That may sound far-fetched, but its designers - James Powell, George Maise, and John Rather of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory - point out that supporting a 12-mile cable would require only a fraction of the engineering knowhow needed to hold up the much longer tethers involved in a space elevator. The engineers propose building the system in polar regions like Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, or Siberia, with the Antarctic ice sheet a particularly appealing candidate because it has no native lifeforms.
To build a passenger-carrying version of this Startram system, the team estimates it would take 20 years and $60 billion - which may sound like a lot, but when you consider it took almost three times that much to get the space shuttle off the ground, it’s a steal. And once it’s built, it would only cost $50 per kilogram to send things into orbit, compared to the current rates of $10,000 per kilogram for cargo and $100,000 per kilogram for people. That means a ticket to space would only cost about $5,000, and the designers estimate the accident rates would be on par with modern airliners.
This is an very cool idea. Too bad we have to worry about space junk/ debris smashing into it. Also, the whole thing where people may want to make it go KABOOM!
Things we discussed during the interview include: Tobias’ background; Tobias’ writing style and technique; All things Arctic Rising including the action and explosions, the choice of Canada as a location, the characters Anika and Roo, the homages to James Bond, and miscellaneous things about the book; Coming back to writing after taking a break because of health issues; Technology and living in the future; Answered some questions from e-mail; Writing tips; Things Tobias is currently working on; Culture shock and living on the internet.
