Orbital component of the LiftPort lunar elevator concept (Credits: LiftPort Group/Michael Laine)
Space Elevators have long lived in the imaginations of engineers and science fiction writers as a way to simplify transportation between Earth’s surface and Earth orbit. Despite research and even a couple business ventures dedicated to the challenge, no one has been able to make a credible effort at designing such an edifice.
The LiftPort Group was one of those ventures before falling to the recent economic crash. Now the group, headed by ex-NASA researcher Michael Laine, is back, but with a better approach. Although technology doesn’t exist that would enable a space elevator to work on Earth, says Laine, it could work on the Moon. “It is significantly easier, and much much cheaper,” Laine explains in the group’s Kickstarter pitch. “Importantly – we can build it with current technology – in about eight years.”
The video below explains the workings of the lunar elevator concept:
![A trajectory analysis that used a computational fluid dynamics approach to determine the likely position and velocity histories of the foam (Credits: NASA Ref [1] p61).](https://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fluid-dynamics-trajectory-analysis-50x50.jpg)
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