Next stop: Space

It's no stairway to heaven - more like an elevator to the stars.

A Canadian technology company has a futuristic idea: a free-standing elevator that stops 20 kilometres above the Earth, is capable of launching satellites into space and could be used for communications networks around the world.

It could theoretically also offer space tourists a view of the Earth that only astronauts have seen - a bright-blue sphere amid the blackness of space.

The space elevator concept is being commercialized by Thoth Technologies Inc., a Canadian company led by St. John's native Caroline Roberts and her husband Brendan Quine.

So, what is the space elevator? Simply put, it's an inflatable tube designed to carry people and payloads to space.

"One of the great opportunities that this technology offers is the ability to provide new platforms for communications," said Roberts, president of Thoth Technologies.

"There are tremendous opportunities for the communications sector and also for tourism. People are really interested in getting into space."

At about $1,000 per person, Roberts estimates the space elevator would be a more affordable alternative to the $30-million price tag to holiday aboard the International Space Station.

"It would be an experience that's really like being in space," she said. "You would also be able to see about 600 kilometres in any direction - you'd really be looking out over a sub-continent."

Quine is one of the scientific minds behind the space elevator.

A native of Canterbury, England, he's an associate professor at York University in space engineering and planetary science.

"It's important to look at the really big problems and space launch is one of those problems," he said.

A satellite would ride to the top of the elevator where it would be ejected into space, saving an entire stage from the usual rocket launch sequence.

"You'll still need rockets at 20 kilometres, but the advantage is it's about 30 per cent more efficient to launch into space," said Quine. "So you save an awful lot of rocket fuel and an awful lot of potential pollution from launching spacecraft."

Thoth filed for a patent protection on its space elevator concept last year, and is now looking for industrial partners.

Quine figures it would cost about $1 billion to build the first tower.

"Meanwhile, we're carrying on with our experimental investigation."

The freestanding tower would be made from a Kevlar-polyethylene material - a lightweight laminated fabric.

"We're estimating the tower wall thickness would be only a few centimetres," said Quine.

Each compartment would be inflated one section at a time, and each of those segments would be pressurized with a lightweight gas, such as helium.

"You could puncture a segment or you could, for instance, deflate a segment for repair and then re-inflate it without sustaining any risk to the overall structure."

Computerized, actively controlled stabilizers and gyroscopes would keep the tower vertical and maintain its centre of gravity.

While steel and concrete towers resist wind by swaying with it, Quine says the space elevator would lean into the wind to withstand, for instance, the force of a Category 5 hurricane.

To test their space elevator, Quine and his colleagues at York built a seven-metre demonstration model.

"It's about a 2,000:1 model. It only weighs about 15 kilograms, and it stands at about seven pounds per square inch (psi) gauge pressure. You can pick it up."

The 20-kilometre version would be a bit heavier, weighing as much as two super oiltankers.

Roberts and Quine co-founded Thoth in 2001 to commercialize Canadian scientific contributions to the international space program.

It takes its name from the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom and learning.

The company also has 15 consultants, including specialists in space robotics, deep-space tracking and communications.

Roberts takes care of business development, while Quine is chief technical officer and chairman.

The pair met in 1993 on their first day at England's Oxford University, where Roberts was a Rhodes scholar. They married in St. John's in the summer of 1997, just a few months before returning to Canada, and the couple have a two-year-old daughter named Chloe.

Until 2003, Quine held a research position with the University of Toronto before landing a job with York, which was setting up its one-of-a-kind space engineering program.

"I was lucky enough to be the first hire for that program," Quine said.

York now has seven faculty members in space engineering and 25 others in space science and related disciplines, such as geomatics.

The space elevator isn't Thoth's only project. The company is also busy:

Co-ordinating the Northern Light project to build a made-in-Canada, Mars micro-rover dubbed the Beaver. Opportunities to piggyback a ride aboard a mission to Mars come in 2011 and 2013.

Operates the Algonquin radio telescope, which is capable of deep-space tracking and communications, and is located in northern Ontario. One of the largest in the world, the observatory will be the ground station for the Northern Light mission.

Commercializing the Argus, a miniature spectrometer the size of a box of paper clips that is capable of measuring pollution plumes from space at a one-kilometre resolution on the ground.

"It's currently the only instrument in the world that can make that measurement," said Roberts.

mbaird@thetelegram.com.