Lunar Space Elevator
A moon based elevator to space could radically reduce the costs and improve the reliability of placing equipment on the lunar surface.
Lunar space elevator. Fans of sci fi and fringe tech may already be familiar with the idea of the space elevator which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like and totally impossible with today s technology. Lunar elevator part of liftport s reboot was a revolutionary idea that applied the concept of the earth elevator but could be built today. According to laine the first version of liftport s lunar elevator would cost 800 million and would be built in seven to twelve years.
Penoyre and sandford a graduate student in astronomy at columbia university and a co author of the study call their lunar space elevator concept spaceline. He added the benefits of having a lunar elevator are. Such a lunar elevator would make the transport of supplies and.
The lunar elevator is held up by earth s gravity acting on the counterweight which is closer to earth that the point where earth and lunar gravity balance each other aka the l1 point. A lunar space elevator is actually feasible inexpensive scientists find the concept of a lunar space elevator isn t new. The space elevator was first proposed in 1895 but it might even predate that.
The idea of a giant tower that can carry us from earth to outer space is science fiction but a company has successfully kickstarted what they say is their first step to building one on the moon. It is similar in concept to the better known earth based space elevator idea but since the moon s surface gravity is much lower than the earth s the engineering requirements for constructi. A lunar space elevator or lunar spacelift is a proposed transportation system for moving a mechanical climbing vehicle up and down a ribbon shaped tethered cable that is set between the surface of the moon at the bottom and a docking port suspended tens of thousands of kilometers above in space at the top.
The idea was to build an elevator on the moon a lunar elevator instead of one on earth freeing us from the heavy restrictions of gravity. Its central element is a cable that.