Space: February 2007 Archives
If we're going to make it in this future of ours, we've got to stop thinking that our planet hangs in some kind of splendid isolation in the dead vapor of empty space. We're part and parcel of a dynamic system, a vast cosmos of activity and, probably, intelligence; though our home planet's life span is limited, the Universe is not going anywhere.
That said, meet the Space Elevator, probably the most revolutionary idea in the history of aeronautics. Why? Because it's exactly what it sounds like. An elevator. To space.
What's so elegant about the space elevator, to me, is that it draws a clean line of connection between our centuries-old conception of "down here" and the newly approachable "up there," or, as Bucky would have it, "in" and "out," respectively. While space shuttles, rockets, and satellites retain a certain abstract quality -- off they blast, in a florid burst of flame and noise, the mechanics of the whole thing still pretty mystical -- the space elevator is concrete, as though humankind were reaching its own tentative arm into the great beyond, an unknown which will, of course, quickly normalize.
Despite its seemingly implausible nature, the space elevator is totally pragmatic, ultimately much cheaper and more economical than the high-energy rigamarole we're currently faced with every time we need to wrest something from the grips of our planet's escape gravity. The method is simple, like most good ideas are: a tether held taut by the inertia of the planet's rotation, spanning from the surface of the Earth to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit, serving as a sort of cosmic freeway, shuttling "lifters" out of the planet's gravity and into orbit. It would be built somewhere near the equator or on a man-made island, capable of shifting coordinates if necessary.
Think about it. No thunderous rocketry. No risky landings. Rockets are so expensive -- and launching them so damn burdensome -- that they will probably always keep the democratization of space travel at bay. So what are we waiting for?
Arthur C. Clarke, perhaps the most ardent and famous promoter of the space elevator, was often asked when he thought the first one might be built. A little flippantly, he noted, "my answer has always been: about 50 years after everyone has stopped laughing. Maybe I should now revise it to 25 years."
Of course, not everyone is laughing. Some companies, such as Liftport Group, based in Bremerton, Washington, are already on it. Confident of the elevator's viability, they're already hard at work developing the ancillary technologies (the robotics, for example, which will form the heart of the lifter) that this paradigm-shattering device will need. Which is what is so stunning about the elevator: we have all the technology to implement it. The only thing missing is a strong enough material to build the tether out of; burgeoning carbon nanotube technology seems to fit the bill. Once we find a way to put the nanotubes, which have a theoretical tensile strength far and above any other man-made material, into practice, we'll have all our ducks in a row.
Brian Dunbar, systems administrator at Liftport, optimistically concedes that space elevator groups are "a little like Goddard in his cabbage patch, knowing that Nell should work - but there is more engineering and study needed before we light that fuse."
Of course, we have the technology to do a lot of things: stem cell research, cloning, a $100 computer...but that doesn't mean that we always do them. In order for a legitimate space elevator project to take shape, a friendly political climate is perhaps even more necessary than carbon nanotubes are. After all, it can be difficult to instill in an administration -- let alone the greater public -- the importance of these kinds of projects. Politicians (and most people) think in the short term, generally unconcerned with what happens 10, 20, or 1,000 years from now. If they didn't, my generation would certainly not be left with the blunder of global warming, nor would we have to agonize so much about the provenance of our food. Galvanizing people into action for something like the space elevator, which, off the bat, does not seem immediately worthwhile, is improbable. Look at what NASA is replacing the Shuttle with, for crying out loud: little rockets that look like the Apollo modules. Are we going forward or what?
As James Gardner, complexity theorist and author of The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET, and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos, more elegantly put it, "framing the political debate in a way that will lead to a sustainable political consensus will be as important a determinant of success as the capacity to overcome the formidable technical challenges that confront would-be space elevator builder."
