In somewhat bizarre news, it’s been announced that the construction of a 12 mile high ‘inflatable space elevator’ has been approved by the Canadian government and should be constructed in the near future. It’ll smash the record for the tallest building in the world completely out of the ball park as it’s looking at being 20 times taller than the current holder, the Burj Khalifa over in Dubai.
I don’t really get what an ‘inflatable space elevator’ is or how it’s going to work but here’s what people are saying about it: it’s designed to carry astronauts to a ‘space platform’ where they’ll be picked up by passing spaceships. It can also be used to refuel these spaceships – apparently the platform leads to a 30 percent reduction in fuel usage for spacecrafts so that’s actually really useful. Yes, this is reality and not an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
Brendan Quine, the designer of the space elevator, had the following to say about it:
Images VIA
Astronauts would ascend to 20km by electrical elevator. From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refuelling and reflight.
Landing on a barge at sea level is a great demonstration, but landing at 12 miles above sea level will make space flight more like taking a passenger jet.
Right. Again this all sounds like something out of a geeky sci fi movie to me but apparently it’s true and happening right now. If you’re interested in how the tower is going to be built, then they’re basically going to make it out of flexible sheet metal and divide it into a number of sections, all of which will be separately held up by gas apparently: ‘the’plurality of stabilisation devices is configured to provide active stabilisation of the space elevator tower using a harmonic control strategy’.
Yeah, I don’t really understand it either but it’s definitely gonna be something worth checking out once it’s built. I doubt you’ll be allowed up it if you’re not an astronaut but just looking at it in person would be pretty insane as well. Mindblowing stuff really – that has been in development for longer than you think – check out the history of the space elevator here.
