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PRESS “S” FOR space?
A Canadian company wants to build a tower that would allow astronauts to take an elevator part way into orbit.
The tower would be 20 times higher than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest building that soars 830 metres (2,723 feet) into the sky.
The idea of a “space elevator” was first proposed in 1895 by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky after he saw the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and was revisited nearly a century later in a novel by Arthur C Clarke.
But technical barriers have always kept plans stuck at the conceptual stage.
Last month, however, Thoth Technology was granted a US patent for its “space elevator,” which is modest in comparison but promises to significantly reduce the cost of space travel.
The Pembroke, Ontario-based firm envisions building a 20-kilometre (12-mile) high tower with a platform at the top “for launching payloads, tourism, observation, scientific research and communications.”
The tower would be constructed of pressurized, stacked cells, according to the patent.
Elevator cars may ascend or descend on the outer surface of the elevator core structure or in a shaft on the interior of the elevator core structure.
Hauling payloads on an elevator into near space would virtually eliminate atmospheric drag, and then launching them into space from the stratosphere would require less fuel.
The company estimates this would reduce the cost of space flight by one third.
In his 1979 novel “The Fountains of Paradise,” Clark proposed delivering payloads from the ground to outer space by using a huge cable anchored to an orbiting platform.
But this required a 35,000 kilometer-long cable — which cannot be built using existing materials — and a counterweight the size of a small asteroid.
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Will it have a stairs?
“In case of emergency, do not use elevator”
Keep me on earth…I like solid ground
They should build a super fun happy slide
Nope a slide !! Weeeee
Lovely. You can’t beat the oul awkward silence of a lift.
What if someone farted?
Didn’t the Simpsons come up with this idea back in the early 90s :)
@Tom Lavin Close, it was an escalator! That said the concept has been around for a long time and would make sense. Consider the amount of fuel burned just to get out of atmosphere.
Led Zeppelin got in there first.
Without a revolving restaurant it’s a non runner. :P
Surely that would make it a non turner?
That elevator would smell deeply of farts..
Could you imagine if someone farted at the bottom? That’s a long way to go staring at the floor pretending it didn’t happen never mind holding your breath!
Sharing it with your one night stand the night before would somewhat be awkward too!
Probably a good idea to not ask your random one night stand to go in a lift in to space so.
Will this open to the public? I want to go to space
That will be some amount of scaffolding being used…
I pity the crane driver.
I pity the fool.
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope.
Nope.
No spitting off the edge
We need to get onto this and fast. The Solar system will be destroyed in about a billion years so we haven’t a moment to lose.
new ‘mile high club’.
easy target for hurricanes, tornados, terrorists
You’d just want to go out and play though…. But then you’d die.
elevating post
So, so bad.
16.6 kilometres is about 10 miles high.
You are nowhere near space at that puny height.
Comparison…..You are still nowhere near Galway City if you drive 10 miles outside Dublin on the Galway road.
While you are right that this is nowhere near space, the point is the launch platform is well above the most dense part of the atmosphere. Atmospheric drag consumes a lot of the initial delta v of a rocket meaning it uses a lot of fuel just to get out of the lower atmosphere.
A tower like this would put a rocket already above this thick fuel barrier and significantly reduce the cost of the average rocket launch.
You could use a stepladder for that extra bit.
there’s no way in hell I’d go on that. absolute s#!tfest in store for anyone brave enough to do it. imagine if it toppled over.
I would be interested in knowing the stress placed on the first 10% of the structure due to Earth’s revolving. A tower that high would have to be affected.
tower of Babylon… no thanks
Babel
Would be nice if FF and FG if they get hitched, could have their honeymoon there and rocket into space.
Yeah……
God, I’d love to have a go on that.
Tower of Babel! That didn’t end well
Is there a tender process for the scaffolding?
Question is how do you get a rocket up the elevator , those rockets are not light plus it has to be refuelled up there as its too dangerous to lift a fully fuelled rocket . On the other hand put a bungee jump on it and see how far you can fall .
Wot a load of s—
Cool
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