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October 09, 2002
Next Floor: Space (ok that was cheezy)
After I started reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (recommended to me by Kasei, I've become extremely interested in Mars and its current/future social impact on us. The Mars Trilogy consists of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars The trilogy starts 50 years in the future and tells the story of our exploration, colonization and terraforming of Mars. Now I've never been much of a science fiction reader, but the Mars Trilogy is almost more of a social/political commentary than a science fiction book. Anyway, I'll come back to the Mars trilogy on a later entry. The strange thing about my reading this trilogy is how I keep seeing items in the news that directly relate to the books. Perhaps the most astounding, besides all the actual planned missions to mars, is all the talk of the Space Elevator.The Space Elevator was originally conceived over a hundred years ago. The most startlingly close depiction would be Arthur C. Clarks description in the Fountains of Paradise, in the late 70s. He even came close to guessing the materials they'd use to build it, over a decade before the materials existed. The most startling thing about the space elevator, the thing which most people don't believe when I tell them, is that its going to be built and they're working on it right now. Nasa has already contracted companies to begin the planning. We're not talking hundreds of years either, we're talking a decade or two, definitely within our lifetimes. High Lift Systems is a company whose sole purpose is the development of a space elevator. And their not the only one.
One of the reasons the idea of a Space Elevator has been relegated to science fiction is the lack of a suitable, strong enough, light enough material. Then came Carbon Nanotubes. That article has a good description of what they are. Needless to say, they are the lightest, strongest material known to man by a factor of 100. The elevator will travel along a 100,000 km ribbon made of carbon nanotubes. It will reduce the cost of sending material (or people) into space from $500 per gram to mere dollars per gram. All of a sudden, it becomes hundreds of times cheaper to send materials, satellites, and people into space. This will be what paves the way for really exploring space. Right now, its too costly to get anything into space in the first place.
The discussion on the social implications of the space elevator and becoming an interplanetary species, is a topic for another entry. For now, I've had enough people question my sanity when I told them about the space elevator, posting this proof of its inevitability will have to suffice.
More articles.
Ribbon to the Stars
The Audacious and Outrageous Space Elevators
The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality
NASA applications of molecular nanotechnology
Ten Millionth Floor, Please
Space Elevator Economics
Posted by wonko at October 9, 2002 09:48 PM
Comments
Also, see The Space Elevator (15M pdf), an 80 page document resulting from work done with NASA on the technical feasability of constructing and operating a Space Elevator.
Posted by: kasei at October 10, 2002 12:34 AM
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