Many people know the biblical story of how people set out to become like God and decided to erect a tower up to heaven. The Lord, being angry, made it so that all people began to speak in different languages, and the construction stopped.
True or not, it is difficult to say, but after thousands of years, mankind again thought about the possibility of building a supertower. After all, if it is possible to build a structure tens of thousands of kilometers high, then it will be possible to reduce the cost of delivering cargo into space by almost a thousand times! Space will cease once and for all to be something distant and unattainable.
Dear space
For the first time the concept of a space elevator was considered by the great Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. He assumed that if you build a tower 40,000 kilometers high, then the centrifugal force of our planet will hold the entire structure, not allowing it to fall.
At first glance, this idea smells like manilovism a mile away, but let's think logically. Today, most of the weight of rockets is fuel, which is spent to overcome Earth's gravity. Of course, this also affects the launch price. The cost of delivering one kilogram of payload to Earth orbit is about $ 20,000.
So when relatives pass the jam to the astronauts on the ISS, you can rest assured that this is the most expensive delicacy in the world. Even an English queen cannot afford this!
Launching one shuttle cost NASA between $ 500 and $ 700 million. Due to problems in the American economy, NASA's leadership was forced to close the space shuttle program and outsource the function of delivering cargo to the ISS to private companies.
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Political problems are added to economic problems. Due to disagreements over the Ukrainian issue, Western countries have imposed a number of sanctions and restrictions against Russia. Unfortunately, they also touched upon cooperation in astronautics. NASA received an order from the US government to freeze all joint projects, with the exception of the ISS. In response, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that Russia is not interested in participating in the ISS project after 2020 and intends to switch to other goals and tasks, such as establishing a permanent scientific base on the Moon and a manned flight to Mars.
Most likely, Russia will do this together with China, India and possibly Brazil. It should be noted: Russia was already going to complete work on the project, and Western sanctions simply accelerated this process.
Despite such ambitious plans, everything can remain on paper if a more efficient and cheaper way of delivering goods outside the Earth's atmosphere is not developed. A total of over $ 100 billion was spent on the construction of the same ISS! How many “greens” it will take to create a station on the moon is even scary to imagine.
A space elevator could be the perfect solution to the problem. Once the elevator is up and running, shipping costs can drop to two dollars per kilogram. But first you have to thoroughly smash your head over how to build it.
Margin of safety
In 1959, the Leningrad engineer Yuri Nikolaevich Artsutanov developed the first working version of the space elevator. Since it is impossible to build an elevator from the bottom up because of the gravity of our planet, he suggested doing the opposite - building from top to bottom. For this, a special satellite had to be launched into a geostationary orbit (about 36,000 kilometers), where it had to take a position above a certain point on the Earth's equator. Then start assembling the cables on the satellite and gradually lower them towards the surface of the planet. The satellite itself also played the role of a counterweight, constantly keeping the cables taut.
The general public was able to get acquainted with this idea in detail when, in 1960, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an interview with Artsutanov. The interviews were also published by Western media, after which the whole world has already undergone "elevator fever". The science fiction writers were especially zealous, painting iridescent pictures of the future, an indispensable attribute of which was the space elevator.
All experts studying the possibility of creating an elevator agree that the main obstacle to the implementation of this idea is the lack of a sufficiently strong material for the cables. According to calculations, this hypothetical material should withstand a voltage of 120 gigapascals, i.e. over 100,000 kilograms per square meter!
The strength of steel is approximately 2 gigapascals, for especially strong options - a maximum of 5 gigapascals, for quartz fiber - slightly above 20. This is simply monstrously small. The eternal question arises: what to do? Develop nanotechnology. The most promising candidate for the role of a cable for an elevator could be carbon nanotubes. According to calculations, their strength should be much higher than the minimum 120 gigapascals.
At the moment, the most durable sample was able to withstand a stress of 52 gigapascals, but in most other cases, they burst in the range from 30 to 50 gigapascals. In the course of long-term research and experiments, specialists from the University of Southern California managed to achieve an unheard-of result: their tube was able to withstand a voltage of 98.9 gigapascals!
Unfortunately, this was a single success, and there is another significant problem with carbon nano-tubes. Nicholas Pugno, a scientist at the Turin Polytechnic University, came to a disappointing conclusion. It turns out that even due to the displacement of one atom in the structure of carbon tubes, the strength of a certain area can sharply decrease by 30%. And this is all despite the fact that the longest obtained nanotube sample so far is only two centimeters. And if you take into account the fact that the length of the cable should be almost 40,000 kilometers, the task seems simply impossible.
Rubbish and storms
Another very serious problem is related to space debris. When mankind settled in near-earth orbit, it took up one of its favorite activities - littering the surrounding space with the products of its vital activity. At the very beginning, we somehow were not particularly worried about this. “After all, space is infinite! - we reasoned. - Throw a piece of paper, and she will go further, surf the vastness of the Universe!"
It was then that we gave up. All debris and remnants of aircraft are doomed to forever wind circles around the Earth, captured by its powerful gravitational field. You don't need to be an engineer to figure out what happens if one of these pieces of rubbish hits the cable. Therefore, thousands of researchers from all over the world are racking their smart heads over the issue of eliminating the near-earth landfill.
Also, the situation with the base of the elevator on the planet's surface is not entirely clear. Initially, it was intended to create a fixed base at the equator to ensure synchronization with a geostationary satellite. However, then it is impossible to avoid the detrimental effect of hurricane winds and other natural disasters on the elevator.
Then the idea came up to fix the base on a floating platform, which could make maneuvers and "avoid" storms. But in this case, the operators in orbit and the platform will be forced to perform all movements with surgical precision and absolute synchronization, otherwise the whole structure will go to hell.
Keep your chin up
Despite all the difficulties and obstacles that lie on our thorny path to the stars, we should not hang our nose and throw this, no doubt, a unique project on the back burner. The space elevator is not a luxury, but a vital item.
Without it, colonization of near space will become extremely labor-intensive, costly, and may take many years. There are, of course, proposals to develop anti-gravity technologies, but this is too distant a prospect, and an elevator is needed in the next 20-30 years.
The elevator is necessary not only for lifting and lowering loads, but also as a "mega-sling". With its help, it is possible to launch spaceships into interplanetary space without spending huge amounts of such precious fuel, which could otherwise be used to accelerate the ship. Of particular interest is the idea of using an elevator to clean the Earth from hazardous waste.
For example, spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear power plant can be placed in sealed capsules, and then sent with direct fire towards the Sun, for which to burn such a booger is a piece of cake.
But, oddly enough, the implementation of such an idea is, rather, a question not of economics or science, but of politics. We need to face the truth - no country in the world can independently master such a grandiose project. International cooperation is indispensable.
First of all, the participation of the USA, the European Union, China, Japan, India, Brazil and, of course, Russia is important. So, whatever one may say, one will have to sit down at the negotiating table and smoke a pipe of peace. Therefore, guys, let's live together, and we will succeed!
Adilet URAIMOV