Space elevator
Posted on February 04, 2003 @ 13:03 in General
Wasn't it Carl Sagan who first came up with the idea of the space elevator (or at least brought it into popular imagination)? I can still see the cover image of that book very vividly before my mind's eye. The space elevator is the idea that you'd stretch an incredibly strong wire from somewhere along the equator 62.000 miles up into space and that you could have elevator carts riding up and down that wire. Wired has an article how carbon nanotube technology could make this possible. There's an article about it over at NASA as well. Pretty cool idea, right? Just makes me wonder how you make sure no planes fly into it.
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The Space Elevator concept was first popularized by Arthur C. Clarke's "The Fountains of Paradise". Clarke himself credits Russian engineer Yuri Artutanov and a 1960 Pravda article, not widely read outside the USSR. We've started carrying a book by Dr Brad Edwards (who did the NASA study) on how to actually build one in the near future. With the Columbia disaster as just one more reminder that we need new and better ways to get us off this rock! This is idea is way beyond rocket science! - RGG
Posted by Roger Mondo on February 10, 2003 @ 23:55
My typo... most references spell it "Artsutanov".
Posted by Roger Mondo on February 11, 2003 @ 00:39
Right, "The Fountains of Paradise"!
Thanks for helping me out there :)
Posted by Frank on February 11, 2003 @ 11:56
The space elevator also played a significant role in advancing the terraforming and colonization of Mars in Kim Stanley Robinson's scifi trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars). High Lift System's feasibility study (on their website) specifically looks at the practical application of "flinging" a second elevator to Mars to expedite exploration and exploitation of near-Earth bodies. Exciting stuff -- hopefully we'll see it developed in our lifetime.
Posted by Earl on February 14, 2003 @ 18:41
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