaking a
fiber will result in a pair of de-tensioning waves moving apart at the speed of sound in the
fiber, with the fiber segments behind each wave moving at over 1,000 m/s (more than the
muzzle velocity of an standard .223 caliber (5.56mm) round fired M16 rifle). Unless
these fast-moving projectiles can be stopped safely, they will break yet other fibers,
initiating a failure cascade capable of severing the cable. The challenge of preventing
fiber breakage from initiating a catastrophic failure cascade seems to be unaddressed in
the current (January, 2005) literature on terrestrial space elevators. Problems of this sort
would be easier to solve in lower-tension applications (e.g., lunar elevators).
[edit] Corrosion
Corrosion is a major risk to any thinly built tether (which most designs call for). In the
upper atmosphere, atomic oxygen steadily eats away at most materials. A tether will
consequently need to either be made from a corrosion-resistant material or have a
corrosion-resistant coating, adding to weight. Gold and platinum have been shown to be
practically immune to atomic oxygen; several far more common materials such as
aluminum are damaged very slowly and could be repaired as needed.
Another potential solution to the corrosion problem is a continuous renewal of the tether
surface (which could be done from standard, though possibly slower elevators). This
process would depend on the tether composition and it could be done in a nanoscale (by
replacing individual fibers) or in segments.
Any structure as large as a space elevator will have massive numbers of tiny defects in
the construction material. It has been suggested,[10][11] that, because large structures have
more defects than small structures, that large structures are inherently weaker than small,
giving an estimated carbon nanotube strength of only 24 GPa down to only 1.7 GPa in
millimetre-scale samples, the latter equivalent to many high-strength steels, which would
be vastly less than that needed to build a space elevator for a reasonable cost.
[edit] Weather
In the atmosphere, the risk factors of wind and lightning come into play. The basic
mitigation is location. As long as the tether's anchor remains within two degrees of the
equator, it will remain in the quiet zone between the Earth's Hadley cells, where there is
relatively little violent weather. Remaining storms could be avoided by moving a floating
anchor platform. The lightning risk can be minimized by using a nonconductive fiber
with a water-resistant coating to help prevent a conductive buildup from forming. The
wind risk can be minimized by use of a fiber with a small cross-sectional area that can
rotate with the wind to reduce resistance. Ice forming on the cable also presents a
potential problem. It could add significantly to the cable's weight and affect the passage
of elevator cars. Also, ice falling from the cable could damage elevator cars or the cable
itself. To get rid of ice, special elevator cars could scrape the ice off.
One reasonably recent result is that high wind speeds can flatten the elevator cable
horizontally across the surface of the Earth perhaps a hundred kilometers. Surprisingly,
the stress on the cable is not significantly increased (since the elevator is tens of
thousands of kilometers long the percentage increase is tiny) and no major damage is
predicted.
[edit] Sabotage
A final risk of structural failure comes from the possibility of vibrational harmonics
within the cable. Like the shorter and more familiar strings of stringed musical
instruments, the cable of a space elevator has a natural resonant frequency. If the cable is
excited at this frequency, for example by the travel of elevators up and down it, the
vibrational energy could build up to dangerous levels and exceed the cable's tensile
strength. This can be avoided by the use of suitable damping systems within the cable,
and by scheduling travel up and down the cable keeping its resonant frequency in mind. It
may be possible to dampen the resonant frequency against the Earth's magnetosphere.
If despite all these precautions the elevator is severed anyway, the resulting scenario
depends on where exactly the break occurred:
If the elevator is cut at its anchor point on Earth's surface, the outward force exerted by
the counterweight would cause the entire elevator to rise upward into an unstable orbit
and escape to interplanetary space.
The ultimate altitude of the severed lower end of the cable would depend on the details of
the elevator's mass distribution. In theory, the loose end might be secured and fastened
down again. This would be an extremely tricky operation, however, requiring careful
adjustment of the cable's center of gravity to bring the cable back down to the surface
again at just the right location. It may prove to be easier to build a new system in such a
situation.
If the break occurred at higher altitude, up to about 25,000 km, the lower portion of the
elevator would descend to Earth and drape itself along the equator east of the anchor
point, while the now unbalanced upper portion would rise to a higher orbit. Some authors
(such as science fiction writers David Gerrold in Jumping off the Planet, Kim Stanley
Robinson in Red Mars, and Ben Bova in Mercury) have suggested that such a failure
would be catastrophic, with the thousands of kilometers of falling cable creating a swath
of meteoric destruction along Earth's surface. However, in most cable designs, the upper
portion of any cable that fell to Earth would burn up in the atmosphere. Additionally,
because proposed initial cables (the only ones likely to be broken) have very low mass
(roughly 1 kg per kilometer) and are flat, the bottom portion would likely settle to Earth
with less force than a sheet of paper due to air resistance on the way down.
