Japan takes a first step towards the space elevator | Smart News

The problem with rockets is that they are expensive, most of the time single use and that we sometimes know that they explode. That's why, for more than a century, science fiction scientists and writers have dreamed of creating a space elevator to transport astronauts and payloads between Earth and low Earth orbit. Building this "heavenly castle", as Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had imagined in 1895, has so far been out of reach of existing technologies. But that did not stop people from trying. Currently, as reported by the Agence France-Presse, researchers from the Japanese University of Shizuoka will test the movement of lifts in space next week in an unprecedented experiment in the hope of advancing the concept.

Tsiolkovsky had the idea of ​​a space elevator after seeing the newly built Eiffel Tower. The space pioneer realized that a similar tower could be built up to the stars. But it will take more than half a century for another Russian, the engineer Yuri Artsutanov, to look at the real challenges of building a permanent link between Earth and space in the 1960s.

Theoretically, a "space elevator" would consist of a cable attached to the Earth, probably somewhere near the equator where hurricanes and tornadoes are rare. David Smitherman of the NASA / Marshall Advanced Projects Office explained that such a system "requires the center of mass to be in geostationary orbit," or about 22,236 miles above the Earth's equator. The cable itself should be attached to a stationary mass beyond the geostationary orbit that would keep it taut. But the result would allow electromagnetic vehicles to move up and down the cable, bringing workers, equipment and tourists into orbit for a fraction of the cost of a rocket trip.

Of course, there are obstacles to achieving this idea. Currently, no material has been found to be sufficiently strong to withstand the stresses exerted on the elevator cable by the pulling force and the wind in the upper atmosphere. Even carbon nanotubes, the most powerful material we've designed so far, would tear under stress. There are also problems such as the development of electromagnetic vehicles to run the cable and find a suitable counterweight, such as a small asteroid, that could be put in place to attach the cable. We do not know how an elevator would work at zero G.

That's where Japanese study comes in. The AFP reports that researchers are launching next week two tiny cubic satellites aboard an H-2B rocket bound for the Station international space. The cubic satellites of about 4 inches will be deployed from Kibo, a module belonging to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, with a 33 foot steel cable between them. An even smaller motorized cube will work like its elevator cabin, moving along the cable between the satellites. The researchers will monitor the action via a camera to study the functioning of systems in orbit. "This will be the first experience in the world to test the movement of lifts in space," said a university spokesman at the news agency.

While the challenges to creating a space elevator are enormous, this has not stopped Japan from continuing to invest in this idea. "In Japan, the space elevator is practically part of the national psyche thanks in part to the extensive expertise of Japanese researchers in the fields of robotics and carbon nanotube technology, beginning with the discovery in 1991 of carbon nanotubes by Japanese researcher Sumio Iijima. as Michelle Z. Donahue explained for Smithsonian.com in 2016.

According to the Japanese national daily, the Mainichi, the Obayashi company, which built the biggest tower in this country, has already developed a proposal for a space elevator. In his concept, six oval-shaped elevator cabins would move between a platform in the sea and the space station orbiting the Earth. A trip from sea to sky would take about eight days. The idea is based on carbon nanotubes or undeveloped material and requires nearly 60,000 miles of cables. The price of the concept is estimated at around 90 billion dollars (10 trillion yen).

Yoji Inshikawa, head of Shizuoka's team, tells the Mainichi that he does not think the concept is completely unexpected. "In theory, a space elevator is highly plausible," he says. "Space travel could become popular in the future."

Leaving aside technological problems for a moment, there remains another hurdle that engineers still have to solve: how are we going to print an "Out of Use" sign large enough to be read from the space?

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