Nathan Lockwood

Individual Exploration Project

When l was a child, I used to look up at the stars and wonder what was out there.
The moon was so mysterious. l constantly wondered about how it got there, and how
big it was. As l got older I learned more about space, and its infinite mysteries. l learned
about pulsars, and black holes and supernovas, and l learned about the life cycle for
stars and how much space was between planets. l began to feel a strong desire to go to
space. l wanted to see it all, and explore the vast cosmos. This is when my research
began. ln order to visit, space l had to have some way to get there. That is how l got my
first question. What methods do people use to get to space? l began research with the
history of spacecraft. The V2 Rocket was the first designed spacecraft to be launched,
and shortly after that, Sputnik was launched in 1957. The website Greatest
achivements.org was useful here as it provdes a timeline of space exploration. The
USs first satellite was launched in 1958 immediately after. The history of spacecraft was
a relatively boring subject however, so l decided to delve further into the specifics.
The US government, along with some other private corporations and scientists
have looked into methods of non rocket space travel, some of my favorites being the
orbital ring, the space gun, and the launch loop, which are all essentially methods of
flinging objects into space via giant machines using magnets. (Eder section. D).
However, l began research specifically on rockets, as they are by far the most common
method of space travel and were primarily used by NASA and the russian space
companies during the Cold War.
According to NASA, Rocket can mean a type of engine. The word also can
mean a vehicle that uses that engine There are two main types of rocket engines.
Some rockets use liquid fuel... Other rockets use solid fuels. (What is a Rocket?)
Although this definition is a bit elementary, it is a good starting point. In the earliest
space missions, rockets were made from repurposed military missiles, hence the
general shape. I assume that rockets were used rather than other less conventional
means of space travel because there was high missile availability at the time (Cold
War), and missiles had already been researched . I was surprised to learn simply how
much the cold war affected early space travel, and how different space exploration

would be had the cold war ended differently. NASA also explains that the kind of rockets
that carry people and cargo are called Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles. They are the most
powerful type of rockets available, but are also tragically expensive. (What is a heavy lift
launch vehicle?). SpaceX, an important independent space exploration company has
made some of the costs of such rockets public. Their Falcon 9 Rocket model costs
roughly 2200 US dollars a pound to send into space, which is extremely expensive.
At this point in my research I realized why rockets are not the best or most
economical option. Because of the incredibly high costs of rockets, scientists and
organizations such as SpaceX and NASA have begun looking into other options. One
particular option of getting to space caught my attention. The space elevator. After only
glancing at the surface of this concept, I quickly became very interested. I formed
questions such as: What is a space elevator? What would we make it out of? Would a
space elevator be cheaper than conventional rockets? Is anyone currently working on
designs for a space elevator? I started research on the surface, and investigated what a
space elevator was and who created the concept.
A space elevator, originally imagined by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, (Space
Elevators, Audacious and Outrageous pg.1) is a giant tether that goes from earth's
surface to space. It is held in place by an anchor on the ground and a counterweight on
the opposite end in near space orbit. The elevator part is the tether, which has a lift
attached to it that carries cargo up to the counterweight. After learning about the
elevator design, I began to wonder how big the weight and counterweight would actually
have to be to be practical. It would be likely that a space station would be built at the
counterweight and would have to be at least large enough for an entire station. Graham
Templeton, author of an article about space elevators titled: 60,000 miles up: Space
elevator could be built by 2035, says new study, explains that Instead, the report
argues that a nascent space elevator should be anchored first with a big ball of garbage
retired satellites, space debris, and the cast-off machinery used to build the
elevators own earliest stages (Templeton pg.2). Next, I wondered what the tether
would be made out of, but that was very easy to find an answer to. Almost every article I
found stated that the tether would have to be made out of carbon nanotubes or a
stronger material. While reading, I realized how big the elevator would have to be, and

how expensive it would get to build one, and I wondered something else. Is a space
elevator feasible in our near future?
The first thing to consider when talking about feasibility is the materials. The main
problem here is that the tether would have to be extremely durable. It has to survive the
natural elements of earth and be able to permeate the atmosphere. The only material
that might be stong enough is carbon nanotubes, and even those might not be up to the
task. Templeton also explains a bit about carbon nanotubes in his article. He
says,Projecting current research in carbon nanotubes and similar technologies, the IAA
estimates that a pilot project could plausibly deliver packages to an altitude of 1000
kilometers (621 miles) as soon as 2025. ( Templeton pg.1)
After materials, it comes to costs. I couldnt find any exact costs determined in
my research about the space elevator, but there is one thing for sure. It would be
incredibly expensive. I looked up carbon nanotubes and some space shuttle costs just
for fun to get an idea. I am not going to include those because they are boring, and an
abstraction will do nicely. A complete space elevator could not be built by any one
country alone because it would cost more than any one country has. The prices for the
tether alone would be in the trillions. The only way a space elevator would be feasible in
this way, is if there was a lot of international cooperation, maybe though the UN. I was
going to look into some of the UNs policies on space but that would take me too far off
track so I looked at the next obstacle, risk vs reward.
A space elevator would provide a cheap reusable method of getting to space that
could aid and progress the entire world, and it could provide a huge base of operations
for many government and scientific experiments. It would be a catalyst for scientific
progress. It would also help pull together many nations in one effort. However, the
space elevator would have a very dangerous risk as well. I found a YouTube video
about space elevators by user Kurzgesagt. He demonstrates how if the tether of the
space elevator was severed, it could whip around the planet, and cause the station
attached to come crashing down on earth. (In A Nutshell. Kurzgesagt). That is a pretty
big risk, and from what I learned earlier in my research, damage to the tether could be
very likely.

There are still a lot of questions about the space elevator that I never explored,
and the viability question is relatively unclear. I think it is safe to answer the question of
whether a space elevator is viable in our near future with a definite maybe. There is still
a lot that has to happen, but there is also a lot that is already possible. Even though
there is no yes or no to my question, It is nice to have the facts down about the subject.
I still wonder just how soon a space elevator is coming. NASA has people working on
the concept right now. If I could explore this topic further, I would definitely want to look
into some of the current developments leading to the place elevator such as NASAs
Strong Tether challenge they made a few years ago.

Reference Page

National Academy of Engineering. Spacecraft timeline. 2016 Web. July 1st 2016
Retrieved from: http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3642
May, Sandra. What is a rocket? NASA. Sept. 8th 2015. Web. July 4th 2016
Retrieved from: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa

Non Rocket Space Launch. Wikipedia. Jun 4th 2016. Web. July 2nd 2016
Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rocket_spacelaunch
Eder, Dani. Canonical List of Space Transportation and Engineering Methods.
Ver. 0.79. July 26th 2001. Web. July 2nd 2016. Retrieved from:
http://www.oocities.org/danielravennest/Canoni
SpaceX Falcon 9. Space Exploration Technologies corp. 2016. Web. July 4th
2016. Retrieved from: http://www.spacex.com/falcon9
Templeton, Graham. 60,000 miles up: Space elevator could be built by 2035,
says new study. Extreme Tech. March 6th 2014. Web. June 30th 2016. Retrieved from:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/176625-60000-miles-up-geostationary-spaceelevator-could-be-built-by-2035-says-new-study
Kurzgesagt. Space Elevator Science Fiction or the Future of Mankind? Virtual
Video. YouTube. Youtube, April 8th 2016. Web. June 30th 2016. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPQQwqGWktE
Price, Steve. Audacious & Outrageous: Space Elevators. NASA Sept. 7th 2000.
Web. July 4th 2016. Retrieved from: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-atnasa/2000/ast07sep_1/