Space is expensive, I mean very, very, enormously expensive! Modern rockets cost about $20,000 to put 1 kg payload into space.

At the same time Space is the door to endless discoveries and the pursuit of light and space lead us to penetrate the bounds of the atmosphere. I believe space should be accessible to everyone and no one should be deprived of it. Scientists and Inventors have suggested multiple substitutes to Chemical-powered rockets and decrease the cost per kg of payload, and the Space Elevator is one of them.





A Space Elevator is a type of Planet to Space transportation system, like an elevator moving up & down on a cable.

In an Orbit, something thing, in layman's terms, falls so fast that it misses touchdown. Like in a game, a stone when tied to a rope and revolved around us, come towards us but never really hit us. Similarly, Rockets are propelled with chemical engines to a very high speed at certain altitudes, and satellites are separated. But a Space Elevator will be accelerated by Earth's rotation and remain in orbit due to its speed.

Space Elevator will decrease the cost by about 100 times, i.e. $200 per kg payload!

The idea for a space elevator was first dreamed up in 1895 by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian scientist and futurist who did pioneering work in rocketry, was inspired by the recently completed Eiffel Tower in Paris to consider building a tower all the way to space. By the end of 20th century, this idea developed into the following.





The Elevator structure will consist of four important parts:

Tether : It is the rope that will connect the Counter-weight (in Space) to a Anchor (on Earth). It will have to be made with a material strong like Vibranium ;)

Anchor : It will hold the elevator through Tether to Earth.

Counterweight : It is like the stone that will revolve around Earth Geostationary Orbit (36,000 kms above land) . It will be a Space Station or a Space platform.

Climber: It is the lift that will move along the Tether, up and down. It will be propelled with ion-lasers.

Artist's representation of the Space Elevator.





Diameter of Earth is only about 12,756 kms!





The Challenges:

The Space Elevator will be single most expensive thing ever built by us, even expensive than the International Space Station. How will it be funded?

An immensely strong material will be required to build a 36,000 km long Tether. Even the strongest materials like Graphene, Carbon Nano-tubes, Diamond Nano-threads, Boron Nitride Nano-tubes are not strong enough.

That material should be light and affordable, that could withstand different atmospheric and weather conditions, Solar radiations, and meteorite impact.

The climber will require immense amount energy to propel upwards. A whole Nuclear reactor could be required specially for the climber!

How will we stretch the Tether? Make it on Earth and pull it to the Conterweight, or make it in space and stretch it down to Earth?

What if the the Tether breaks because of debris impact? It will either whip around Earth (which will be a disaster!) or the Counterweight will be lost in space!

Space Elevator will be advantageous in countless ways, in terms of affordability in putting things into Orbit, as our main space vehicle, It could make way for Space Tourism, Defence, Help in Interplanetary travel and also to show Flat-Earthers that Earth is not flat.





In 2018, the ISS experiment, Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite–Mini elevator (STARS-Me) was devised by physicists from Japan’s Shizuoka University. In which, a pair of Cube-Sats would be connected with a 10 m rope, an an object would travel through the rope. It was meant to see how Climber could move through the Tether.

STARS-ME





The Obayashi Corp., one of Japan’s five big construction companies based in Tokyo, has declared to build one by 2050, and China wants to build one as soon as 2045.

Though Space Elevator on Earth is far from possibility, it is possible to build a Space Elevator on the Moon. As it's gravity is quite less and material like Kevlar can be used for Tether.

"Man must at all costs, overcome Earth's gravity and have, in reserve, the space atleast of the Solar System." - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky