LOS
ALAMOS, N.M. - Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers are
proposing an elevator reaching 62,000 miles into the sky to launch payloads
into space more cheaply than the shuttle can.
"The
first country that owns the space elevator will own space," said lab
scientist Bryan Laubscher. "I believe that, and I think Los Alamos should be
involved in making that happen."
The
elevator shaft would be made of a very strong, thin, lightweight material
called carbon nanotubes attached to the Earth's equator. The shaft, really a 32
million-story-tall cable, would be carried into orbit on a conventional
spacecraft, then gradually dropped down to Earth to be attached to a platform
similar to an ocean oil-drilling rig.
Solar-powered
crawlers would move up and down the shaft, carrying payloads of satellites or
probes to be placed in Earth's orbit or beyond. They also would attach
additional cables to the main shaft that eventually would become new elevators.
"It
would create huge, huge savings over how we launch stuff now," said Ron
Morgan, a health scientist working on the project. "From the top of it, we
could throw things off to Mars or to the inner solar system. Launching those
things on conventional rockets costs a fortune."
Significant
technical questions remain.
No one has made a carbon nanotube cable longer than a few
feet but Laubscher said technology is improving daily, and a cable could be
possible in a few years.
Earth's
magnetosphere, far above where the shuttle typically travels, could be a
radiation hazard. Scientists say that doesn't rule out equipment launches or
space tourism in lower orbits.
"We
don't have a lot of experience sending people through those radiation
belts," said Anders Jorgensen, another lab scientist on the project.
"In fact, the Apollo astronauts are the only ones that have gone through
there, and they went through much faster than the space elevator will go."
A
payload on the shuttle costs about $15,000 per kilogram to launch into orbit. A
150-pound person weighs 68 kilograms.
A
payload on the first space elevator likely would cost about $1,000 per
kilogram, which could drop to $50 to $100 in time, Laubscher said.
"Space
is not really being exploited or used as a revenue opportunity because it's so
expensive to get to space," he said. "The space elevator is the only
thing that could really meet that economy of scale. It gets cheaper every time
you use it because none of the parts is destroyed."
Backers
say the elevator would make it affordable to launch solar power satellites.
Such
satellites could collect as much energy as a nuclear power plant and beam it
anyplace on Earth, they said.
That
would make people "less dependent on other, dirtier power sources,"
project scientist Mervin Kellum suggested.
The
researchers believe their time on the project is worth it.
"None
of us can imagine how the space elevator will change the world," Morgan
said. "I'd love to be here 15 years after the first one is built to see
how the world changes. I think it will change everything."