Professor Says We Could Already Build a Floating Space Elevator
The concept of a space elevator, a consistently popular topic in works of science fiction, has been around since at least the late 19th century.
The basic idea is to allow us to reach space by using a cable that’s tethered to the Earth on one end and to a counterweight, orbiting the Earth, on the other.
But rather than having one end cemented in the Earth, scientists are now arguing that a more recently developed iteration of the space elevator design could be built much sooner. The design involves having both ends of the tether float entirely in space, making transportation of payloads from one orbit to the other much easier.
And, as George Zhu, professor of mechanical engineering at York University, tells The Academic Times, the concept isn’t nearly as far fetched as we might think.
“Technical-wise, it’s kind of ready,” Zhu told the outlet. “It just has small engineering [adjustments], and there’s no fundamental difficulty to do that.”
