‘No one will ever fly from the surface of the Earth again’
Dr. Brendan Quine, chief technical officer at Thoth Technology and an associate professor of space engineering at York University, answers Star questions about the space elevator.
What problem were you trying to solve with this invention?
Flying into space on conventional rockets is extremely expensive, partly because of the amount of fuel involved and partly because the rockets drop stages off into the ocean, which are almost never recovered. It’s also kind of dangerous. We started to think about what we could do which would be more reliable.
Where do you think this tower could be built?
We’re hoping that maybe we could approach (Dubai real estate mogul) Mohamed Alabbar, who is building a new capital city for Egypt. That might be a good location.
Would it be safe to have people living near it?
We think that the falling risk is quite low, but nevertheless it might be advantageous to build it somewhere quite remote. If the elevator falls, it’s unlikely to fall 15 kilometres from its base, because that would involve it toppling over. More likely the failure would occur more locally around the base of the elevator. So maybe it would be better if that wasn’t heavily populated.
This is a fascinating idea, but it also sounds quite fantastical.
Right. But on the other hand, some of the fantastical ideas are good ideas. If we are able to realize this dream, then all conventional rocketry will be obsolete. No one will ever fly from the surface of the Earth again.
Are you optimistic that you’ll see this built in your lifetime?
I think I am, yes. I was pretty optimistic yesterday (Monday). Now today (Tuesday) I’m even more optimistic. The story’s gone absolutely globally viral. We’re trying to attract the attention of some of the large multinational companies, like Alaphabet — Google’s new holding company — Lockheed Martin, Boeing. We’re hoping that one of these companies will step up to the plate. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.