• Question: Will there ever be a way to get into space apart from flying in a rocket?

    Asked by LottYazmin to Lisa, Mark, Rachel, Sammie, Stephen, Tim on 6 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Lisa Baddeley

      Lisa Baddeley answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      Hi, Good question – The current way we have to get into space is that we have to escape the pull of Earth’s gravity. To do that you have to be travelling at 11.2km per second, so any way of getting to that speed means that you would get into space. As the moment that only way to do that is by sitting ontop of a large rocket. It is possible in the future we may have developed other ways of getting up to the speed. It would be nice to think that we would be able to beam up into space (like in Star Trek) but the amount of computer power and memory needed to save every atom in your body and then recreate it (correctly) at another location is beyond us.

    • Photo: Stephen Wilkins

      Stephen Wilkins answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      One potentially possible way is using a space elevator. The idea being to have a cable connecting the ground to a counterweight in orbit around the Earth. You could then run an elevator/climber up this cable. However, the cable would have to be incredibly strong – stronger than any material we have at the moment.

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