President Bush’s dream to go to Mars got sidetracked last week
when Congress refused funding for his
”
Vision for Space Exploration
”
initiative.
President Bush’s dream to go to Mars got sidetracked last week when Congress refused funding for his “Vision for Space Exploration” initiative.
It seems politicians want NASA to come up with an actual solid plan before coughing up the estimated $120 billion required to send astronauts to collect rocks on the red planet.
Bush’s vision is myopic. As exciting an adventure a jaunt to Mars might seem to the general public, the practical benefits to our own world don’t justify the enormous expense and risks.
Bush needs to get back to Earth and promote a space-exploration initiative that would truly give the biggest bang for the taxpayers’ buck. Bush should adjust his “space vision” to focus on the development of a revolutionary method of going up into Earth orbit.
It’s a realizable concept commonly known as a “space elevator” – and it would truly benefit all humankind.
What the heck is a space elevator, you’re certainly wondering.
I first came across the idea as a teenager in high school. Parked along Quien Sabe Road in the cattle country south of Hollister, I once spent an afternoon reading Arthur C. Clarke’s science-fiction novel “The Fountains of Paradise.”
The story fascinated me. It described the construction of an immensely long cable stretching from the equator thousands of miles into Earth orbit.
Satellites, spacecraft and even people could be transported up along this cable at a much cheaper cost – and with far less risk – than the conventional method of launching rockets.
The idea first was proposed in the early 1960s by a brilliant Russian engineer named Yuri Artsutanov. He called his notion a “cosmic funicular.” But the proposal was considered so wild and implausible, it never gained much public attention other than in the rare science fiction story.
So far, the biggest hurdle to building a space elevator has been finding a material strong enough yet light enough to construct it. Steel used in engineering marvels such as bridges and skyscrapers would be far too heavy and not have the tensile strength necessary for such a radical engineering feat.
The solution came in the last two decades with the development of a man-made material called carbon nanotubes. As strong as diamond and yet flexible enough to be turned into a fibrous material, carbon nanotubes are the most likely material from which a space elevator might be built.
The elevator would require a ribbon of carbon nanotubes a meter wide and as thin as paper running up to an altitude of 35,800 kilometers.
As amazing as it sounds, a carbon-nanotube ribbon would be durable enough to carry as much as 5-tons of payload for every trip along this heavenly highway.
American and Japanese companies are now working on finding ways to fabricate commercial-quantities of this extraordinary substance, and they are well along to achieving their goal.
Physicist Bradley Edwards, director of research at the Institute for Scientific Research, believes it would take only two space shuttle launches to construct the first space elevator.
About 22-tons of carbon-nanotube cable would be lifted up into orbit, then reeled down from an anchor, such as a station, like a fishing line to a location on the equator where it would be tethered.
Robotic climbers would then spider up the ribbon, strengthening it with more carbon nanotubes material as they ascended.
The cost to build the first space elevator, Edwards estimates, would be about $7 billion. It could be finished as soon as 10 years from now.
After the first space elevator is built, it could be used to ferry up material to build other elevators around the equator, thus creating more on-ramps to a heavenly highway.
The benefits to humanity would easily pay the space elevator’s price-tag. Currently, it costs as much as $40,000 per pound to rocket-launch material into orbit around our planet. The space elevator would bring that down to about $100 per pound.
Of course, we’d miss out on the excitement of the thunderous noise as a rocket rises on its pillar of fire. Transport cabs rising along a space elevator would seem to most people as boring as watching 18-wheelers rolling along Highway 101.
But a space elevator would have great benefits. If built by an international alliance, it could help foster a spirit of cooperation and unity among the world’s nations.
It would also make President Bush’s proposed journey to Mars far cheaper and safer than current rocket-based technology would allow.
The space elevator would open up the heavens to greater economic opportunity for humankind. Factories in the weightless environment of space could produce exotic chemicals, life-saving pharmaceuticals and other materials that would greatly benefit our world.
Orbiting solar energy plants might beam down concentrated light from the sun to power our electricity-hungry world – something we humans need to seriously consider as Earth’s carbon-fuel resources rapidly dwindle.
The elevator might even eventually open up the heavens to space tourism. By the end of this century, your grandchild might be voyaging to the Moon or relaxing on Earth-orbiting resort hotels.
The space elevator notion sounds as if it belongs in the realm of science fiction. But remember that in the 19th century, readers of Jules Verne’s novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” believed an underwater ship like the Nautilus was equally improbable. Today, we hardly consider submarines voyaging for months under the ocean all that extraordinary.
In the 1860s, President Lincoln signed a bill that helped fund the construction of the transcontinental railroad. It was a visionary act that transformed our nation.
By proposing a space elevator initiative for NASA, President Bush could implement an engineering project that would truly transform our world.
The potential project is one with 20-20 vision for the future of space exploration.
