Is NASA working on a space elevator?

Is NASA working on a space elevator?

NASA says the basic concept of a space elevator is sound, and researchers around the world are optimistic that one can be built. The Obayashi Corp., a global construction firm based in Tokyo, has said it will build one by 2050, and China wants to build one as soon as 2045.

Is it true that NASA plans to build a space elevator that would use carbon nanotubes to move materials from Earth to outer space?

Long, Stretchy Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Space Elevators Possible. A space elevator would extend 22,000 miles above the Earth to a station, and then another 40,000 miles to a weighted structure for stability. NASA needs about 144,000 miles of nanotube to build one.

Who invented space elevator?

Jerome Pearson, President of STAR, Inc., conceived the idea of the space elevator in 1969 at the NASA Ames Research Center, and perfected the concept in the early 1970s, when he was at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio.

Is there real space elevator?

A space elevator is possible with today’s technology, researchers say (we just need to dangle it off the moon) Space elevators would dramatically reduce the cost of reaching space but have never been technologically feasible.

Why is a space elevator impossible?

The biggest challenge of building a space elevator may be the 100,000-kilometer-long tether. It would have to be incredibly strong to handle the gravitational and centrifugal forces pulling on it. The steel used in tall buildings wouldn’t work for a space elevator cable.

Who invented the space elevator?

The concept of the Space Elevator goes back many decades, and is believed to have originated with Russian scientists Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Yuri Artsutanov.

Could a space elevator help NASA cut costs?

Pearson, who participated in the 1999 workshop, envisions the space elevator as a cost-cutting device for NASA. “One of the fundamental problems we face right now is that it’s so unbelievably expensive to get things into orbit,” said Pearson.

Is there a lunar space elevator?

Interestingly, Artsutanov published a paper on a lunar space elevator just one month later, without either author being aware of the other! Paul Birch of England conceived of a dynamic space elevator, in the form of a hollow ring about the Earth with a super-orbital wire inside it.

What happened to Artsutanov?

Artsutanov is long retired, but Pearson is still actively working in the field. In August, 2013, Pearson gave the keynote address to the International Space Elevator Conference in Seattle, and described how he assisted Sir Arthur on the technology of space elevators for Clarke’s novel, “The Fountains of Paradise.”