SPACE ELEVATOR

When the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on April 12, 1981,
from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., to begin the first space
shuttle mission, the dream of a reusable spacecraft was
realized. Since then, NASA has launched more than 100
missions, but the price tag of space missions has changed little.
Whether it is the space shuttle or the non-reusable Russian
spacecraft, the cost of a launch is approximately $10,000 per
pound ($22,000 per kg).

A new space transportation system being developed could

make travel to Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) a daily event
and transform the global economy.

A space elevator made of a carbon nanotubes composite

ribbon anchored to an offshore sea platform would stretch to a
small counterweight approximately 62,000 miles (100,000 km)
into space. Mechanical lifters attached to the ribbon would
then climb the ribbon, carrying cargo and humans into space, at
a price of only about $100 to $400 per pound ($220 to $880 per
kg).
Space Elevator Ribbon

A counterweight at the end of the space elevator will keep the

carbon-nanotubes ribbon taut.
To better understand the concept of a space elevator, think of
the game tetherball in which a rope is attached at one end to a
pole and at the other to a ball. In this analogy, the rope is
the carbon nanotubes composite ribbon, the pole is the Earth
and the ball is the counterweight. Now, imagine the ball is
placed in perpetual spin around the pole, so fast that it keeps
the rope taut. This is the general idea of the space elevator. The
counterweight spins around the Earth, keeping the cable
straight and allowing the robotic lifters to ride up and down the
ribbon.

Under the design proposed by LiftPort, the space elevator

would be approximately 62,000 miles (100,000 km) high.
LiftPort is one of several companies developing plans for a
space elevator or components of it. Teams from across the
world are set to compete for the $400,000 first prize in the
Space Elevator Games at the X Prize Cup in October 2006 in Las
Cruces, New Mexico.

The centerpiece of the elevator will be the carbon nanotubes

composite ribbon that is just a few centimeters wide and nearly
as thin as a piece of paper. Carbon nanotubes, discovered in
1991, are what make scientists believe that the space elevator
could be built. According to Dr. Bradley Edwards of
the Spaceward Foundation, "Previously the material challenges
were too great. But now we're getting close with the advances
in creating carbon nanotubes and in building machines that can
spin out the great lengths of material needed to create a ribbon
that will stretch up into space"
Under some early plans, leftover construction materials will be
used to form the counterweight.

Carbon nanotubes have the potential to be 100 times stronger

than steel and are as flexible as plastic. The strength of carbon
nanotubes comes from their unique structure, which resembles
soccer balls. Once scientists are able to make fibers from
carbon nanotubes, it will be possible to create threads that will
form the ribbon for the space elevator. Previously available
materials were either too weak or inflexible to form the ribbon
and would have been easily broken.

"They have very high elastic modulus and their tensile strength
is really high, and that all points to a material that, in theory,
should make a space elevator relatively easy to build," said Tom
Nugent, research director, LiftPort Group.

A ribbon could be built in two ways:

 Long carbon nanotubes -- several meters long or longer

-- would be braided into a structure resembling a rope. As
of 2005, the longest nanotubes are still only a few
centimeters long.
 Shorter nanotubes could be placed in a polymer matrix.
Current polymers do not bind well to carbon nanotubes,
 which results in the matrix being pulled away from the
nanotubes when placed under tension.
Once a long ribbon of nanotubes is created, it would be wound
into a spool that would be launched into orbit. When the
spacecraft carrying the spool reaches a certain altitude, perhaps
Low Earth Orbit, it would begin unspooling, lowering the ribbon
back to Earth. At the same time, the spool would continue
moving to a higher altitude. When the ribbon is lowered into
Earth's atmosphere, it would be caught and then lowered and
anchored to a mobile platform in the ocean.

The ribbon would serve as the tracks of a sort of railroad into

space. Mechanical lifters would then be used to climb the
ribbon to space.

HOW THE SPACE ELEVATOR MEASURES UP

If built, the ribbon will represent a modern world wonder, and will be
the tallest structure ever built. Consider that the world's tallest
freestanding tower in 2005 is the CN Tower, which rises 1,815 feet 5
inches (553.34 meters) over Toronto, Canada. The space elevator would
be 180,720 times taller than the CN Tower!

