The Lunar Space Elevator

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The idea of the Space Elevator was first mooted by Russian Yuri Artsutanov in 1960 and his successors in scientific circles have come up with various proposals as to how this concept might be turned into a reality.

Basically, the concept of a space elevator involves firstly launching a satellite into a geostationary (or geosynchronous) orbit above the earth. In this location the satellite would rotate around the earth at the same angular velocity as the earth's daily rotation and would therefore appear to be stationary above a fixed point on the planet. Once established in orbit, a cable could then be lowered from the satellite and fixed to an anchor point on the earth's surface. This would enable a specially designed vehicle to climb up and down the cable, transporting supplies and materials to and from the satellite, thus obviating the need for rockets to service the satellite crew's needs or to transport astronauts between earth and satellite. 

A system as described above would face insurmountable problems including the following:

·  The geostationary orbit is located approximately 35,800 km above the earth’s surface, and a cable of this length would be required to tether the satellite to the planet. The cable adjacent to the satellite would have to support the total weight of cable below which would result in a strain on this part of cable that no known materials could withstand.

·  The cable climbing vehicle would need to be powered on its ascent to the satellite. Storage of the required fuel aboard the vehicle would add mass  and thus increase strain well past breaking point of the cable, whereas using solar power might be an option but would take years to travel the distance.

·  The cable would be exposed to adverse weather events, high velocity stratospheric jet streams, lightning strikes, cyclones and meteorite impact.

The Lunar Space Station; A new use for an old concept

In this article I have outlined a program that would step by step create a Lunar Space Station (LSS) tied to the Lunar surface by (and serviced by) a Space Elevator. Although this proposal may incorporate some seemingly staggeringly large values, everything proposed is technically possible and in accordance with what science  and technology have to offer us today in 2024.

 First - location of the LSS.

The diagram above shows the five Lagrange points associated with the Earth/Lunar system. We will be looking at the L1 point, where the gravitational pull of the Earth is counteracted by the pull of the Moon, creating a zero gravity effect at this location.

Step 1. Establish a Lunar Space Station (LSS)  at L1. Although this is nominally a zero gravity point (ZGP), due to eccentricities in the Earth and Moon's orbits the actual location of the ZGP is unstable and a computerised relocating system (incorporating fuelled thrusters) would be required to keep the LSS in orbit until the Space Elevator comes into effect.

To be continued