We all want to travel into space, but the cost of operating energy-intensive rockets is just too much, due to which space travel remains extremely expensive.
However,?researchers are working on building a space elevator that would help cut these costs and make space travel more affordable.
Representative Image: NASA
Yes, it sounds crazy, but theoretically, it's very much doable. As described in a research that was published at ArXic by researchers of Columbia University as well as Cambridge University, a 'spaceline' of sorts will be tethered to the moon on one end while the other end is dangling into the geostationary orbit around the Earth. This will be the location where the astronauts can simply hop on the ride straight to the moon.
According to the proof of concept, this spaceline can be made today with the existing materials.?
Imagine the astronauts blasted off the earth's atmosphere and arrived in space, at the end of the spaceline. There they'll connect to this spaceline's solar-powered shuttle, which would do the remaining heavy lifting now of taking the aircraft to the lunar surface, thus saving the fuel required to travel all the way to the moon.?
Zephyr Penoyre, one of the Columbia University grad students behind the spaceline project said, in a conversation with Futurism, "the line becomes a piece of infrastructure, much like an early railroad - the movement of people and supplies along it are much simpler and easier than the same journey in deep space."
Representative Image: Getty
You might be wondering why wouldn't it be possible for the elevator to be tethered to Earth. This is because Earth has a stronger gravitational pull that could cause tension on the tube and snap it. Moreover, if something were to happen that could cause harm to the structural integrity of the tube, it won't be as grave in space as it could get on Earth.?
According to researchers, it would be best if the spaceline is narrow on the edges and thicker in the centre to give it the strongest shape. They also feel that carbon nanotubes are the best material for this job currently, however, they can't be built to scale yet.
While there is still a long way for space-elevators to be a real thing, it is an amazing concept nonetheless!