The 62,000-mile (100,000-km) long space elevator would rise far above
the average orbiting height of the space shuttle (115-400 miles/185-643
km). In fact, it would equal nearly a fourth of the distance to the moon,
which orbits the Earth at 237,674 miles (382,500 km).
While the ribbon is still a conceptual component, all of the other pieces
of the space elevator can be constructed using known technology,
including the robotic lifter, anchor station and power-beaming system.
By the time the ribbon is constructed, the other components will be
nearly ready for a launch sometime around 2018.
Lifter

The robotic lifter will use the ribbon to guide its ascent into space.
Traction-tread rollers on the lifter would clamp on to the ribbon and
pull the ribbon through, enabling the lifter to climb up the elevator.
Anchor Station

The space elevator will originate from a mobile platform in the

equatorial Pacific, which will anchor the ribbon to Earth.
Counterweight

At the top of the ribbon, there will be a heavy counterweight. Early

plans for the space elevator involved capturing an asteroid and using it
as a counterweight. However, more recent plans like those of LiftPort
and the Institute for Scientific Research (ISR) include the use of a man-
made counterweight. In fact, the counterweight might be assembled
from equipment used to build the ribbon including the spacecraft that
is used to launch it.
Power Beam

The lifter will be powered by a free-electron laser system located on or

near the anchor station. The laser will beam 2.4 megawatts of energy to
photovoltaic cells, perhaps made of Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) attached
to the lifter, which will then convert that energy to electricity to be
used by conventional, niobium-magnet DC electric motors, according to
the ISR.

Once operational, lifters could be climbing the space elevator nearly

every day. The lifters will vary in size from five tons, at first, to 20 tons.
The 20-ton lifter will be able to carry as much as 13 tons of payload and
have 900 cubic meters of space. Lifters would carry cargo ranging
from satellites to solar-powered panels and eventually humans up the
ribbon at a speed of about 118 miles per hour (190 km/hour).
Space Elevator Maintenance

The space elevator ribbon will be anchored to a mobile platform in

the equatorial Pacific. As part of a system to help the elevator avoid
orbital debris, the mobile platform can be repositioned.

At a length of 62,000 miles (100,000 km), the space elevator will be

vulnerable to many dangers, including weather, space debris and
terrorists. As plans move forward on the design of the space elevator,
the developers are considering these risks and ways to overcome them.
In fact, to make sure there is always an operational space elevator,
developers plan to build multiple space elevators. Each one will be
cheaper than the previous one. The first space elevator will serve as a
platform from which to build additional space elevators. In doing so,
developers are ensuring that even if one space elevator encounters
problems, the others can continue lifting payloads into space.
Avoiding Space Debris

Like the space station or space shuttle, the space elevator will need the
ability to avoid orbital objects, like debris and satellites. The anchor
platform will employ active avoidance to protect the space elevator
from such objects. Currently, the North American Aerospace Defense
Command (NORAD) tracks objects larger than 10 cm (3.9 inches).
Protecting the space elevator would require an orbital debris tracking
system that could detect objects approximately 1 cm (.39 inches) in
size. This technology is currently in development for other space
projects.

"Our plans are to anchor the ribbon to a mobile platform in the ocean,"
said Tom Nugent, of LiftPort. "You can actually move your anchor
around to pull the ribbon out of the way of satellites."
Repelling Attacks

The isolated location of the space elevator will be the biggest factor in
lowering the risk of terrorist attack. For instance, the first anchor will be
located in the equatorial Pacific, 404 miles (650 km) from any air or
shipping lanes, according to LiftPort. Only a small portion of the space
elevator will be within reach of any attack, which is anything 9.3 miles
(15 km) or below. Further, the space elevator will be a valuable global
resource and will likely be protected by the U.S. and other foreign
military forces.
Space Elevator Impact
  PREV UP NEXT  

An artist's concept of the solar view.

The potential global impact of the space elevator is drawing
comparisons to another great transportation achievement -- the U.S.
transcontinental railroad. Completed in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, the
transcontinental railroad linked the country's east and west coasts for
the first time and sped the settlement of the American west. Cross-
country travel was reduced from months to days. It also opened new
markets and gave rise to whole new industries. By 1893, the United
States had five transcontinental railroads.

The idea of a space elevator shares many of the same elements as the
transcontinental railroad. A space elevator would create a permanent
Earth-to-space connection that would never close. While it wouldn't
make the trip to space faster, it would make trips to space more
frequent and would open up space to a new era of development.
Perhaps the biggest factor propelling the idea of a space elevator is that
it would significantly lower the cost of putting cargo into space.
Although slower than the chemically propelled space shuttle, the lifters
reduce launch costs from $10,000 to $20,000 per pound, to
approximately $400 per pound.

Current estimates put the cost of building a space elevator at $6 billion

with legal and regulatory costs at $4 billion, according to Bradley
Edwards, author of the "The Space Elevator, NIAC Phase II Final
Report."(Edwards is also the Dr. Bradley Carl Edwards, President and
Founder of Carbon Designs.) By comparison, the cost of the space
shuttle program was predicted in 1971 to be $5.2 billion, but ended up
costing $19.5 billion. Additionally, each space shuttle flight costs $500
million, which is more than 50 times more than original estimates.

