And, he adds, “It would keep doing so over thousands of years. “It would basically create a ditch,” Landgraf says. The tower’s mass would push too hard on the Earth’s surface. It averages only around 30 kilometers (17 miles). A tower that could reach space would be too heavy for the Earth to support, he says. He’s based in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. He’s a physicist at the European Space Agency. A better strategy is to build something like a pyramid that narrows as it grows in height.īut even if we could build a tower that tall, there’d be problems, says Markus Landgraf. It eventually tilts to the side, before crashing and scattering its bricks.
Anyone who’s stacked up a tower of Legos knows that at some point the structure won’t be sturdy enough to hold its own weight. But most scientists agree that space starts somewhere between 80 and 100 kilometers (50 and 62 miles) above Earth’s surface.īuilding a skinny tower that tall isn’t possible. Where space begins depends on whom you ask. There’s no set line between Earth and space. But could anyone build something that tall? And can people actually climb up from Earth into space? A tall order In the movie, the space antenna looks like pipes stacked upon pipes that reach into space. He plummets from the blackness of space toward Earth until his parachute opens, slowing his descent. But this day, McBride’s sweet view is interrupted by an explosion that hurtles him off the antenna. This spindly structure stretches up toward the stars. He does mechanical work atop an international space antenna. Astronaut Roy McBride peers out over the Earth at the start of the new sci-fi flick Ad Astra.
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