November 30th, 2005
Wow Space Elevator!
So what’s this all about space elevator. If you are an space exploration fun/geek and didn’t hear about this coming technology read on.
The Space Elevator is a thin ribbon, with a cross-section area roughly half that of a pencil, extending from a ship-borne anchor to a counterweight well beyond geo-synchronous orbit. The ribbon is kept taut due to the rotation of the earth (and that of the counterweight around the earth). At its bottom, it pulls up on the anchor with a force of about 20 tons. Electric vehicles, called climbers, ascend the ribbon using electricity generated by solar panels and a ground based booster light beam. The ribbon is 62,000 miles long, about 3 feet wide, is thinner than a sheet of paper and made out of a carbon nanotube composite material (carbon nanotubes are tiny, molecular cylinders formed purely of carbon atoms. They are created by shooting high-powered lasers at a carbon target. Each nanotube is just one nanometer in diameter, or 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair).