The space elevator could replace the space shuttle as the main space
vehicle, and be used for satellitedeployment, defense, tourism and
further exploration. To the latter point, a spacecraft would climb the
ribbon of the elevator and then would launch toward its main target
once in space. This type of launch would require less fuel than would
normally be needed to break out of Earth's atmosphere. Some
designers also believe that space elevators could be built on other
planets, including Mars.

NASA funded Dr. Edwards' research for three years. In 2005, however,
it only awarded $28 million dollars to companies researching the space
elevator. Although it's still very interested in the project, for now it
would prefer to sit back and wait for more concrete developments.
W H A T I S A S P A C E E L EV A T O R ?
A space elevator is hypothetical for now, but Japanese construction
giant, Obayashi Corporation, believes the necessary technology to build
one could be ready in the next 10 to 12 years. The biggest hurdle at this
point is developing a material strong enough to build cables 60,000
miles long and capable of transporting 100-ton cargo.
The elevator would essentially consist of a space station tethered
between an anchor and a counterweight in Earth’s orbit. Dangling
down from the station would be a series of cables made of carbon
nanotubes – a real material developed 20 years ago that is stronger
than steel by a factor of nearly 10. The only problem is that we haven’t
quite figured out how to scale the technology. At the moment, we’ve
only been able to create a few-centimeter-long stretch of them.
Once those tubes are scaled, which Obayashi believes will happen by
2030, an anchor would be built on Earth somewhere along the equator
that would attach to the space station and a counterweight further up.
The station would reside in what’s called Clarke orbit, or geostationary
orbit, named after the sci-fi author himself. In this scenario, an object
remains in orbit over a single point on the equator, an obvious
necessity for a space elevator to be feasible.
 
Obayashi’s concept
 
The elevator cabin itself would ascend at about 120 miles per hour and
carry a maximum capacity of about 30 people. For propulsion, it might
be powered by a laser shot up from Earth that would supply it with the
energy needed to climb the cables.
The trip would take about a week and function as a platform for
scientific research, a launch point for space travel, and a mode of space
tourism. The elevator could cut the cost of transporting materials into
orbit by a factor of 100, which could propel space programs and
colonization efforts at an astounding rate.
One man who has devoted his life to studying the viability of space
elevators is Michael Lane, and he’s raised over $100,000 on
Kickstarter to work on models and prototypes. Laine wants to first build
a space elevator on the moon, because a weaker material could be
used for the cables, like Kevlar.
On the moon there’s little gravity and no ice or wind, presenting ideal
conditions for an elevator. Also the setup would only require roughly
the strength of a strong man to hold the system in place. Laine’s idea
proposes that rare earth elements could be harvested and brought
back to earth, creating a booming space mining operation.
 

I S T H E S P A C E E L EV A T O R P O S S I B L E ?
The Obayashi Corporation believes it can have the space elevator
functioning by 2050 if carbon nanotubes become scalable by 2030. The
company says that it holds competitions among university students to
encourage them to study and advance the technology. Although over
the past several years, advancements in AI like ARES (Autonomous
Research System), allow scientists to let robots conduct, analyze and
test hundreds of experiments autonomously, adding to the chance that
nanotubes will be scaled within Obayashi’s timeline.
Obayashi is a massive construction and development firm in Tokyo that
is responsible for a number of large scale engineering feats across the
world. One structure designed by the company, the TOKYO SKYTREE, is
the largest free-standing tower in the world, at just over 2,000 feet.
 
 
According to the company’s plan, there will be a series of anchors to
counterbalance the elevator. The space station that would serve as the
final destination would be situated at about 22,000 miles above Earth.
Further out would be the anchor at an altitude of about 60,000 miles.
Before the primary station there would be additional hubs at altitudes
where one could experience the level of gravity on the moon and on
Mars, which would be ideal for conducting experiments for future
missions.
Not everyone believes that a space elevator will be built as easily as
Obayashi does. Elon Musk has scoffed at the idea, saying that until
someone builds a structure made of carbon nanotubes longer than a
footbridge, he won’t consider the possibility of a space elevator. Musk
also says he believes that until we have a carbon nanotube trans-
oceanic bridge, say between LA and Tokyo, we shouldn’t be talking
about building space elevators.
A trans-oceanic bridge seems rather silly though, considering we have
the ability to fly across oceans in a much more efficient manner. Why
would anyone want to spend days driving from LA to Tokyo when they
could fly? Even bullet trains aren’t fast enough for a transoceanic bridge
to be meaningful.
But no major technological feat has ever occurred without its
detractors and naysayers who claim these visions to be impossible or
impractical. Maybe Musk is right and rockets or alternative jet
propulsion will reign supreme over space elevators, but Obayashi plans
on continuing its lofty aspiration, with others following suit. Will Arthur
C. Clarke’s vision one day come to be realized?
 Space elevator

