Next time you step inside an elevator, imagine it has a button marked “space.”
It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but researchers in Japan are prepping an experiment for this month to test part of a design for an elevator between Earth and space.
Based at Shizuoka University, 80 miles west of Tokyo, the research team envisions a so-called “space elevator” as a low-cost alternative to rockets for getting astronauts and cargo to orbiting space stations way above Earth.
The experiment is the first of its kind, Japan’s Mainichi newspaper reported.
We first heard about Japan’s plan for a space elevator six years ago when construction firm Obayashi Corporation outlined an electric-powered design capable of transporting up to 30 people at a time into space.
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