1/11/2024 0 Comments Elevator to the moon secretsLooking back from the year 2100, the construction of the space elevator will be considered to mark the true beginning of the Space Age, much like the advent of the airplane or steamboat heralded the true commercial use of the air and sea. Imagine the kind of infrastructure we can set up there, waiting for the first settlers to arrive. This release from the Apex Anchor can enable massive movement of cargo and supplies daily and with fast transit vs. In addition to launching payloads into orbit, the space elevator can also use its rotational motion to inject them into planetary transfer orbits – thus able to launch payloads to Mars, for example, once per day. However, as the infrastructure matures, by maturing the tether (stronger or thicker), we can grow the Space Elevator to lift 100 metric tons at a time. While the trip to space takes several days, climbers are launched once per day with a first “baseline” design of 20 metric ton climbers. The climbers travel at speeds comparable to a fast train, and carry no fuel on board – they are powered by a choice or combination of sunlight and laser light projected from the ground. The rotation of the Earth keeps the tether taut and capable of supporting the climbers. The Space Elevator Transportation Infrastructure is based on a thin vertical tether stretched from the ground to a mass far out in space with electric tether climbers that drive up and down the tether. The massive movement capability as well as the low cost ensure that the infrastructure approach is "right." The space elevator is the most promising transportation infrastructure on the drawing boards today, combining scalability, low cost, quality of ride, massive payload throughput and safety to deliver truly commercial-grade space access – practically comparable to a train ride into space. Elevator cars (tether climbers), powered by electricity travel up and down the tether and carry cargo and eventually humans to and from space. A tether (cable) stretches from the ground to an Apex Anchor (counterweight) 100,000 km up/out in space. A Space Elevator (SE) can be thought of as a vertical railroad into space.
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