A space elevator is conceived as a cable fixed to the equator and reaching into space. A
counterweight at the upper end keeps the center of mass well above geostationary orbit level.
This produces enough upward centrifugal force from Earth's rotation to fully counter the
downward gravity, keeping the cable upright and taut. Climbers carry cargo up and down the
cable.
Space elevator in motion rotating with Earth, viewed from above North
Pole. A free-flying satellite (green dot) is shown in geostationary orbit
slightly behind the cable.
A space elevator is a proposed type of planet-to-space transportation
system.[1] The main component would be a cable (also called a tether)
anchored to the surface and extending into space. The design would
permit vehicles to travel along the cable from a planetary surface, such
as the Earth's, directly into space or orbit, without the use of large
rockets. An Earth-based space elevator would consist of a cable with
one end attached to the surface near the equator and the other end in
space beyond geostationary orbit (35,786 km altitude). The competing
forces of gravity, which is stronger at the lower end, and the
outward/upward centrifugal force, which is stronger at the upper end,
would result in the cable being held up, under tension, and stationary
over a single position on Earth. With the tether deployed, climbers
could repeatedly climb the tether to space by mechanical means,
releasing their cargo to orbit. Climbers could also descend the tether to
return cargo to the surface from orbit.[2]
The concept of a tower reaching geosynchronous orbit was first
published in 1895 by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.[3] His proposal was for a
free-standing tower reaching from the surface of Earth to the height of
geostationary orbit. Like all buildings, Tsiolkovsky's structure would be
under compression, supporting its weight from below. Since 1959, most
ideas for space elevators have focused on purely tensile structures,
with the weight of the system held up from above by centrifugal forces.
In the tensile concepts, a space tetherreaches from a large mass (the
counterweight) beyond geostationary orbit to the ground. This
structure is held in tension between Earth and the counterweight like
an upside-down plumb bob.
To construct a space elevator on Earth the cable material would need
to be both stronger and lighter (have greater specific strength) than any
known material. Development of new materials that meet the
demanding specific strength requirement must happen before designs
can progress beyond discussion stage. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have
been identified as possibly being able to meet the specific strength
requirements for an Earth space elevator.[2][4] Other materials
considered have been boron nitride nanotubes, and diamond
nanothreads, which were first constructed in 2014.[5][6]
A prototype was launched in 2018 to tether to future stations as well as
the International Space Station.[7] It is a miniature version to be further
examined before making the decision to build up a large structure in
the coming years.
The concept is applicable to other planets and celestial bodies. For
locations in the solar system with weaker gravity than Earth's (such as
the Moon or Mars), the strength-to-density requirements for tether
materials are not as problematic. Currently available materials (such
as Kevlar) are strong and light enough that they could be used as the
tether material for elevators there.[8]
History

