Professor: Space Elevators Could Happen in Next Few Decades

Citing an op-ed piece in Scientific American, Interesting Engineering reported that Stephen Cohen, a physics professor at Montreal’s Vanier College, believes a space elevator — a cable stretching from Earth to space to transport people and cargo — could become reality in the next two to three decades. Cohen spoke about his conversations with space expert Arun Misra from the engineering department and McGill University about the concept, which would involve a 100,000-km-long cable extending from the Earth’s equator attached to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. That means the satellite would orbit at the same speed as the Earth and, hence, fly over a fixed location. The concept would use mechanical climbers to travel to different altitudes and either start orbiting the Earth or Sun or fall back to Earth, depending on altitude. With current technology, space elevators are not yet possible since materials (such as that used to make maglev rail transporters) would have to be 50 times stronger than steel. Cohen is hopeful that, with “scientists constantly working on making stronger materials and technologies,” space elevators could be in our foreseeable future.