Recently, a plan to construct a ‘space elevator’ has been made by a group of scientists and industrial firms, with the aim to drastically reduce the cost of getting into orbit. 

The whole project to construct an elevator would cost around $9bn, and the plans for the structure has been published by the Japan Space Elevator Association. 

If this project is completed successfully, then the cost of satellite communications systems would be lowered to a great extent and the orbital manufacture will also become more economically possible. 

Shuichi Ono, chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association, reported, “Just like travelling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into space.” 

The carbon nanotubes would be used in this plan, which would be attached to a fixed platform in orbit, which would extend to a base station on earth. 

The plan requires nanotubes which are at least four times stronger than the existing nanotubes. However, in the past five years, these materials have increased there strength to near about a hundredfold. 

There are many advantages of Orbital manufacturing as compared to Earth-based production, out of which, availability of vast amount of solar energy is one. 

Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, was the first person to conceive the idea of space elevator, but Arthur C Clarke was the one who popularized this idea through his book The Fountains of Paradise.