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
The key concept of the space elevator appeared in 1895
when Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel
Tower in Paris. He considered a similar tower that reached all the way
into space and was built from the ground up to the altitude of 35,786
kilometers, the height of geostationary orbit.[9] He noted that the top of
such a tower would be circling Earth as in a geostationary orbit. Objects
would attain horizontal velocity as they rode up the tower, and an
object released at the tower's top would have enough horizontal
velocity to remain there in geostationary orbit. Tsiolkovsky's conceptual
tower was a compression structure, while modern concepts call for
a tensile structure (or "tether").
20th century
Building a compression structure from the ground up proved an
unrealistic task as there was no material in existence with enough
compressive strength to support its own weight under such conditions.
[10]
 In 1959 another Russian scientist, Yuri N. Artsutanov, suggested a
more feasible proposal. Artsutanov suggested using a
geostationary satellite as the base from which to deploy the structure
downward. By using a counterweight, a cable would be lowered from
geostationary orbit to the surface of Earth, while the counterweight
was extended from the satellite away from Earth, keeping the cable
constantly over the same spot on the surface of the Earth. Artsutanov's
idea was introduced to the Russian-speaking public in an interview
published in the Sunday supplement of Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1960,
[11]
 but was not available in English until much later. He also proposed
tapering the cable thickness so that the stress in the cable was
constant. This gave a thinner cable at ground level that became thickest
at the level of geostationary orbit.
Both the tower and cable ideas were proposed in the quasi-
humorous Ariadne column in New Scientist, December 24, 1964.
In 1966, Isaacs, Vine, Bradner and Bachus, four American engineers,
reinvented the concept, naming it a "Sky-Hook," and published their
analysis in the journal Science.[12] They 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, and
found that the strength required would be twice that of any then-
existing material including graphite, quartz, and diamond.
In 1975 an American scientist, Jerome Pearson, reinvented the concept
yet again, publishing his analysis in the journal Acta Astronautica. He
designed[13] a tapered cross section that would be better suited to
building the elevator. The completed cable would be thickest at the
geostationary 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 (89,000 miles), 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 Shuttletrips,
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.
After the development of carbon nanotubes in the 1990s, engineer
David Smitherman of NASA/Marshall's Advanced Projects Office
realized that the high strength of these materials might make the
concept of a space elevator feasible, and put together a workshop at
the Marshall Space Flight Center, inviting many scientists and engineers
to discuss concepts and compile plans for an elevator to turn the
concept into a reality.
In 2000, another American scientist, Bradley C. Edwards, suggested
creating a 100,000 km (62,000 mi) long paper-thin ribbon using a
carbon nanotube composite material.[14] He chose the wide-thin ribbon-
like cross-section shape rather than earlier circular cross-section
concepts because that shape would stand a greater chance of surviving
impacts by meteoroids. The ribbon cross-section shape also provided
large surface area for climbers to climb with simple rollers. Supported
by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, Edwards' work was
expanded to cover the deployment scenario, climber design, power
delivery system, orbital debris avoidance, anchor system,
surviving atomic oxygen, avoiding lightning and hurricanes by locating
the anchor in the western equatorial Pacific, construction costs,
construction schedule, and environmental hazards.[2][15][16][17]
21st century[edit]
To speed space elevator development, proponents have organized
several competitions, similar to the Ansari X Prize, for relevant
technologies.[18][19] Among them are Elevator:2010, which organized
annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems
from 2005 to 2009, the Robogames Space Elevator Ribbon Climbing
competition,[20] as well as NASA's Centennial Challenges program,
which, in March 2005, announced a partnership with the Spaceward
Foundation (the operator of Elevator:2010), raising the total value of
prizes to US$400,000.[21][22] The first European Space Elevator Challenge
(EuSEC) to establish a climber structure took place in August 2011.[23]
In 2005, "the LiftPort Group of space elevator companies 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 mi) space elevator, this move will allow it to make money in the
short term and conduct research and development into new
production methods."[24] Their announced goal was a space elevator
launch in 2010. On February 13, 2006 the LiftPort Group announced
that, earlier the same month, they had tested a mile of "space-elevator
tether" made of carbon-fiber composite strings and fiberglass tape
measuring 5 cm (2.0 in) wide and 1 mm (approx. 13 sheets of paper)
thick, lifted with balloons.[25]
In 2006 the book Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator by Dr. Brad
Edwards and Philip Ragan was published in English, a comprehensive
coverage of space elevator issues.[26] It is still available (2018) on
Amazon. [27]
In 2007, Elevator:2010 held the 2007 Space Elevator games, which
featured USD500,000 awards for each of the two competitions,
(USD1,000,000 total) as well as an additional USD4,000,000 to be
awarded over the next five years for space elevator related
technologies.[28] No teams won the competition, but a team
from MIT entered the first 2-gram (0.07 oz), 100-percent carbon
nanotube entry into the competition.[29] Japan held an international
conference in November 2008 to draw up a timetable for building the
elevator.[30]
In 2008 the book Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator by Dr. Brad
Edwards and Philip Ragan was published in Japanese and entered the
Japanese best-seller list.[31] [32]This led to Shuichi Ono, chairman of the
Japan Space Elevator Association, unveiling a space-elevator plan,
putting forth what observers considered an extremely low cost
estimate of a trillion yen (£5 billion/ $8 billion) to build one. [30]
In 2012, the Obayashi Corporation announced that in 38 years it could
build a space elevator using carbon nanotube technology. [33] At 200
kilometers per hour, the design's 30-passenger climber would be able
to reach the GEO level after a 7.5 day trip.[34] No cost estimates, finance
plans, or other specifics were made. This, along with timing and other
factors, hinted that the announcement was made largely to provide
publicity for the opening of one of the company's other projects in
Tokyo.[35]
In 2013, the International Academy of Astronautics published a
technological feasibility assessment which concluded that the critical
capability improvement needed was the tether material, which was
projected to achieve the necessary strength-to-weight ratio within 20
years. The four-year long study looked into many facets of space
elevator development including missions, development schedules,
financial investments, revenue flow, and benefits. It was reported that
it would be possible to operationally survive smaller impacts and avoid
larger impacts, with meteors and space debris, and that the estimated
cost of lifting a kilogram of payload to GEO and beyond would be $500.
[36][37]

