So far, everyone who has ever traveled to space has done so in rocket ships, flying from the Earth’s surface on tails of fire and smoke. Space travelers are buffeted by high G forces. Several astronauts and cosmonauts have died, sometimes when their rockets have blown up. However, in the future, perhaps sooner than anyone thinks, this may no longer be the case. Traveling to space may be no more stressful than riding an elevator. It will certainly be a lot cheaper.

What is a Space Elevator?

A space elevator consists of a physical connection between the surface of a planet, preferably at the equator, to a point in geostationary orbit, which for the Earth is 35,786 kilometers high. The connection is like a train or a bridge, moving people, material, and power between a planet’s surface and space.

A space elevator has remarkable advantages in reliability and cost over using rockets to send people and material to space. Once the space elevator is built, the cost of travel to low Earth orbit would be several orders of magnitude smaller than using conventional rockets. The space elevator can also be used constantly, 24/7 if need be, and will be far safer to use than rockets.

The History of the Space Elevator

The idea of a bridge to the heavens is as old as the story of the Tower of Babel. In modern times, the idea of a space elevator was developed by Jerome Pearson in the early 1970s. Arthur C. Clarke consulted with Pearson and developed the idea of the space elevator in his novel, The Fountains of Paradise, which depicted the building of a space elevator anchored on the island of Sri Lanka, where Clarke makes his home.

More recently, NASA and private groups like the Life Port Group have studied the feasibility of building space elevators in order to greatly reduce the cost of accessing low Earth orbit and thus the Solar System beyond.