Imagine taking an elevator up into space? That may blow your mind today, but so must have electricity, the radio, airplanes etc. when they were first invented.
LiftPort headed by former NASA researcher Michael Laine, believes that a space elevator to the moon will be possible in the near future. The idea in a nutshell, a “paper-thin Ribbon that is 5m wide and ~100,000km long. The far end is deep out in space and attached to a man-made counterweight. The near end is held to the Earth on a large (3 cruise-ship sized) anchor station.” Oh also, the ribbon would be climbed by lifter vehicles powered from the ground via lasers. Awesome!
Current breakthroughs in technology make it possible to build an elevator on the moon today which will help bridge the gap for the future. LiftPort set up a Kickstarter campaign to obtain an initial $8k in funding to get the ball rolling, but due to overwhelming enthusiasm the campaign ended up receiving over $110 thousand in funding.
The first phase involves building an elevator on the moon instead of the earth as ”It is significantly easier, and much much cheaper. Importantly – we can build it with current technology – in about eight years.”
