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from Current Science, January 19, 2001
GOING UP!
by Rene S. Ebersole
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elevator to space
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Your first ride into space might be in an elevator.
 Traveling to space in an elevator sounds like a detail from a science fiction novel, but someday it could be reality. The following article describes a new material which scientists are using to invent the foundations for an elevator to space.
You’re having the thrill ride of your life,  hurtling vertically into the air at 3,000 kilometers an hour. Up, way up, past the clouds you go, watching the blue sky grow darker and the curvature of Earth come into view.
What is this? The world’s tallest roller coaster? No. It’s an elevator that carries people to a space station located thousands of miles from Earth. Way back in 1975, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke imagined such an elevator in his book The Fountains of Paradise. Now scientists say Clarke’s fantasy could become a reality in the next 50 years.
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KEY LOCATION
How would engineers build a space elevator? First, they would have to settle on a location for its base. Clarke’s fictional elevator was anchored to a mythical island sitting on the equator in the Indian Ocean. An equatorial location would also be necessary for the base of a real space elevator. Why? Because 35,786 kilometers (22,237 miles) directly over the equator lies geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). GEO is a position in space that allows a satellite to stay directly over the same point on the equator as Earth rotates.
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A space elevator is basically a long cable extending from Earth to space. Putting the elevator’s top floor—its space station—at GEO would allow the space station to orbit Earth in sync with Earth’s rotation, staying in a fixed position over its anchor at the equator. If the space station were positioned anywhere but at GEO, the elevator would wrap around the Earth!
To keep the elevator from coiling around the planet, engineers would also have to attach some kind of counterweight to the elevator beyond GEO, scientists say. That counterweight might be an asteroid or a lunar rock or a big pile of space junk moved into position—any old mass would do.
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"Going Up!" by Rene S. Ebersole Current Science, January 19, 2001. Copyright © 2001 by Weekly Reader Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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