{"id":121143,"date":"2021-04-01T15:22:18","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T22:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/far-from-science-fiction-space-elevators-may-be-nearing-deployment"},"modified":"2021-04-01T15:22:18","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T22:22:18","slug":"far-from-science-fiction-space-elevators-may-be-nearing-deployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/far-from-science-fiction-space-elevators-may-be-nearing-deployment","title":{"rendered":"Far from science fiction, space elevators may be nearing deployment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/far-from-science-fiction-space-elevators-may-be-nearing-deployment2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll believe it when I see it. But this is a skyhook which can be made with existing materials.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>With one end of a steel cable hovering in Earth\u2019s orbit and the other end somewhere in outer space, the concept of a futuristic floating \u201cspace elevator\u201d promises to amplify humans\u2019 ability to explore the universe \u2014 and scientists engineering an improved take on the 19th-century idea say the one-time fantasy is close to becoming a reality.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTechnical-wise, it\u2019s kind of ready,\u201d said George Zhu, a professor of mechanical engineering at York University and a coauthor of a new study on the idea. \u201cIt just has small engineering [adjustments], and there\u2019s no fundamental difficulty to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zhu\u2019s paper, published March 17 in <em>Acta Astronautica<\/em>, refines his foundational design for a mechanically feasible <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S009457652100120X#!\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">space elevator<\/a>, which has several applications for space-related missions. It suggests that instead of previous concepts employing only one cable, or tether, there should be two attached, which can maintain opposite forces while transporting cargo in parallel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ll believe it when I see it. But this is a skyhook which can be made with existing materials. With one end of a steel cable hovering in Earth\u2019s orbit and the other end somewhere in outer space, the concept of a futuristic floating \u201cspace elevator\u201d promises to amplify humans\u2019 ability to explore the universe [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}