The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System

by Bradley C. Edwards, Eric A. Westling, Dashka Slater

Book Overview

The authors take the reader through the history of the concept, technical design and economic practicalities of building an elevator to space, and, ultimately, the implications of what such a low cost... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0974651710
• ISBN13: 9780974651712
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: BC Edwards
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"
• Age Range: 17 years and up

Customer Reviews

Out-of-the-Box Thinking

Brad Edwards' book serves as 'the manifesto' for those interested in radical thinking for space access. It is a delightful read on the challenges and effort to make a space elevator a reality. The spin-off technologies will be wonderfully useful in the years ahead. I am pleased to see that NASA's Centennial Challenge named SpaceFoward and the space elevator competition its first challenge. Nonetheless, the first competition made little progress. Yet I suspect that the second year efforts will make for better competition to 'beat the house.' Go Virginia Tech Space Elevator Team!

Want a Lift?

After the latest shuttle disaster, the challenge of obtaining cheap (and safe) access to space now occupies NASA's attention more than ever before. If humans are ever to realize the dream of space--exploration, commercialization and settlement on a massive scale--then we need to find a means to climb out of the earth's steep gravity well that is reliable and relatively inexpensive.Dr. Bradley Edwards has studied this problem and his solution is a space elevator, an idea that until recently has attracted the attention more of science fiction writers than working scientists.This book, while suffering in places from lapses in style and clear presentation, manages admirably to describe the basic details of Edwards's reformulation of the space elevator concept. Non-scientists will have no problem following the argument.The key to this contemporary scientific and engineering study of the feasibility of a space elevator is the discovery in the early 1990's of carbon nanotubes. Their physical properties of extreme tensile strength and light weight make them an ideal candidate for playing the role of that elusvive material, "unobtainium". Of course it still remains to be see whether they can be formed into a composite that has the requisite characteristics that will permit the construction of a tether 100,000 kilometers long stretching from earth to well beyond geostationary orbit.An excellent introduction to what we all hope will be the 21st century's CATS pyjamas!

An unusually accessible technical engineering study

The collaborative effort of physicist Bradley C. Edwards and professional science writer Eric A. Westling, The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-To-Space Transportation System is an unusually accessible technical engineering study exploring the possibility of reaching out into space itself. Packed from cover to cover with theories, charts, tables, calculations, and scientific explanations, The Space Elevator is both an optimistic and an eye-opening look at what could be possible in the very near future.

A Worthy Project

Those who believe like I did that space elevators are a technology more suited for the year 2120 rather than 2020 will find this book a mind changing revelation. The authors do an excellent job of answering a number of questions that skeptics may raise concerning the physics, environmental, and economic issues regarding space elevators. The authors argue well that if such a machine can be built it will revolutionize and economize space access. No longer will space be the exclusive playground of a few wealthy governments and corporations.

Astounding

In approximately 200 pages, Dr. Edwards and Eric Westling describe us with scientific bias and a clear language how a Space Elevator can be built with current technology and a manageable budget. Even the most skeptic reader finishes the book wondering on the possibilities of something that some hours (or days) before considered impossible. A must read for every space advocate that sees in the stars our future.