A Canadian company, however, was recently awarded a patent on their design for a space elevator that would stretch up to around 12 miles above the Earth’s surface.
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The space elevator is reportedly expected to cost around $5 billion in construction.
“Astronauts would ascend to 20 km by electrical elevator”, inventor Dr. Brendan Quine said on the company’s official website.
The hope is that the tower would be able to send people (including tourists), satellites and cargo into lower orbit without the huge cost that comes with a rocket launch.
Of course, there are a few key considerations to be taken into account – for one, Quine and his team will have to find the right material, one that can actually extend miles into the sky without snapping while simultaneously maintaining its structure.
The tower would be supported by a number of gas-pressurized cells. The elevator could potentially transport up to 10 tons of cargo – including space travelers – at a time, negating the need for a traditional rocket launch. “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”. Hauling payloads on an elevator into near space would virtually eliminate atmospheric drag and then launching them into space from the stratosphere would require less fuel.
“Once built – if built, and if it works – this would seem to offer easier, more routine access to space”.
Thoth Technology sees this as a transformational moment for space travel, with the space tower set to reap the benefits of advances in self-landing rocket technologies.
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Thoth will focus on successfully constructing a.9-mile demonstration elevator, which will become the world’s largest structure, Quine said. If it succeeds with the demo, it will go forward its plan to build the 12.4-mile-high space tower.