If the break occurred at the counterweight side of the elevator, the lower portion, now
including the "central station" of the elevator, would entirely fall down if not prevented
by an early self-destruct of the cable shortly below it. Depending on the size, however, it
would burn up on re-entry anyway. Simulations have shown that as the descending
portion of the space elevator "wraps around" Earth the stress on the remaining length of
cable increases, resulting in its upper sections breaking off and being flung away. The
details of how these pieces break and the trajectories they take are highly sensitive to
initial conditions.[12]
Any climbers on the falling section would also reenter Earth's atmosphere, but it is likely
that the climbers will already have been designed to withstand such an event as an
emergency measure. It is almost inevitable that some objects — climbers, structural
members, repair crews, etc. — will accidentally fall off the elevator at some point. Their
subsequent fate would depend upon their initial altitude. Except at geosynchronous
altitude, an object on a space elevator is not in a stable orbit and so its trajectory will not
remain parallel to it. The object will instead enter an elliptical orbit, the characteristics of
which depend on where the object was on the elevator when it was released.
If the initial height of the object falling off of the elevator is less than 23,000 km, its orbit
will have an apogee at the altitude where it was released from the elevator and a perigee
within Earth's atmosphere — it will intersect the atmosphere within a few hours, and not
complete an entire orbit. Above this critical altitude, the perigee is above the atmosphere
and the object will be able to complete a full orbit to return to the altitude it started from.
By then the elevator would be somewhere else, but a spacecraft could be dispatched to
retrieve the object or otherwise remove it. The lower the altitude at which the object falls
off, the greater the eccentricity of its orbit.
If the object falls off at the geostationary altitude itself, it will remain nearly motionless
relative to the elevator just as in conventional orbital flight. At higher altitudes the object
would again be in an elliptical orbit, this time with a perigee at the altitude the object was
released from and an apogee somewhere higher than that. The eccentricity of the orbit
would increase with the altitude from which the object is released.
Above 47,000 km, however, an object that falls off of the elevator would have a velocity
greater than the local escape velocity of Earth. The object would head out into
interplanetary space, and if there were any people present on board it might prove
impossible to rescue them.
Some speculate that passengers and other living things would continue to travel by high-
speed rocket, while space elevators haul bulk cargo. Research into lightweight shielding
and techniques for clearing out the belts is underway.
More conventional and faster atmospheric reentry techniques such as aerobraking might
be employed on the way down to minimize radiation exposure. De-orbit burns use
relatively little fuel and are cheap.
An obvious option would be for the elevator to carry shielding to protect passengers,
though this would reduce its overall capacity, of course. Alternatively, the shielding itself
could in some cases consist of useful payload, for example food, water, fuel or
construction/maintenance materials, and no additional shielding costs are then incurred
on the way up.
To shield passengers from the radiation in the Van Allen belt, perhaps counter-intuitively,
material composed of light elements should be used, as opposed to lead shielding. In fact,
high energy electrons in the Van Allen belts produce dangerous X-rays when they strike
atoms of heavy elements. This is known as bremsstrahlung, or braking radiation.
Materials containing great amounts of hydrogen, such as water or (lightweight) plastics
such as polyethylene and lighter metals such as aluminium are better than heavier ones
such as lead for preventing this secondary radiation. Such light-element shielding, if it
were strong enough to protect against the Van Allen particle radiation, would also provide
adequate protection against X-ray radiation coming from the sun during solar flares and
coronal mass ejection events.
[edit] Economics
Main article: Space elevator economics
With a space elevator, materials might be sent into orbit at a fraction of the current cost.
Modern rocketry gives prices that are on the order of thousands of U.S. dollars per
kilogram for transfer to low earth orbit, and roughly twenty thousand dollars per kilogram
for transfer to geosynchronous orbit. For a space elevator, the price could be on the order
of a few hundred dollars per kilogram, or possibly much less.
Space elevators have high capital cost but low operating expenses, so they make the most
economic sense in a situation where it would be used over a long period of time to handle
very large amounts of payload. The current launch market may not be large enough to
make a compelling case for a space elevator, but a dramatic drop in the price of launching
material to orbit would likely result in new types of space activities becoming
economically feasible. In this regard they share similarities with other transportation
infrastructure projects such as highways or railroads.
An initial elevator could be used in relatively short order to lift the materials to build
more such elevators, but the owners of the first elevator might refuse to carry such
materials in order to maintain their monopoly.
As space elevators (regardless of the design) are inherently fragile but militarily valuable
structures, they would likely be targeted immediately in any major conflict with a state
that controls one. Consequently, most militaries would elect to continue development of
conventional rockets (or other similar launch technologies) to provide effective backup
methods to access space.
The cost of the space elevator is not excessive compared to other projects and it is
conceivable that several countries or an international consortium could pursue the space
elevator. Indeed, there are companies and agencies in a number of countries that have
expressed interest in the concept. Generally, projects on the scale of a space elevator need
to be either joint public-private partnership ventures or government ventures, and they
involve multiple partners. It is also possible that a private entity (risks notwithstanding)
could provide the financing — several large investment firms have stated interest in
construction of the space elevator as a private endeavor[citation needed].
The political motivation for a collaborative effort comes from the potential destabilizing
nature of the space elevator. The space elevator clearly has military applications, but
more critically it would give a strong economic advantage for the controlling entity.
Information flowing through satellites, future energy from space, planets full of real
estate and associated minerals, and basic military advantage could all potentially be
controlled by the entity that controls access to space through the space elevator. An
international collaboration could result in multiple elevators at various locations around
the globe, since subsequent elevators would be significantly cheaper, thus allowing
general access to space and consequently eliminating the instabilities a single system
might cause.
Arthur C. Clarke compared the space elevator project to Cyrus Field's efforts to build the
first transatlantic telegraph cable, "the Apollo Project of its age".[15]
[edit] History
[edit] Early concepts
The concept of the space elevator first appeared in 1895 when a Russian scientist
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris to consider a tower that
reached all the way into space. He imagined placing a "celestial castle" at the end of a
spindle-shaped cable, with the "castle" orbiting Earth in a geosynchronous orbit (i.e. the
castle would remain over the same spot on Earth's surface). The tower would be built
from the ground up to an altitude of 35,790 kilometers above mean sea level
(geostationary orbit). Comments from Nikola Tesla suggest that he may have also
conceived such a tower. Tsiolkovsky's notes were sent behind the Iron Curtain after his
death.
Tsiolkovsky's tower would be able to launch objects into orbit without a rocket. Since the
elevator would attain orbital velocity as it rode up the cable, an object released at the
tower's top would also have the orbital velocity necessary to remain in geosynchronous
orbit.
Building from the ground up, however, proved an impossible task; there was no material
in existence with enough compressive strength to support its own weight under such
conditions. It took until 1957 for another Russian scientist, Yuri N. Artsutanov, to
conceive of a more feasible scheme for building a space tower. Artsutanov suggested
using a geosynchronous satellite as the base from which to construct the tower. By using
a counterweight, a cable would be lowered from geosynchronous orbit to the surface of
Earth while the counterweight was extended from the satellite away from Earth, keeping
the center of gravity of the cable motionless relative to Earth. Artsutanov published his
idea in the Sunday supplement of Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1960. He also proposed
tapering the cable thickness so that the tension in the cable was constant—this gives a
thin cable at ground level, thickening up towards GEO.[16]
Making a cable over 35,000 kilometers long is a difficult task. In 1966, four American
engineers decided to determine what type of material would be required to build a space
elevator, assuming it would be a straight cable with no variations in its cross section.
They found that the strength required would be twice that of any existing material
including graphite, quartz, and diamond.
In 1975 an American scientist, Jerome Pearson, designed[7] a tapered cross section that
would be better suited to building the elevator. The completed cable would be thickest at
the geosynchronous orbit, where the tension was greatest, and would be narrowest at the
tips to reduce the amount of weight per unit area of cross section that any point on the
cable would have to bear. He suggested using a counterweight that would be slowly
extended out to 144,000 kilometers (almost half the distance to the Moon) as the lower
section of the elevator was built. Without a large counterweight, the upper portion of the
cable would have to be longer than the lower due to the way gravitational and centrifugal
forces change with distance from Earth. His analysis included disturbances such as the
gravitation of the Moon, wind and moving payloads up and down the cable. The weight
of the material needed to build the elevator would have required thousands of Space
Shuttle trips, although part of the material could be transported up the elevator when a
minimum strength strand reached the ground or be manufactured in space from asteroidal
or lunar ore.
