Flippin’

There was a contest in building a miniature prototype of space elevator. The idea of the space elevator is a cargo that carries passengers traveling up and down 60,000 miles. The idea came from science fiction novel written by Arthur C.Clarke “The fountains of Paradise” I even learned about the space elevator in Grade 9 science class. In Grade 9 Science textbook, it mentions the space elevator as a possible future transportation to the outer space. The winner of this contest received $900,000. Now my blog post is not going to talk about the contest at all. This post is going to be about the space elevator itself.

Space Elevator is not going to be possible and will only exist in our imaginations. Space elevator is too expensive to be built, it will constantly have issues with space junk orbiting our Earth, and no one knows what is going to happen if a part of the elevator is in contact with zero gravity atmosphere while one end is touching the Earth in the environment where the gravity exists.

We do not have enough money nor resources to build the gigantic 60,000 miles long elevator. Even if we do, why would our government bother spending such money, time, and resources to build the space elevator, not on something else?

Space junks, orbiting around Earth, is already causing a serious problem to us. It causes a serious damage to our satellites. If the space elevator is built, it will constantly get hit by space junks. As a result, the elevator will constantly need maintenance and will need to be fixed.

What exactly do you think is going to happen to the elevator if one end is connected to zero gravity atmosphere while the other end is touching Earth where the gravity exists? The whole elevator might collapse. Also the space is basically a huge vacume. If we have a tunnel (elevator) going straight into the space, who knows what might happen?