It might be a long elevator ride, but sometime in the near future astronauts might be able to grab a ride for future space exploration. In his new book Space Tethers and Space Elevators, Michel van Pelt, a space analyst at the European Space Agency, examines the technology of space tethers.
Traditionally, on Earth, tethers, ropes or lines are used primarily to bind things to each other. In space, tethers can also be used to attach spacecraft to each other. This technology, however, involves more than simply tying things together. Ropes can also be used to climb, to reach places higher up–maybe all the way into space. This concept exists in the form of a space elevator, consisting of a long, incredibly strong cable that stretches from the Earth's surface into space. Solar powered "climber" machines, which are already under development, could use such a cable to haul cargo into orbit.
Van Pelt writes how space tethers can be used as a means of transportation–to swing from one place to another in space or to swing satellites into another orbit, even passing them from tether to tether all the way to the Moon and Mars! It may sound like science fiction, but numerous space missions have already actively experimented with tethers.
Space Tethers and Space Elevators includes the following:
- An explanation of the principle of space tethers: what they are and how they can be used in space
- An overview of the past, present and future of space tether development
- The various concepts of space tethers, from the feasible to the innovative and challenging
- A description of the technological challenges, potential benefits and feasibility of space tethers
Michel van Pelt
Space Tethers and Space Elevators
2009. 230 p. 60 illus.
Hardcover €29.95, $29.95, £18.99
ISBN: 978-0-387-76555-6