Arthur C. Clarke introduced the concept of a space elevator to a broader audience in his
1978 novel, The Fountains of Paradise, in which engineers construct a space elevator on
top of a mountain peak in the fictional island country of Taprobane (which is actually an
early name for Sri Lanka).
In Robert A. Heinlein's 1982 novel Friday the principal character makes use of the
"Nairobi Beanstalk" in the course of her travels.
In 1999, Larry Niven authored the book Rainbow Mars which contained a "Hanging
Tree" - an organic 'Skyhook' which was capable of interstellar travel. The book skillfully
discussed several merits/demerits of such an approach to the Beanstalk - the primary
demerit being that the water necessary to sustain such an enormous 'tree' would require
the drying up of all of its host planet's water bodies - which is used as a plot device to
explain the drying up of Mars.
David Smitherman of NASA/Marshall's Advanced Projects Office has compiled plans for
such an elevator that could turn science fiction into reality. His publication, "Space
Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium",[17] is based
on findings from a space infrastructure conference held at the Marshall Space Flight
Center in 1999.
On April 27, 2005 "the LiftPort Group of space elevator companies has announced that it
will be building a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant in Millville, New Jersey, to
supply various glass, plastic and metal companies with these strong materials. Although
LiftPort hopes to eventually use carbon nanotubes in the construction of a 100,000 km
(62,000 mile) space elevator, this move will allow it to make money in the short term and
conduct research and development into new production methods."[24] On September 9 the
group announced that they had obtained permission from the Federal Aviation
Administration to use airspace to conduct preliminary tests of its high altitude robotic
lifters.[25] The experiment was successful.
On February 13, 2006 the LiftPort Group announced that, earlier the same month, they
had tested a mile of 'space elevator tether' (sic) made of carbon-fibre composite strings
and fibreglass tape measuring 5 centimetres wide and 1 mm (approx. 6 sheets of paper)
thick, lifted with balloons.[26]
The x-Tech Projects company has also been founded to pursue the prospect of a
commercial Space Elevator.
[edit] References
[edit] Specific
8. ^ [1]
10. ^ http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/cond-mat/papers/0601/0601668.pdf
11. ^ http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/phase-
trans/2005/SWpaper/index.html
[edit] General
• Edwards BC, Ragan P. "Leaving The Planet By Space Elevator" Seattle, USA:
Lulu; 2006. ISBN 978-1-4303-0006-9 See Leaving The Planet
• Edwards BC, Westling EA. The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space
Transportation System. San Francisco, USA: Spageo Inc.; 2002. ISBN 0-
9726045-0-2.
• Space Elevators - An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New
Millennium [PDF]. A conference publication based on findings from the
Advanced Space Infrastructure Workshop on Geostationary Orbiting Tether
"Space Elevator" Concepts, held in 1999 at the NASA Marshall Space Flight
Center, Huntsville, Alabama. Compiled by D.V. Smitherman, Jr., published
August 2000.
• "The Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects" HTML PDF, John
Hickman, Ph. D. Journal of Evolution and Technology Vol. 4 - November 1999.
• The Space Elevator NIAC report by Dr. Bradley C. Edwards
• A Hoist to the Heavens By Bradley Carl Edwards
• Ziemelis K. "Going up". In New Scientist 2001-05-05, no.2289, p.24–27.
Republished in SpaceRef. Title page: "The great space elevator: the dream
machine that will turn us all into astronauts."
• The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality. An overview by Leonard David of
space.com, published 27 March 2002.
• Krishnaswamy, Sridhar. Stress Analysis — The Orbital Tower (PDF)
[edit] Organizations
• The National Space Society Special Interest Chapter for the Space Elevator
(NSECC)
• Ing-Math.Net (Germany) - Ing-Math.Net (German Max-Born Space Elevator
Team 2006)
• Elevator:2010 Space elevator prize competitions
• Space elevator, Institute for Scientific Research Last news item on web site dated
July, 2004.
• The Space Elevator: 3rd Annual International Conference 28 June-30, 2004 in
Washington, D.C.
• 3rd Annual International Conference Presentations
• 4th Annual International Conference Presentations
• LiftWatch.org - Space Elevator News
• Liftport Group - The Space Elevator Companies
• University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team
[edit] Animations
• View space elevator animation Windows Media Video (WMV) file - Institute for
Scientific Research
• Download space elevator animation Windows Media Video (WMV) file - Institute
for Scientific Research
• Brief video (realmedia format) of the space elevator concept