The propsect of an elevator to space has been shaken up by a new prototype.
Age-Raymond Riise of the European Space Agency demonstrated the device at a space elevator conference in December. The project could see a 100,000km long tether anchored to the Earth as a "lift into space" for cheaper space missions.
First mooted by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895, the space elevator idea has captured imaginations as what would be the greatest space mission ever conceived. The idea rests on making use of the outward centrifugal force supplied by the Earth's rotation. Imagine fixing a short length of string to a football and spinning it - the string flies outward and remains taut.
Besides cheaper space missions and space tourism, the space elevator would allow the development of space-based energy solutions that would be otherwise prohibitively expensive.
"From my point of view, the space elevator project is important because it enables a far more directly useful project - installation of large space solar power satellites around the Earth to provide continuous, cheap, CO2-neutral, environmentally friendly energy," said Benoit Michel of the Catholic University of Leuven, who attended the conference.
"I firmly believe that the next century will have a large space-based industry and that industry will be the main energy provider for the whole mankind," he added.
Age-Raymond Riise of the European Space Agency demonstrated the device at a space elevator conference in December. The project could see a 100,000km long tether anchored to the Earth as a "lift into space" for cheaper space missions.
First mooted by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895, the space elevator idea has captured imaginations as what would be the greatest space mission ever conceived. The idea rests on making use of the outward centrifugal force supplied by the Earth's rotation. Imagine fixing a short length of string to a football and spinning it - the string flies outward and remains taut.
Besides cheaper space missions and space tourism, the space elevator would allow the development of space-based energy solutions that would be otherwise prohibitively expensive.
"From my point of view, the space elevator project is important because it enables a far more directly useful project - installation of large space solar power satellites around the Earth to provide continuous, cheap, CO2-neutral, environmentally friendly energy," said Benoit Michel of the Catholic University of Leuven, who attended the conference.
"I firmly believe that the next century will have a large space-based industry and that industry will be the main energy provider for the whole mankind," he added.
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- Impact_Edchief
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- added January 06, 2009
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