In 2014, Google X's Rapid Evaluation R&D team began the design of a
Space Elevator, eventually finding that no one had yet manufactured a
perfectly formed carbon nanotube strand longer than a meter. They
thus decided to put the project in "deep freeze" and also keep tabs on
any advances in the carbon nanotube field.[38]
In 2018, a Japanese prototype was launched as a testing bed for a
larger structure. [39]. Researchers at Japan’s Shizuoka University planned
to test an elevator in space by launching a rocket and a mini-elevator
from the Japanese island of Tanegashima on September 11, 2018, but
due to Typhoon Mangkhut, the launch was postponed to an as-yet-
unannounced date in the future. [40]
In May 2018, Rufan Zhang published a paper "Carbon nanotube
bundles with tensile strength over 80 GPa" announcing the fabrication
of CNT bundles (CNTBs) that are centimetres long with tensile strength
over 80 GPa using ultralong defect-free CNT's. [41]
In 1979, space elevators were introduced to a broader audience with
the simultaneous publication of Arthur C. Clarke's 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 (loosely
based on Sri Lanka, albeit moved south to the Equator), and Charles
Sheffield's first novel, The Web Between the Worlds, also featuring the
building of a space elevator. Three years later, in Robert A. Heinlein's
1982 novel Friday the principal character makes use of the "Nairobi
Beanstalk" in the course of her travels. In Kim Stanley Robinson's 1993
novel Red Mars, colonists build a space elevator on Mars that allows
both for more colonists to arrive and also for natural resources mined
there to be able to leave for Earth. In David Gerrold's 2000
novel, Jumping Off The Planet, a family excursion up the Ecuador
"beanstalk" is actually a child-custody kidnapping. Gerrold's book also
examines some of the industrial applications of a mature elevator
technology. In a biological version, Joan Slonczewski's 2011 novel The
Highest Frontier depicts a college student ascending a space elevator
constructed of self-healing cables of anthrax bacilli. The engineered
bacteria can regrow the cables when severed by space debris.
Construction
The construction of a space elevator would need reduction of some
technical risk. Some advances in engineering, manufacturing and
physical technology are required.[2] Once a first space elevator is built,
the second one and all others would have the use of the previous ones
to assist in construction, making their costs considerably lower. Such
follow-on space elevators would also benefit from the great reduction
in technical risk achieved by the construction of the first space elevator.
[2]

Prior to the work of Edwards in 2000[14] most concepts for constructing

a space elevator had the cable manufactured in space. That was
thought to be necessary for such a large and long object and for such a
large counterweight. Manufacturing the cable in space would be done
in principle by using an asteroid or Near-Earth object for source
material.[63][64]These earlier concepts for construction require a large
preexisting space-faring infrastructure to maneuver an asteroid into its
needed orbit around Earth. They also required the development of
technologies for manufacture in space of large quantities of exacting
materials.[65]
Since 2001, most work has focused on simpler methods of construction
requiring much smaller space infrastructures. They conceive the launch
of a long cable on a large spool, followed by deployment of it in space. [2]
[14][65]
 The spool would be initially parked in a geostationary orbit above
the planned anchor point. A long cable would be dropped "downward"
(toward Earth) and would be balanced by a mass being dropped
"upward" (away from Earth) for the whole system to remain on the
geosynchronous orbit. Earlier designs imagined the balancing mass to
be another cable (with counterweight) extending upward, with the
main spool remaining at the original geosynchronous orbit level. Most
current designs elevate the spool itself as the main cable is paid out, a
simpler process. When the lower end of the cable is long enough to
reach the surface of the Earth (at the equator), it would be anchored.
Once anchored, the center of mass would be elevated more (by adding
mass at the upper end or by paying out more cable). This would add
more tension to the whole cable, which could then be used as an
elevator cable.
One plan for construction uses conventional rockets to place a
"minimum size" initial seed cable of only 19,800 kg.[2] This first very
small ribbon would be adequate to support the first 619 kg climber. The
first 207 climbers would carry up and attach more cable to the original,
increasing its cross section area and widening the initial ribbon to about
160 mm wide at its widest point. The result would be a 750-ton cable
with a lift capacity of 20 tons per climber.

Safety issues and construction challenges

For early systems, transit times from the surface to the level of
geosynchronous orbit would be about five days. On these early
systems, the time spent moving through the Van Allen radiation
belts would be enough that passengers would need to be protected
from radiation by shielding, which would add mass to the climber and
decrease payload.[66]
A space elevator would present a navigational hazard, both to aircraft
and spacecraft. Aircraft could be diverted by air-traffic
control restrictions. All objects in stable orbits that have perigee below
the maximum altitude of the cable that are not synchronous with the
cable would impact the cable eventually, unless avoiding action is
taken. One potential solution proposed by Edwards is to use a movable
anchor (a sea anchor) to allow the tether to "dodge" any space debris
large enough to track.[2]
Impacts by space objects such as meteoroids, micrometeorites and
orbiting man-made debris pose another design constraint on the cable.
A cable would need to be designed to maneuver out of the way of
debris, or absorb impacts of small debris without breaking.
Economics

With a space elevator, materials might be sent into orbit at a fraction of

the current cost. As of 2000, conventional rocket designs cost about
US$25,000 per kilogram (US$11,000 per pound) for transfer to
geostationary orbit.[67] Current space elevator proposals envision
payload prices starting as low as $220 per kilogram ($100 per pound),
[68]
 similar to the $5–$300/kg estimates of the Launch loop, but higher
than the $310/ton to 500 km orbit quoted[69] to Dr. Jerry Pournelle for
an orbital airship system.
Philip Ragan, co-author of the book Leaving the Planet by Space
Elevator, states that "The first country to deploy a space elevator will
have a 95 percent cost advantage and could potentially control all
space activities."
Structure

One concept for the space elevator has it tethered to a mobile seagoing
platform.
There are a variety of space elevator designs. Almost every design
includes a base station, a cable, climbers, and a counterweight. Earth's
rotation creates upward centrifugal force on the counterweight. The
counterweight is held down by the cable while the cable is held up and
taut by the counterweight. The base station anchors the whole system
to the surface of the Earth. Climbers climb up and down the cable with
cargo.
Base station
Modern concepts for the base station/anchor are typically mobile
stations, large oceangoing vessels or other mobile platforms. Mobile
base stations would have the advantage over the earlier stationary
concepts (with land-based anchors) by being able to maneuver to avoid
high winds, storms, and space debris. Oceanic anchor points are also
typically in international waters, simplifying and reducing cost of
negotiating territory use for the base station.[2]
Stationary land based platforms would have simpler and less costly
logistical access to the base. They also would have an advantage of
being able to be at high altitude, such as on top of mountains. In an
alternate concept, the base station could be a tower, forming a space
elevator which comprises both a compression tower close to the
surface, and a tether structure at higher altitudes.[10] Combining a
compression structure with a tension structure would reduce loads
from the atmosphere at the Earth end of the tether, and reduce the
distance into the Earth's gravity field the cable needs to extend, and
thus reduce the critical strength-to-density requirements for the cable
material, all other design factors being equal.
Cable

Carbon nanotubes are one of the candidates for a cable material

A seagoing anchor station would also act as a deep-water seaport.

A space elevator cable would need to carry its own weight as well as
the additional weight of climbers. The required strength of the cable
would vary along its length. This is because at various points it would
have to carry the weight of the cable below, or provide a downward
force to retain the cable and counterweight above. Maximum tension
on a space elevator cable would be at geosynchronous altitude so the
cable would have to be thickest there and taper carefully as it
approaches Earth. Any potential cable design may be characterized by
the taper factor – the ratio between the cable's radius at
geosynchronous altitude and at the Earth's surface.[45]
The cable would need to be made of a material with a large tensile
strength/density ratio. For example, the Edwards space elevator design
assumes a cable material with a specific strength of at least
100,000 kN/(kg/m).[2] This value takes into consideration the entire
weight of the space elevator. An untapered space elevator cable would
need a material capable of sustaining a length of 4,960 kilometers
(3,080 mi) of its own weight at sea levelto reach
a geostationary altitude of 35,786 km (22,236 mi) without yielding.
[46]
 Therefore, a material with very high strength and lightness is
needed.
For comparison, metals like titanium, steel or aluminium alloys
have breaking lengths of only 20–30 km. Modern fibre materials such
as kevlar, fibreglass and carbon/graphite fibre have breaking lengths of
100–400 km. Nanoengineered materials such as carbon nanotubes and,
more recently discovered, graphene ribbons (perfect two-dimensional
sheets of carbon) are expected to have breaking lengths of 5000–
6000 km at sea level, and also are able to conduct electrical power.
[citation needed]

For a space elevator on Earth, with its comparatively high gravity, the
cable material would need to be stronger and lighter than currently
available materials.[47] For this reason, there has been a focus on the
development of new materials that meet the demanding specific
strength requirement. For high specific strength, carbon has
advantages because it is only the 6th element in the periodic table.
Carbon has comparatively few of the protons and neutrons which
contribute most of the dead weight of any material. Most of the
interatomic bonding forces of any element are contributed by only
the outer few electrons. For carbon, the strength and stability of those
bonds is high compared to the mass of the atom. The challenge in using
carbon nanotubes remains to extend to macroscopic sizes the
production of such material that are still perfect on the microscopic
scale (as microscopic defects are most responsible for material
weakness).[47] [48] [49] As of 2014, carbon nanotube technology allowed
growing tubes up to a few tenths of meters.[50]
In 2014, diamond nanothreads were first synthesized.[5] Since they have
strength properties similar to carbon nanotubes, diamond nanothreads
were quickly seen as candidate cable material as well.[6]
Climbers

A conceptual drawing of a space elevator climber ascending through

the clouds.
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 at the tips. While various designs employing moving
cables 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.
Climbers would need to be paced at optimal timings so as to minimize
cable stress and oscillations and to maximize throughput. Lighter
climbers could be sent up more often, with several going up at the
same time. This would increase throughput somewhat, but would lower
the mass of each individual payload.[51]

