Happy 50th Birthday space elevator!

Wait… can we have a birthday for something that doesn’t exist yet? Can an idea blow out birthday candles? To be honest it will probably be another 50 years before the world is ready to even start building a space elevator.

Most of us like to believe that the idea of a space elevator is something the general public doesn’t know about. It generally tends to make us feel superior. A few years ago that was probably true, only hardcore science fiction novels and Popular Science ever mentioned the idea, but lately it has been getting some recognition from pop culture and a few blockbuster video games.

And there is good reason for it, in theory a space elevator could reduce what is known as:  “The price to orbit.”

The title is pretty self explanatory: how much money it will cost you to get anything, satellites, junk, human remains, etc in to orbit. Currently that price is hovering right around $10,000 per pound. That may seem like a lot but just 10 years ago that price was closer to $50,000 per pound.

If an elevator was ever built the price could be as low as $10 per pound (some people have argued it could be under a dollar, but when even a decent iTunes song is $1.29 I highly doubt it.) I was tempted to write a giant discourse on what a space elevator is and what technology would need to be involved, but then realized Wikipedia already has a fully formed article on the topic so I will direct you there instead: Penthouse Level Please!

What’s really important is that large companies like Microsoft are keeping the 21st century tower of Babel dream alive. This weekend they will be holding an entire conference on space elevators and the technology and politics of one.

Personally I think a space elevator would make an excellent new “Apollo Programesque” mission for NASA. It’s a goal with long term pay-off both in space travel and in the commercial sector in terms of the new technologies it would create. Additionally we have a very good idea of the technology we would need to invent to accomplish it.

So how bout it NASA?

With the shuttle making its last flight this year and Ares on the indefinite hold, it’s not like you have anything better to do… right?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Craig the Rocket Scientist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.