Our future via space elevators

Our future lives thanks to Space Elevators...

To properly talk about the effect of Space Elevators, you need to start with the Lunar Elevator. This is, because, despite what you may think, Actually, the Lunar Space Elevator is simpler to build than the Earth Space Elevator. Although the cable has to be longer, it doesn't need to be of as strong material. (Materials strong enough for the Lunar Elevator cable already exist.) At the moment, it's VERY hard to land something on the moon, despite being so close. This is because the gravity of approaching, as gravity has a tendency to do, means we constantly accelerate towards it after a certain point. So, it takes a LOT of fuel to slow down via retrorockets to land on the surface. And all that fuel has to be sent up out of the atmosphere. And all the materials to build a lunar space elevator can go up in a single rocket.

For comparison, Mars, energy wise, is easier to land on than the moon, despite being so far away. This is because it has an atmosphere we can use to slow ourselves down. The problem, of course, is the time it takes to get there, which means a LOT Of life support.

A lunar elevator, however, changes to moon from being a hard target, to only slightly harder than getting any old communications satellite into orbit. That may not seem like a big deal (I mean, after all, not many people afford satallites), but it comes with a bonus. He3, Helium 3, is constantly put out by our sun. Our atmosphere destroys it on contact, but the moon acts like a giant sponge for the stuff. He3 is the BEST fuel source that we currently know of, second only to antimatter. As far as cleanliness and energy output goes, it's only byproduct is regular helium which at the moment is expensive for us to mine, and is used in almost every major form of industry. Having it as an easily accessible energy byproduct would do wonders for cleaning up the carbon footprint of energy. (It's not just a zero pollution energy source, it's a negative pollution energy source!)

Further, He3 constantly comes off the sun. It's solar energy free for the grabbing that's more potent than the typical solar panels that rely on catching photons (which, by comparison, have much less potential energy).

Now, to make matters more interesting, He3 is used for fusion reactions. (Not to be confused with the fission reactions of current nuclear power plants). Despite the fact that it's literally 10 times as powerful as energy potent as our current nuclear power, it's a non-self sustaining reaction, meaning no risk of meltdown. There's not radiation. Again, the ONLY byproduct is regular helium, and LOTS of clean renewable energy. Further, He3 runs at thousands of dollars a litre at present market price, and that price is only expected to go up as we start shipping it, because that's the price before we have enough He3 to start building lots of clean fusion reactors. So far, the only fusion reactor is the ITAR reactor, and it's only an experimental demo. So with a ready supply of He3, supply may go up, but demand will go up much faster. In short, it's a great investment.

Now, access to any energy source, once established, comes in high demand. That means that space development will kick up to a new level. Materials research for the Earth Space elevator will kick up to a heavy level. (The same was that train tracks get built if a new coal mine is discovered.) Not only will the company our country that is running the Lunar Elevator have significant interest in making easy access to such a cash cow, but people will be beginning to travel back and forth (think new mining town mentality.) And people will be moving to live there permanently. (Pro tip: Expect a ticket price to get from Earth to the Moon, once both elevators are running, to cost about $10K, start saving if you don't want to take out a loan, but at $1K a litre for He3, expect to make all that money back in the first week!)

Now we are almost at the point where we can build an Earth Space Elevator. The main thing that's left to research is the cable material, and it looks like we have that set for the near future. Originally, Carbon Nanotubes were hoped to fill that role, but as many businesses found out, they're just too hard to produce. However, since then, two more technologies have appeared that have the strength that's needed... and they're much more easy to produce. Those are boron-carbon nanotubes, and graphene. (The CEO of LiftPort , Michael Laine, and myself - I'm the CITO of LiftPort - debate between the two of us which will be doable first. It's just a friendly rivalry between us on that one. I'm betting on the graphene.)

So, basically, the Lunar Space Elevator paves the road for the Earth Space Elevator, which means whoever gets the Lunar Elevator first, will control the Earth Space Elevator, and from there, the direction of space development afterwards, and by extension of that, directly guide the future of humanity as a whole.

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... which means whoever gets the Lunar Elevator first, will ... directly guide the future of humanity as a whole.

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You may ask why just the Lunar Elevator is so important? I'll tell you right here.

When the Lunar Elevator is built, that group will have the foothold into space. Although an Earth elevator can be built anywhere near enough to the equator, the Moon doesn't rotate enough for the centripetal force to keep an elevator up like the Earth would. You need to use the balance point between the Earth an the Moon... the L1 Lagrange point. And there's only one of these. Trying to build a lunar elevator anywhere else would be significantly more difficult and complex.

And the space station and elevator built at the L1 will be THE refueling depot and large-scale ship-building facility for Earth Orbit. This is because it will be cheaper to bring Lunar materials into space than Earth materials. And the Moon is providing the He3. Thus, the Lunar station will be THE gateway between Earth and the rest of space. This means whoever has it gets such a ridiculous lead on space development over any other group that it's not even funny.

And cheap space travel opens ups another opportunity. He3 makes energy a non-issue. Asteroid mining with both space elevators available makes mineral resources a non-issue. With the space elevators, getting anywhere in the solar system becomes ridiculously cheap. And asteroids in the asteroid belt can literally be city sized rocks of a single element.

Think about that... what mining company wouldn't fight tooth and nail to get their hands on an entire city-sized "pre-mined" hunk of rock for them to open up onto the market? Think about the fact that digging takes absurd amounts of permits, regulations, controls, equipment, and time. Not to mention there's environmental impacts to be concerned about. Cheap space-travel and asteroids says, "a few explosives, and your'e done". No environment to hurt, no regulations, no neighbors to annoy with blasting. Just batta-bing, batta-boom, massive profit and cheap resources for all of humanity.

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Just batta-bing, batta-boom, massive profit and cheap resources for all of humanity.

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At this point, with amazing resources, and amazing energy, we can begin to seriously start considering colonizing not only other planets in our system, but start creating ships to travel to other systems. The non-profit Alcor already has the research for long-term cryogenic freezing that would be necessary for a multi-year journey to the next star system perfected.

Now, you may be thinking this sounds like science fiction, but the Lunar Space Elevators area already being planned. Three major organizations have already declared the goal of building a lunar space elevator with two more looking like they may declare such a goal in the near future. The three already declared are the LiftPort group of the US, Russia (which started awhile ago), and Obayashi Corp of Japan. The two organizations that may be considering are the EU (which just dumped a LOT of research into the primary component, Graphene) and China (which similarly dumped a lot into its space program), these latter two, although they have not formally declared space elevator interests, are expected to once they do the math and realize how vital they would be to their ambitions.

The latest any of these are expecting to put an Earth space elevator up by is 2050. The earliest is Earth elevator is expected 2030. Expect asteroid mining within five years after that. My personal opinion is that I expect five years after that before someone says, "Hey, cryogenic freezing? Space travel? Let's start looking for investors."

And that kind of travel means free open space for humanity. First world families settling on new worlds (expect families of fifteen kids again, like back in old-west settling days!) And new cultural renaissance. Expect a vibrant exploring space program. Races for new space technology to be developed. (I know I've already heard plans with sound physics... but no testing yet...for a functional warp that could use as little as 10 tons of He3 to power it.)

In short, expect to see the future we all dreamed of in Star Trek in about 30ish years.

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In short, expect to see the future we all dreamed of in Star Trek in about 30ish years.

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