Scientist develops 20-km high inflatable space tower

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 15

Hailing from Naugajja village near here, scientist Dr Raj K Seth has done Jalandhar proud by getting his project on a 20-km high space tower for harvesting wind and solar energy accomplished as a part of his PhD research work at Canada patented.

Currently working as Dean (Science and Engineering) and Pro-VC Sri Sai University, Palampur, Dr Seth, along with Canadian researchers Ben Quine and George Zhu at York University, Toronto, has been granted US patent recently after they had developed a practical prototype of the space elevator.

The research on feasibility of 20 km free-standing inflatable space tower has even been published in Journal of British Interplanetary Society along with Acta Astronautica and other peer reviewed international journals after which there have been a lot of questions arising in the minds of scientists, engineers, researchers and general public upon building such a mega structure in reality.

“The technology has a great potential to harvest high altitude winds, harvesting solar energy at high altitude would be more efficient. Even the technology can significantly be utilised to harvest atmospheric electricity without using any moving machinery parts,” said Dr Seth while explaining the advantage of space tower to generate environment friendly green power.