09/22/03’s illustrious band:

Space Elevator

Brought to you by science of the near future.

What’s 62,000 miles long and doesn’t need to worry about escape velocity? The space elevator. It ain’t just science fiction: there are plans afoot to build one.

This huge project is meant to be constructed of tiny, tiny technology, carbon nanotubes that twine around one another to form a ribbon many times stronger than steel. The first stretch of cable will be attached to a platform in geosynchronous orbit and reeled down from space via a Space Shuttle flight or two. The bottom end will be anchored on Earth near the equator. Then automated “climbers” will climb the cable and add bit by bit to its structure, increasing its overall strength over the course of 2.5 years. Eventually, payloads will be able to shimmy up the granddaddy of all gym ropes, experiencing no large launch forces, slowly climbing from one atmosphere to a vacuum. No rockets required.

A space elevator would be a far more efficient way of getting things off the ground, so to speak, without burning tons of fuel (at about $150,000 per pound) trying to escape Earth’s gravity. Exploratory craft like the Mars probe or the Hubble telescope could be hoisted, rather than shot, into space, then shoved off into the solar system with a lot less fuss than is presently needed. Heck, it would be so cheap that people could use it as a tourist jaunt -- sort of like Seattle’s Space Needle on steroids.

Now how cool is that? I hadn’t even heard of the space elevator until someone mentioned it to me this morning. But rocket-free scientists are already at work on the project, and of course science fiction writers have been envisioning this sort of thing for the past hundred years and more. And we may just see the completion of one (or more!) in my lifetime.

Sure, the cable might turn out to be giant lightning rod and call down the wrath of Thor on this little rock, or some portion of its 62,000 mile length might start snapping around in the winds generated by the forces required to rotate a planet through space, or it could alter weather patterns in unforeseen ways and have a bye-bye-dinosaurs effect on the terrestrial environment. And wouldn’t it stink to get stuck halfway up, view or no view?

But it’s so COOL! Dude! Space elevator! I can’t wait.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.