Nanotechnology Fueling Rockets

The space elevator is a device that will dramatically reduce the cost of sending cargo into orbit. Like any elevator the space elevator will have a cable, however it will need to be stronger than any existing cable. Roughly 90,000 kilometers long, the space elevator cable will probably be made from carbon nanotubes. It will be anchored at the top to an asteroid (called the counterweight) in orbit around the earth, and at the bottom by an anchor station, perhaps floating in the ocean similar to a drilling rig. This device would eliminate the need to use rocket fuel, and dramatically reduce the cost of sending cargo into orbit (about 95% of the weight of the space shuttle at blast off is rocket fuel). Instead, solar cells on space elevator cars would convert light from a laser beam mounted on the anchor station into electricity to drive the car up or down the cable like a vertical monorail.

While there are some engineering challenges, to me the most intriguing of which is actually stringing this 90,000 kilometer cable between the anchor station in the ocean and the counterweight asteroid in orbit, steps are underway to address these challenges. A report by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts gives a very good introduction to the techniques necessary to construct the space elevator. Yearly competitions conducted by the Elevator 2010 group are providing a focus for energetic minds to demonstrate prototypes with some substantial cash prizes, totaling one million dollars in 2007.