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In the near future, Americans will build a space elevator
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
For several decades now, scientists have been pondering the possibility of creating a space elevator - a way to deliver cargo to near-earth orbit without the use of a launch vehicle using a special cable.
While space industry experts are convinced that it will not be possible to fully implement such a complex project until 2050, there is a group of enthusiasts who say that its impressive results will be visible in the very near future.
Last week, Seattle-based LiftPortGroup announced that it is ready to build a test space elevator on the Moon using existing technology. Michael Lane, president of the company, notes that it would take 8 years to build such an elevator and only one launch of a device that can be compared technically to the famous Soviet Sputnik-1.
"About six months ago we were able to make a really significant discovery," Michael Lane is quoted as saying by the SPACE.com website. The Liftport Group director did not say what the essence of this discovery was.
But now these are just pompous statements by Lane, whose company recently had to temporarily suspend its existence due to serious financial problems. Despite this, experts are convinced that they will succeed. They are going to attract investments after the completion of field tests, which they plan to conduct using funds collected on the World Wide Web.
The enthusiasts are planning to use a balloon to lift a cable to a height of 2 kilometers and launch a specially designed robot along it. The implementation of such a bold idea will require $8,000, which has already been collected through the Kickstarter website - a popular Internet service whose goal is to collect funds for the implementation of creative projects using the principle of so-called "crowd funding."
The significant public interest in the project prompted the company to set a new goal - to raise $100,000 to begin conducting feasibility studies for the "moon elevator." Lane claims that the elevator will take about a year to build, and the "price tag" will be $3 million. According to media reports, NASA has already expressed interest in the unique project, as it has already had experience working with Michael Lane. Before he founded his company, he worked with the US space agency, in particular, working on the development of the space elevator concept.
It should be noted that the concept of a space elevator is being actively developed not only in the United States, but also in Japan. In the Land of the Rising Sun, the most active has been the Obayashi Corporation, which is planning to implement a project for a method of delivering cargo to near-earth orbit without the use of a launch vehicle using a special cable by 2050.
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