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Space Elevator
Project: Design a Space Elevator for the Lunar City
How would a horizontal and vertical transportation system look like on the lunar surface with 1/6 of the Earth's gravity?
Project Member: Architect, Mr. Oota Hiroshi and Toshiba Elevator project team
The beautiful Lunar city appear in 「Mobile Suit Gundam」was designed by the architect, Mr Oota Hiroshi and the computer graphic designer, Mr. Fukushima Keisuke. On the other hand, the technical team is Mr.Nagatani, Mr.Maeda, Mr.Watabu who are from Toshiba. Two teams of expert are meeting up to discuss about the future transportation for the lunar city. What are the difficulties of developing a horizontal and vertical transportation system in an environment with only 1/6 of the Earth's gravity?
The Elevator for Lunar City
Since 1979,「Mobile Suit Gundam」has been a very popular anime. Having the outer space architecture and city planning of Gundam's world in mind, Mr.Oota and Mr. Fukushima had designed a whole imaginary city of Von Braun. In this project, the designers and Toshiba technical team will cooperate together to design a transportation system and elevator system on the surface of lunar city, Von Braun. At the 1/6 of Earth's gravity environment, what are the vital concerns of designing a comfortable transportation system? Knowing the unexpected barriers and the problem of low gravity, the two teams of expert are planning to find out the solution for the future space elevator.
Cage that Travels Horizontally and Vertically
The imaginary Von Braun City would be an underground city that covers diameter of 6km. It consist of 5 levels, each of them is 240m high. There will be no barriers between each floor of this high-rise building and the elevators are planned to move on the wall of the building. The first problem that faced by the experts are how to design a transportation system that allows the elevators which are moving vertically and the trams which are moving horizontally operate efficiently without crashing into each others. Mr. Oota suggested combining the elevator and tram into one, the elevator cage is designed to run at the streets of city. On the other hand, the technical team recommended the elevator to be operated like an automatic linear motor car. The shape of the elevator would be great to be designed in sphere shape to minimize the problem of gripping the shaft when changing its motion from horizontal to vertical (vice and versa). At the beginning of the discussion, the shape of the elevator was decided.
The cage of elevator would be a sphere with diameter of 3m that travels on rails, with 6 passengers capacity and designed like a gondola with observatory function. In the cage, the passengers will be support with a cushioned waist bar. Once the passengers choose the destination by touching the projected map on the wall, the cage will move automatically to the selected place.
Laser technology on the driving system
Instead of driving the sphere shape cage as a linear motor car, Mr. Nagatani had suggested the usage of laser beam. This is a technology of moving an object by flashing laser beam on the target. If the laser technology exists, it can be applied on space elevator and satellite. Thus, engine and fuel are no longer needed; pollution of environment can be reduced significantly.
Application of the laser technology on the driving system of the elevator cage would solve the problem of vertical and horizontal motion. To stabilize the sphere shape cage, Mr. Fukushima proposed to have 3 laser stands at the bottom of the cage. The development of laser technology will definitely very contributive to the future. Besides, application of the laser beam on the transparent sphere shape elevator cages would contribute to the beautiful night scenery too.
Landing platforms and Travel Lanes
The passenger pick up and landing system was brought up in the discussion too. A few plan had been proposed: "particular elevator landing platform" (which is same as the bus stop we see in the daily lives), "elevated landing platform with lowered travel lanes" or "elevated travel lanes with lowered landing platforms".
An ideal pick up and landing system should not cause any traffic inconveniences to the travel lanes. By keeping this in mind, the two teams of expert decided to choose "Stream Traffic" system, which the center of the city consists of fast lanes while the lanes which are nearer to the outer radius of the city are meant for pick up and landing. The empty cages will move slowly like the gondolas provided in ski centre, waiting to pick ups. Once the passengers selected the destination, the elevator will increase its speed appropriately to the destination automatically.