It sounds like pure Jules Verne science fiction, but it's reality. At this time, to get a payload up to the International Space Station there are rockets involved, trajectories and planning, and then of course fuel costs, resulting in a cost of about $10,000 per pound. That's an expensive bottle of champagne! A space elevator will reduce that cost to closer to $20 per pound, bringing us much closer to colonizing outer space than we could have hoped.
A space elevator is a proposed type of planet-to-space transportation system (think Infrastructure). The main component would be a cable (or tether) anchored to the surface and extending into space. The design would permit payloads to travel along the cable from the Earth's surface directly into 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. 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 (up or down) to space by mechanical means, releasing their cargo to orbit. Join goodfellers and Wonder Women as we explore the future of outer space on december 18th. We are meeting on the THIRD SATURDAY this month because of the christmas Holiday. Coffee is available at 8:00AM, and the buffet starts at 8:30AM. beatitudes Resident Dr. Jerry Eddy is one of the scientists and board members of The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) and will be sharing information, video and photographs of this project starting at 9:15AM. Breakfast tickets are available in the Bistro for $5.50. No ticket is needed after 9:15AM.
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