What is keeping us from anchoring a cable to Earth’s surface and tethering a platform in space?
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We don’t have any material that we could make a cable out of that’s strong enough not to snap from the stress, or under its own weight. Believe me, there are scientists and engineers trying to figure out how to do this, but science isn’t magic and we still have to obey the laws of physics and chemistry. And they both say that a material strong enough and light enough to do this doesn’t exist yet. Maybe someday, but not today.
So, building a space elevator? We don’t have any material that 1) has the necessary strength to support its own weight over such a distance and 2) can be manufactured in industrial quantity. There are materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes that *on paper* have the necessary tensile strength, but they exist in small quantities in laboratories, not as cables long enough to reach 40,000 km up to geostationary orbit.
that’s the concept behind a space elevator.
it has a number of issues tho:
1: we do not know of any material currently that could take the stresses involved on such a long cable.the ones that might, cant be manufactured in industrial scale yet.
2:in order for such a structure to be stable it needs a very specific location(somewhere around the equator that’s geologically stable) and the space part of the structure needs to be far enough to achieve geosynchronous orbit(especially considering said cable needs ot end in a significant counterweight iun ordwer to be able to tense up)
3:such a system requires that a significant counterweight is put in place on the other end of the cable(in order ot keep the cable tensed up), we do not have the means ot get such a thing in orbit with current tech.
4: the existence of a such a structure would give its owner essentially a monopoly over the Earth’s orbit(since it would make the cost of sending stuff into orbit plummet) so it would be a political nightmare that would likely spark wars, so you need the right political mindset(aka, you basically need world peace)
Imagine flying a kite with an infinite amount of string. Eventually after letting the string out long enough, you can just set it on the ground and walk away because the weight of the string keeps it from climbing any higher. This is the problem in a nutshell. The weight and strength of the string. We cannot make a string light and strong enough to reach outerspace.
The concept you’re describing is called a space elevator, and the good news is that it doesn’t break any laws of physics, so all the challenges are engineering. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not.
– the cable. It needs to be light and crazy strong. There have been some promising developments here, but we’re still a long way away from anything practical.
– a counterweight. If we have a cable up to a space station, the cable actually needs to go further and end up tethered to a big counterweight. So we would probably need to capture a small asteroid or something heavy and human-made.
– add concerns about space debris and terrorism. Fun fact, if broken, the cable would fall and encircle the earth two and a half times
The launch platform would probably be at the equator and on the ocean.
Getting stuff into space is the hardest and most expensive part of the process. A space elevator would be a huge achievement in allowing us to get materials up there at a fraction of the cost.
So, bottom line, this is doable, but we’re still a good way away from it moving from science fiction to reality. This is a huge, difficult, expensive project with technology that has yet to be invented but I’m very optimistic that we could see something in my lifetime.
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Try to imagine what would happen if something went horribly wrong and a 40k kilometer long cable broke loose and started falling to Earth, which is 40k kilometers in circumference and constantly spinning.
We don’t have any material that we could make a cable out of that’s strong enough not to snap from the stress, or under its own weight. Believe me, there are scientists and engineers trying to figure out how to do this, but science isn’t magic and we still have to obey the laws of physics and chemistry. And they both say that a material strong enough and light enough to do this doesn’t exist yet. Maybe someday, but not today.
So, building a space elevator? We don’t have any material that 1) has the necessary strength to support its own weight over such a distance and 2) can be manufactured in industrial quantity. There are materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes that *on paper* have the necessary tensile strength, but they exist in small quantities in laboratories, not as cables long enough to reach 40,000 km up to geostationary orbit.
Imagine flying a kite with an infinite amount of string. Eventually after letting the string out long enough, you can just set it on the ground and walk away because the weight of the string keeps it from climbing any higher. This is the problem in a nutshell. The weight and strength of the string. We cannot make a string light and strong enough to reach outerspace.
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