The Promise of the Space Elevator

Hope their system will overcome one of the biggest problems of space travel. 50 years into the space age and we're still stuck with a fundamental stumbling block. That when a rocket blast off, we had this enormous booster rocket lighting at this guy only just for a few minutes. 90% of the rocket fuel, 90% of the hardware goes into overcoming just the first few hundred miles of the gravity field of the planet Earth. While that's where the space elevator comes in, the space elevator allows you to leap for on past that gravity barrier. It uses no rocket fuel whatsoever, has minimal hardware and would drive down the cost of space travel by a fact pure perhaps a hundred. 3, 2, 1. For the first time space could be open to all. With its promise of cheap and easy access, the space elevator could allow us to mind space minerals or beam solar energy back to Earth. Or it could simply give us a different perspective on our planet. Visionaries have always dreamed about the colonization of out of space. The space elevator could be the key step toward eventually reaching the stars. And it might have another deeper impact. Our horizons often determine our understanding of just who we are. For most of human history, for example, our horizons were determined by our tribe, which numbered just a few hundred individuals. But gradually it expanded to include large city states, large nation states and industrial empires. Well, in the future, when access to outer space is for everyone, not just for the rich, then our horizons will expand to include the entire planet. And we'll move away from seeing ourselves divided by religion, ethnicity or nationality. When we look down from out of space at the planet Earth, not only will we realize how precious life is, but the fact that we belong in a truly planetary civilization. At that point, our consciousness, our horizons will be truly planetary. But as we move toward a planetary society, there's one crucial issue we'll need to master energy. When astrophysicists scan the galaxy for evidence of other civilizations, they categorize them according to their energy signatures. Energy is necessary for survival, for development, and helps to define a civilization's capabilities. And there are three types of these civilizations. A type one civilization controls all planetary sources of energy. They control the weather, they control the oceans and hurricanes. A type two civilization has exhausted all planetary sources of energy, and they get their energy by consuming the output of their mother's star. A type three civilization is galactic. They use the energy of tens of billions of star systems, and they roam the galactic space lanes with their starships. Why are there three types of civilizations? Because there are three types of energy sources in the galaxy. Planets, stars, and the galaxy itself. So, where does that leave us? We are a type zero civilization. We are so primitive. We don't even control the energy resources of our planet. We get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal. Our progress as a civilization depends on whether we are able to move beyond our dependence on fossil fuels. A few years ago, I lived through one of the greatest blackouts in the history of the United States. In the Northeast, we had a total blackout. The effects were immediate. First of all, the subway lines were paralyzed. Transportation came to a grinding hole. Second of all, commerce came to a hole because you couldn't use your credit card and machines anymore. Not only that, food began to rot because the first traders demanded electricity. And if you lived in a 50-floor skyscrapers, you had to walk 50 flights just to get home. So, without electricity, it's like living in a pre-industrial society. The New York blackout was in 2003. But today climate change is forcing us to question our huge appetite for energy. But can we really imagine reducing our energy usage? Everything that is good about modern civilization, clean water, medicine, extending life expectancy, everything that we do requires energy. So, to me, energy conservation is almost a desirable goal. It can serve an energy is necessary if you generate it in a dangerous way. And we do generate it in dangerous way at the moment. But I see no reason from a scientific perspective why that has to continue. Energy, especially fossil fuels, is so scarce that it provokes conflicts between nations. So, imagine an energy source, which is safe, clean, efficient and abundant. It could have a profound effect on society. It could change everything. And that energy source could be nuclear fusion. Our son is a massive fusion reactor. It's core is so hot that atoms of hydrogen are forced together until they fuse, giving off massive amounts of energy. Our mastery over matter could give us cheap energy forever, because the fuel that sustains fusion is abundant on earth, water. The biggest challenge is how to contain a plasma of hydrogen atoms that's so hot, it will incinerate anything it touches. At the world's largest experimental fusion reactor in Oxfordshire, that's what they do every day. And we can tell that, say, five, four, three, two, one, lean low. The next day, the next day, rehearse. Marie Glenn, Maya-Rown, is a French physicist who has dedicated her life to mastering fusion energy. When I was a child, they built a big nuclear power plant near my house. And I was extremely afraid that something will explode, or… And then I told to my parents that I will work in a nuclear power plant in order to make it safer. At the end, I don't work in a nuclear power plant, but I'm working on the project to replace them by something safer. To contain the plasma, scientists have been refining a design called a Tocomac reactor. It's basically a magnetic bottle, and the magnetic fields hold the fiery plasma away from the edges. We can reach without any trouble, 15 million degrees, 100 million degrees. This is not now a big deal to do that. The point is to do that for a certain time. At this experimental fusion reactor, Maya-Rown and her colleagues can control the plasma for 30 second bursts. It's impressive, but it isn't long enough to produce any usable amounts of energy. What scientists need is a bigger reactor, that will turn.