A Japanese construction company called Obayashi recently announced its plans for an elevator that would travel from the Earth to a space station about 96,000 kilometers (about 66,000 miles) above the ground. The project could be completed by 2050.Companies around the world, like NASA and Obayashi, have been working hard for years to find the necessary tools to make a space elevator. Obayashi officials acknowledged that such a project would require international cooperation.According to space.com, Obayashi has changed it current plans from its original space elevator plans. In February 2012, the elevator was planned to travel upwards of 200KMH (about 124MPH). The one-way trip would have taken about a week to complete.“I think that’d be pretty sweet,” said Matt Medonich, a junior from Nevada studying ICS. “If I had a lot of money and seven days to spend in an elevator, I would do it myself. That’s quite the advancement. The iPhone 6 just came out, and we’re already thinking about elevators taking us to space.” Medonich added if anybody were going to build an elevator to space, it would be the Japanese.Some of the materials needed to make the elevator are not yet available, Engagdet reported, but a new development of carbon nanotechnology will be a huge help into turning the project into reality. Yoji Ishikawa, Obayashi’s Research and Development manager, said about the new carbon-based technology, “the tensile strength is almost a hundred times stronger than steel cable… Right now we can’t make the cable long enough…We think by 2030 we’ll be able to do it.” The elevator would consist of robotic cars, powered by magnetic linear motors and able to carry 30 people at a time, according to abc.net.au.Kelvin Tan, a sophomore from Malaysia studying computer science, said, “I think it’s going to happen. Technology is changing every single day; humans are more advanced every single day, so I think we could do that.”Besides creating a new way for humans to travel, the elevator and space station could also provide huge amounts of cheap solar energy, and would allow for small rockets to be housed and launched from stations in space without the need for massive amounts of fuel required to break the Earth’s gravitational pull from the rockets currently used.
Writer: Camron Stockford
