Japanese construction giant Obayashi announces plans to have a space elevator up and running by 2050 Once the realm of science fiction, a Japanese company has announced they will have a space elevator up and running by the year 2050. If successful it would revolutionise space travel and potentially transform the global economy. The Japanese construction giant Obayashi says they will build a space elevator that will reach 96,000 kilometres into space. Robotic cars powered by magnetic linear motors will carry people and cargo to a newly-built space station, at a fraction of the cost of rockets. It will take seven days to get there. The company said the fantasy can now become a reality because of the development of carbon nanotechnology. The tensile strength is almost a hundred times stronger than steel cable so its possible, Mr Yoji Ishikawa, a research and development manager at Obayashi, said. Right now we cant make the cable long enough. We can only make 3-centimetre-long nanotubes but we need much more... we think by 2030 well be able to do it. ---This is more likely to end up with a graphene based tower rather than carbon nanotubes. Also a 96K version is not likely to be the best configuration, but they should be given full marks for expressing the objective. Since the creation of a space elevator is likely to be a planetary level project, we all will need to chip in to build the end solution.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:49:56 +0000
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