The notion of the existence of a giant cable that descends from outer space, flinging rocket ships further into the sky, sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel. But what if you knew that it’s entirely possible to implement this with today’s technology?
Going to outer space is heavily demanding on resources and speed, especially in escaping the thick clutches of Earth’s atmosphere, which requires a large amount of velocity. It’s astounding to know that about 80% of a rocket’s capacity is just the fuel needed to propel the ship out of the atmosphere, leaving an incredibly tiny fraction of mass left for actual astronauts and payload. With this relatively minuscule amount of supply being transported, paired with the high costs for each launch, dreams of a moon base and exploring the further reaches of space may sound like a distant reality. However, an elegant solution exists that, while sounding bizarre, is a viable reality.
The concept of a “skyhook” is that of a gigantic tether – a massive rope that stretches from somewhere above the stratosphere to about the Low Earth Orbit; it keeps orbiting the Earth while spinning. Its mechanism is simple: the lower end of the tether attaches to a spacecraft or small rocket, and through the momentum from its spinning motion, the tether flings the spaceship into outer space, giving it an enormous speed boost. The motion can be compared to how a bowler throws a ball in cricket – through the spinning of the bowler’s arm – the ball is flung to a far distance. A skyhook like this can not only make transporting various supplies to and from Earth much easier, but it also has the scope of reducing the time taken to travel to different planets by a large margin, opening up avenues of availing of benefits of resources from planets like Mars and Venus, and even opening up the possibility of asteroid mining, a treasure trove for precious and commonly used metal.
What’s more, there already exists a material that could serve as the main rope! Specialised fibres such as Zylon can withstand the massive strains that a space tether would undergo. The tether could also be resistant to space debris and meteorite collisions through threading into a web of redundant fibres.
Exploring outer space seems like a distant dream, but with ever-evolving technology and innovation, it’s an endeavour that’s not very far off at all.
