NASA FUNDS SPACE ELEVATOR RESEARCH

摘要

According to a report in the Seattle Times, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funding a company to determine the feasibility of a space elevator. The federal agency has given US$570,000 to Seattle-based High Lift Systems to do this research. Brad Edwards, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory staff scientist, is the chief technical officer of the company. His plan is for an elevator using a one-meter-wide carbon ribbon that would connect a rig operating in the Pacific Ocean with a satellite in orbit 62,000 miles high. In theory, the system would allow electric lifts to carry equipment into space while clamped onto the ribbon. A problem Edwards and High Lift Systems must overcome is how to construct the ribbon, which must be extremely strong. However, other researchers across the country are working on the problem, because even if the space elevator proves unfeasible, the carbon product developed would have many other uses on earth.