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November 27, 2003
Science fiction/science fact?
When Jules Verne wrote 20,000 leagues under the sea, his vision of a submersible capable of unlimited cruising while submerged and almost totally independent of the land, was treated with some sceptism. Yet today we accept the fact that most nuclear powered submarines are limited only by the endurance of their crews and the food stock they are able to carry.
Almost forty years ago, Arthur C Clarke wrote a science fiction story entitled The Fountains of Paradise in which his cast rode a "space elevator" from the surface to the orbiting space platforms from which their space ships operated. At the time Clarke himself admitted the idea seemed far fetched, but he answered the scornful critics by saying:
"It will be built fifty years after everyone stops laughing".
At first glance the engineering problems seem insurmountable, but are they? It would certainly be impossible to build this using a steel cable, primarily because steel cables of more than 3,000 miles in length simply snap under their own weight. What is needed here is a cable capable of spanning a distance of 23,000 miles - the distance needed to reach a geostationary orbital platform.
The December issue of "Astronomy Now" has a short piece on the feasibility of this project. Scientists now consider it possible to do this using a cable 90,000 miles in length, anchored to a point on the Equator and having three stops on the way out. The material they propose is a nanotube carbon molecule which has many times the strength of steel and can be spun (or extruded - I'm not sure which way the stuff would be worked!) into a cable long enough to reach the 90,000 mile mark.
It is interesting that these days, more and more Sci-fi writers are writing this concept into their books. It is even more interesting that there are scientists actually discussing the materials they would need to make it happen.
Some years ago I encountered a Lecturer at the University of Cape Town who had schematic plans of the Battlestar Galactica on his wall. Beneath them was the legend "Don't tell me its impossible! Prove it!" His subject? Geophysics. And his point was that almost all the major steps forward in science are made trying to prove someones theory is wrong!
I can remember thinking on the day the first space shuttle launched, that now it would be possible to build vessels like the Battlestar and to move out into the outer reaches of the solar system to explore. It may take a little longer yet, but we are on the way.
Todays fiction may well be tomorrows fact.
Posted by The Gray Monk at November 27, 2003 11:24 PM