Plans for a 12.4 mile tall space tower in Canada have been given the go-ahead.
The Thoth Technology elevator will be 20 times higher than the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and will be used as a pickup point by spacecrafts to collect astronauts.The tower will also be used as a refuelling point. To put the height of the structure into context, Mt. Everest is 'only' 5.5 miles.
The tower will have to be built in a number of sections, each one pneumatically pressurised by a number of cells. We had no idea what that meant either, but it basically means it'll be held up by gas. That might seem a bit crazy, but it's been given the green-light, and we're sure those over at the patent office and the people designing it know a bit more than us.
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The launch pad at the top of the structure is thought to have the potential to save 30% in fuel when compared to a regular rocket takeoff, but we're almost 100% sure that it wouldn't look anywhere near as cool. But, if that's the trade off for killing the environment a little less with every space mission, we're all for it.
The inventor of the space elevator, Brendan Quine, has said that ‘astronauts would ascend to 20km by electrical elevator. From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refuelling and reflight.’
