Scientific return of a lunar elevator

Abstract

The concept of a space elevator dates back to Tsilokovsky, but they are not commonly considered in near-term plans for space exploration, perhaps because a terrestrial elevator would not be possible without considerable improvements in tether material. A Lunar Space Elevator (LSE), however, can be built with current technology using commercially available tether polymers. This paper considers missions leading to infrastructure capable of shortening the time, lowering the cost and enhancing the capabilities of robotic and human explorers. These missions use planetary scale tethers, strings many thousands of kilometers long stabilized either by rotation or by gravitational gradients. These systems promise major reduction in transport costs versus chemical rockets, in a rapid timeframe, for a modest investment. Science will thus benefit as well as commercial activities.

Thermal life of space Elevators

“…For building space elevators, methods should be considered to lower the cost, shorten the time, enhancing human explorers, and robotics. Best methods can be considered the methods with minimum transportation costs versus launch, in a faster timeframe (Eubanks and Radley, 2016).…”

The Spaceline: a practical space elevator alternative achievable with current technology

“…Once the cable is constructed, the cost of subsequent spacelines will diminish dramatically, and correspondingly greater payloads will be transportable, relatively cheaply, between geostationary orbit and the Moon. This is not a completely novel concept, rather an independent genesis and derivation of an idea that has been explored in works like Pearson (1979), Pearson et al (2005) and Eubanks & Radley (2016), where it has also been called a Lunar Space Elevator 1 . We present the derivations herein as a full standalone mathematical and physical description of the concept, one that we and authors before us have been surprised to find is eminently plausible and may have been overlooked as a major step in the development of our capacity as a species to move within our solar system.…”