"Space Elevator" could Lift astronauts into Earth's Stratosphere

• 08.18.2015, 15:48
•  World,  No-politics

A Canadian space company, has been granted the US patent for a space elevator which would take astronauts 20 km above Earth so they could then be propelled into orbit, Aljazeera reports.

The freestanding space tower would be pneumatically pressurised and be 20 times the height of current tall structures.

"Astronauts would ascend to 20 km 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 refueling and reflight," said Dr Brendan Quine, the inventor.

It has previously been proposed, most famously by Arthur C Clarke in his 1978 novel, The Fountains of Paradise, that a space elevator could be constructed using a cable and counter-balanced mass system.