A Canadian company has reportedly been granted a U.S. patent to build a 20-km high space elevator that could "assist spacecraft to land and take off" in the coming years. Will this make space tourism even more accessible?
A report posted on the official Facebook page of CCTV News said a tower that will house a "space elevator" that will assist spacecraft carrying astronauts and tourists to land from and take off to space in the future.
The space elevator is said to rise even higher than Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, regarded as the world's highest building today.
The company behind the project, Thoth Technology Inc. said the space elevator will be utilized for tourism and wind-energy generation, helping save "more than 30 percent of the fuel of a conventional rocker." Because of its height, it will also be reportedly used for communications.
"Astronauts would ascend to 20 km by electrical elevator," inventor Dr. Brendan Quine said on the company's official website. "From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the top of the tower for refuelling and reflight."
President and CEO of Thoth Technology Caroline Roberts believes that the space elevator "will herald a new era of space transportation," matched with rocket technologies others are developing.
"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," she said.
Posted by CCTVNews on Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Dynamics and cost
According to a separate report in CNBC, the space elevator will be "supported by a series of gas-pressurized cells, and serve as a docking platform for space plans that could launch cargo, tourists and satellites directly into lower orbit."
Inventor Dr. Brendan Quine is an engineering professor at York University and the co-founder of the company, CNBC added. He said in the report that they worked on the space elevator's concept for eight years before getting the patent.
"Other inflated tower designs have been explored previously, but they typically use buttress designs or support cables that we believe [are] impractical," he said in the CNBC report.
The space elevator is reportedly expected to cost around $5 billion in construction.
Posted by CCTVNews on Tuesday, August 18, 2015