As the car climbs, the cable takes on a slight lean due to the Coriolis
force. The top of the cable travels faster than the bottom. The climber
is accelerated horizontally as it ascends by the Coriolis force which is
imparted by angles of the cable. The lean-angle shown is exaggerated.
The horizontal speed, i.e. due to orbital rotation, of each part of the
cable increases with altitude, proportional to distance from the center
of the Earth, reaching low orbital speed at a point approximately 66
percent of the height between the surface and geostationary orbit, or a
height of about 23,400 km. A payload released at this point would go
into a highly eccentric elliptical orbit, staying just barely clear from
atmospheric reentry, with the periapsis at the same altitude as LEO and
the apoapsis at the release height. With increasing release height the
orbit would become less eccentric as both periapsis and apoapsis
increase, becoming circular at geostationary level. [52][53] When the
payload has reached GEO, the horizontal speed is exactly the speed of a
circular orbit at that level, so that if released, it would remain adjacent
to that point on the cable. The payload can also continue climbing
further up the cable beyond GEO, allowing it to obtain higher speed at
jettison. If released from 100,000 km, the payload would have enough
speed to reach the asteroid belt.[44]
As a payload is lifted up a space elevator, it would gain not only
altitude, but horizontal speed (angular momentum) as well. The angular
momentum is taken from the Earth's rotation. As the climber ascends,
it is initially moving slower than each successive part of cable it is
moving on to. This is the Coriolis force: the climber "drags" (westward)
on the cable, as it climbs, and slightly decreases the Earth's rotation
speed. The opposite process would occur for descending payloads: the
cable is tilted eastwards, thus slightly increasing Earth's rotation speed.
The overall effect of the centrifugal force acting on the cable would
cause it to constantly try to return to the energetically favorable
vertical orientation, so after an object has been lifted on the cable, the
counterweight would swing back towards the vertical like an inverted
pendulum.[51] Space elevators and their loads would be designed so that
the center of mass is always well-enough above the level of
geostationary orbit[54] to hold up the whole system. Lift and descent
operations would need to be carefully planned so as to keep the
pendulum-like motion of the counterweight around the tether point
under control.[55]
Climber speed would be limited by the Coriolis force, available power,
and by the need to ensure the climber's accelerating force does not
break the cable. Climbers would also need to maintain a minimum
average speed in order to move material up and down economically
and expeditiously.[citation needed] At the speed of a very fast car or train of
300 km/h (190 mph) it will take about 5 days to climb to
geosynchronous orbit.[56]
Powering climbers
Both power and energy are significant issues for climbers—the climbers
would need to gain a large amount of potential energy as quickly as
possible to clear the cable for the next payload.
Various methods have been proposed to get that energy to the climber:

 Transfer the energy to the climber through wireless energy

transfer while it is climbing.
 Transfer the energy to the climber through some material
structure while it is climbing.
 Store the energy in the climber before it starts – requires an
extremely high specific energy such as nuclear energy.
 Solar power – After the first 40 km it is possible to use solar
energy to power the climber[57]
Wireless energy transfer such as laser power beaming is currently
considered the most likely method, using megawatt powered free
electron or solid state lasers in combination with adaptive mirrors
approximately 10 m (33 ft) wide and a photovoltaic array on the
climber tuned to the laser frequency for efficiency.[2] For climber
designs powered by power beaming, this efficiency is an important
design goal. Unused energy would need to be re-radiated away with
heat-dissipation systems, which add to weight.
Yoshio Aoki, a professor of precision machinery engineering at Nihon
University and director of the Japan Space Elevator Association,
suggested including a second cable and using the conductivity of carbon
nanotubes to provide power.[30]
Counterweight

Space Elevator with Space Station

Several solutions have been proposed to act as a counterweight:

 a heavy, captured asteroid;[9]
 a space dock, space station or spaceport positioned past
geostationary orbit
 a further upward extension of the cable itself so that the net
upward pull would be the same as an equivalent counterweight;
 parked spent climbers that had been used to thicken the cable
during construction, other junk, and material lifted up the cable for
the purpose of increasing the counterweight.[44]
Extending the cable has the advantage of some 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. Its disadvantage is the need
to produce greater amounts of cable material as opposed to using just
anything available that has mass.
Launching into deep space
An object attached to a space elevator at a radius of approximately
53,100 km would be at escape velocity when released. Transfer orbits
to the L1 and L2 Lagrangian points could be attained by release at
50,630 and 51,240 km, respectively, and transfer to lunar orbit from
50,960 km.[58]
At the end of Pearson's 144,000 km (89,000 mi) cable, the tangential
velocity is 10.93 kilometers per second (6.79 mi/s). That is more than
enough to escape Earth's gravitational field and send probes at least as
far out as Jupiter. Once at Jupiter, a gravitational assist maneuver could
permit solar escape velocity to be reached.[42]