Fifty years ago, people believed that by our time space travel would be as affordable as in their years of travel by public transport. Unfortunately, these hopes did not come true. But, perhaps, already in 2050, it will be possible to reach space by elevator - the concept of this vehicle was presented by the Japanese company Obayashi Corporation
Lifts are different! There is an ordinary elevator, there is an elevator in the bathroom, there is an elevator inside the aquarium, and the Obayashi Corporation promises to launch an elevator into space in a few decades! In fact, several scientific and engineering groups around the world, supervised by the NASA space agency, are engaged in the creation of such technologies. However, according to the Japanese, this process is very slow, so the Obayashi Corporation decided to develop a space elevator independently of others.
The main achievement of the competitions from NASA is that they proved the very possibility of creating a space elevator. Obayashi Corporation promises to launch this unusual vehicle by 2050!
This elevator will lead from Earth to a space station located at an altitude of 36 thousand kilometers. But the length of the cable will be 96 thousand kilometers. This is necessary in order to create an orbital counterweight. In the future, it can be used to extend the elevator route.
The elevator will be able to move at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour and carry up to 30 people at a time. So this vehicle will need about 8 days to reach its final goal. The space station will house laboratories and living quarters.
The cost of launching one person at the start of the space elevator will be reduced significantly compared to the current one.
The very same cable, on which the elevator will walk, must be created from the symbiosis of carbon nanotubes and secretions from the glands of genetically modified spiders. The Obayashi Corporation still has a couple of decades to develop and deploy these technologies.