If climbing a stairway to heaven sounds like too much hard work, then a conference of 70 scientists and engineers opening in Santa Fe, New Mexico, yesterday may offer hope of a more leisurely way into space.
In two days of discussions, the scientists aim to turn into a reality an ambition that has been around for at least a century: the creation of a space elevator that would deliver satellites, spacecraft and even people thousands of kilometers into space along a vertical track.
Engineers say that recent advances in materials science -- particularly in the development of carbon nanotubes -- mean that such a system, which first gained widespread attention when the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke described it in his 1979 novel Fountains of Paradise, is no longer pure science fiction.
Clarke -- who once said a space elevator would only be built "about 50 years after everyone stops laughing" -- was due to address the scientists at the Santa Fe conference yesterday by satellite link from his home in Sri Lanka.
The American space agency NASA is no longer laughing. It is putting several million US dollars into the project under its advanced concepts program.
At the heart of a space elevator would be a cable reaching up as far as 100,000km from the surface of the Earth. The earthbound end would be tethered to a base station, probably somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean. The other end would be attached to an orbiting object in space acting as a counterweight, the momentum of which would keep the cable taut and allow vehicles to climb up and down it.
A space elevator would make rockets redundant by granting cheaper access to space. At about a third of the way along the cable -- 36,000km from Earth -- objects take a year to complete a full orbit.
If the cable's center of gravity remained at this height, the cable would remain vertical, as satellites placed at this height are geostationary, effectively hovering over the same spot on the ground.
To build a space elevator, such a geostationary satellite would be placed into orbit carrying the coiled-up cable.
One weighted end of the cable would then be dropped back towards Earth, while the other would be unreeled off into space.
Mechanical lifters could then climb up the cable from the ground, ferrying up satellites, space probes and eventually tourists.
No scientist has yet succeeded in making a material, which many expect will be made out of carbon nanotubes, strong but light enough to make the cable, but Rodney Andrews, a carbon nanotube expert from the University of Kentucky will tell the conference: "Until some of the basic science concerning how to connect nanotubes together and transfer load between them in a composite is understood it will remain elusive, but a lot of progress is being made."
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS