Japan’s Mini Space Elevator Test
Ever wondered what a real elevator in space looks like? In September 2018 the Japanese team behind the famed “space elevator” concept finally put their dream to the test. They’re launching a tiny elevator—just a 6‑cm cube—on a rocket to prove that the idea really works.
Launch & The Tiny Elevator
- Made by researchers at Shizuoka University.
- Slotted onto an H‑2B rocket that Japan’s space agency will launch from Tanegashima next week.
- The “elevator” is a miniature stand‑in for the future giant structure: 6 cm long, 3 cm wide, 3 cm high.
- It will zip along a 10‑metre cable between two small satellites that keep the rope taut.
Think of it like a box hopped onto a zip line in space—that’s the world’s first experiment to watch an elevator move out of this world.
Keeping the Tracker on Target
The tiny box will be monitored by cameras on the satellites, while the whole thing spins around in orbit like a marble in a cosmic marble game.
Beyond the Tiny Demo
Looking back, the original idea of a space elevator dates to 1895 when Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky saw the Eiffel Tower and imagined a rope reaching for the stars. Decades later, the famous author Arthur C. Clarke wrote about it in a novel, but real engineering held the concept back… until now.
Japanese construction company Obayashi, working with Shizuoka University, is already dreaming of a full‑blown elevator that could carry tourists to space by 2050. They’re even flirting with carbon nanotubes—a material that’s over twenty times stronger than steel—to build a shaft that stretches 96,000 kilometres (about 60,000 miles) above Earth.
So if you’re ready to ride a ladder that takes you to the moon, keep an eye on the next iterations of Japan’s cosmic elevator. The future is literally up here!
