The Lunar Elevator Astronautical Engineering

This book in our subseries called New Space Ventures discusses the advantages of building a lunar elevator and how it would afford access to some of the resources the Moon has to offer. We could potentially reduce poverty and improve Earth's environment using such a technology. Human civilization could more easily expand to Earth orbit or the Moon, and perhaps beyond. The book sets out the road map of how this could be achieved.

The lunar elevator is a long tether anchored on the Moon, with the other end free and hanging towards Earth. Such a tether can now be built at a relatively low cost using commercially available materials such as Zylon, Dyneema or M5. This first generation lunar elevator will be able to deliver payloads to the lunar surface, each weighing 100 kg, and retrieve the same amount of material from the lunar surface. The alternative of using chemical rockets to soft land on the Moon [or return material] is prohibitively expensive.

The critical shortage of helium-3, which sells for $1 million per ounce on the market, could be resolved by transporting it from the Moon with the elevator. The lunar elevator can also transport oxygen from the Moon to low Earth orbit, where it can refuel tugs to take satellites from LEO to GEO, a significant revenue source.