This is a story I think the millions should see. I think this would just be amazing to see, could you imagine getting off a plane at a mid-ocean platform and seeing a 20km tower with a cable attached to the top stretching into space? I am adding this to my “things I want to see before I die” list.
If you’re a science fiction fan, two novels that I know of, off the top of my head, deal with this: “The Fountains of Paradise” by Arthur C. Clarke, and “Jumping Off The Earth” by David Gerrold.
Sir Rhosis
That’s not a new idea, and aside from creating an entire new habitat like a ringworld or Dyson sphere, it represents the pinnacle of cheap access to space. (Well, until someone discovers antigravity, anway.)
But there is another idea called the Momentum Exchange Tether that could provide very similar performace without need to extend a cable all the way to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. Basically you have a satellite with a long tether, and a counterbalance on a shorter one. As this assembly rotates, the long tether could reach all the way down to a very low altitude, and snag a payload, and then lift it up to LEO. The easiest and safest way to meet the tether would probably be a supersonic aircraft, rather than a tower.
From there, it’s a lot easier to get to GEO, or beyond, than to try it from the ground.
The satellite station loses momentum lifting, but if you also use the same principle to deorbit vehicles, then your only net loss is due to atmospheric drag. We’ll probably see someone attempt a momentum exchange tether before anyone builds a tether to GEO.
But until they can make carbon nanotubes longer than a few nanometers, I wouldn’t be looking for geosynchronous or momentum exchange tethers anytime soon!
At the same time that Arthur C. Clarke wrote The Fountains of Paradise, Charles Sheffield wrote The Web Between the Worlds. The two novels are so similar that Arthur C. Clarke actually wrote an introduction to Sheffield’s book, pointing out the many similarities and defending Sheffield against charges of plagiarism – the Space Elevator was simply an idea whose time had come. In fact, when Robert Heinlein wrote Friday shortly thereafter he was able to simply mention in passing that she had “ridden the Beanstalk” without any further explanation, not even actually mentioning that it was a Space Elevator.
I also recommend the relevant chapters in Robert L. Forward’s Indistinguishable from Magic, in which he discusses variations on the theme, including momentum-transfer devices. Arthur C. Clarke returned to the theme in spades in 3001: The Final Odyssey.
I didn’t know David Gerrold had written about it. I’ll have to look that one up. Thanks, Sir.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Mars” trilogy also features such elevators.