Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"No one has ever produced a statement of fact that was technically true. The most accurate statements of science we have today are accurate to only 15 decimal places."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Space Elevator (Orbital Tower) | ||
| A physical link between a point on the surface of the Earth and a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. |
Arthur C. Clarke was not the first person to think of a space elevator; however, he was responsible for introducing the concept to a far larger audience in this book.
| "If the laws of celestial mechanics make it possible for an object to stay fixed in the sky, might it not be possible to lower a cable down to the surface – and so to establish an elevator system linking Earth to space? "There was nothing wrong with the theory, but the practical problems were enormous. Calculations showed that no existing materials would be strong enough; the finest steel would snap under its own weight long before it could span the thirty-six thousand kilometres between Earth and synchronous orbit. "However, even the best steels were nowhere near the theoretical limits of strength. On a microscopic scale, materials had been created in the laboratory with far greater breaking strength. If they could be mass-produced, Artsutanov's dream could become reality, and the economics of space transportation would be utterly transformed. "Before the end of the twentieth century, super-strength materials – hyperfilaments – had begun to emerge from the laboratory. But they were extremely expensive, costing many times their weight in gold. Millions of tons would be needed to build a system that could carry all Earth's outbound traffic; so the dream remained a dream. “Until a few months ago. Now the deep-space factories can manufacture virtually unlimited quantities of hyperfilament. At last we can build the Space Elevator or the Orbital Tower, as I prefer to call it. For in a sense it is a tower, rising clear through the atmosphere, and far, far beyond…” |
| From The Fountains of Paradise,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Ballantine in 1978 Additional resources -
|
The first person to think of the basic idea was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian scientist. Visiting Paris in 1895, the remarkable Eiffel Tower made him think about a spire that reached all the way into space. In Tsiolkovsky's vision, a "celestial castle" would be built at the end of a cable 35,790 kilometers long. This put the terminus of the structure in geostationary orbit.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Fountains of Paradise
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to The Fountains of Paradise
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Space Elevator (Orbital Tower)-related
news articles:
- Carbon Nanotube Ribbon For Space Elevator
- Space Elevator Downer
- Japanese Company To Build Space Elevator?
- Canada's Inflatable Space Elevator Tower
- Space Elevator Planned By Obayashi Corp
| UberAIR Asks For Skytaxi Landing Prototypes |
| Boring Tunnel Almost Ready |
| Is Teleportation A Death Sentence? |
| Musk Tweets A Boring Tunnel Pic |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
