Would you spend a night at the top of the first tower to space?
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00:00 Would you spend a night
00:04 at the top of the first tower to space?
00:09 At 100 km (300 mi) above sea level,
00:11 it would be the highest structure
00:13 that humans have ever built.
00:16 This tower could house
00:18 almost a million residents.
00:19 But would that be worth
00:22 the giant price tag of $25 trillion?
00:27 Could humans even survive
00:30 the extreme conditions at the top?
00:33 Would the Earth's crust be able to support
00:36 the weight of this massive structure?
00:40 And how could we prevent it
00:42 from falling over?
00:44 This is WHAT IF,
00:46 and here's what would happen
00:48 if we built a tower to outer space.
00:52 When it comes to building a space tower,
00:55 there are a lot of obstacles to plan around.
00:59 First, there are the extremely cold temperatures
01:02 that could freeze you to death.
01:05 Then, there are the Category 5 hurricane winds
01:08 that could cause the tower to sway and fall over.
01:13 Oh, and did we mention there would be
01:15 barely any air pressure at the top?
01:18 So you'd likely get altitude sickness,
01:20 which could kill you.
01:23 But even with all those hazards,
01:25 we still think we can build one
01:28 safe enough for humans to stay in.
01:31 Want to see what it looks like?
01:36 Yes, it might look a little strange,
01:39 but this is how we'd have to structure our tower
01:42 if we don't want it to fall over.
01:45 If we didn't shape our tower like a pyramid,
01:48 it would buckle under its own weight,
01:50 tilt to the side, and crash to the ground.
01:53 At 100 km (156 mi) tall,
01:55 this pyramid would need a base
01:57 as large as the area of Hong Kong to keep it stable.
02:02 It would also need a reinforced core
02:05 to prevent it from swaying in the extreme winds
02:08 found at the top of our atmosphere.
02:11 At 70 km (156 mi) above sea level,
02:14 winds of 252 km/h (1,000 mph) can occur.
02:19 And the top of our tower
02:22 would be 30 km (15 mi) higher than that.
02:25 Now that we've got a stable structure figured out,
02:29 we need to find a way to transport people up to the top.
02:33 Traditionally, elevators are limited to a height of about 500 m (2,000 ft).
02:39 After that, they would be too heavy.
02:42 So we're going to need something a little more modern,
02:45 like magnet-powered elevators, for instance.
02:49 But even with those,
02:51 we'd still be looking at super long elevator rides to go up and down.
02:56 This would be a serious problem
02:58 if we wanted our tower to contain residences and offices.
03:03 One group that would be happy about these extra-long elevator rides
03:06 would be the advertising industry.
03:09 Talk about a captive audience.
03:11 Instead of just watching commercial after commercial,
03:18 wouldn't you rather use all this free time to get creative
03:22 and even earn extra money?
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04:07 Here at What If, we've been sharing our own stories on Voqal.
04:10 Check out the link in our description box to read our most recent story,
04:14 where we wrote about what would happen if everyone stopped drinking coffee.
04:18 Spoiler alert, it wouldn't be good for those long elevator rides.
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04:30 You've got all this free time these days.
04:32 Why not put it to good use?
04:34 But before we go selling our elevator ad space,
04:40 we need to see if it would be safe for us to go up that high in the first place.
04:45 At the top of Mount Everest,
04:47 the air pressure is dangerously low,
04:50 about one-third of the pressure on the ground.
04:53 And our space tower would be 11 times taller than that.
04:57 If we didn't regulate the air pressure inside the skyscraper,
05:01 you could experience altitude sickness.
05:04 And if we didn't regulate the temperature in there,
05:08 you could freeze to death by the time you reach the top.
05:11 Next, we'd have to figure out how to provide running water throughout the tower.
05:16 It would take a lot of pressure to pump water up so high.
05:20 We would need hundreds of water reservoirs
05:23 located on different levels throughout the building.
05:27 These water reservoirs would be filled in sequence,
05:30 with each one being used to fill the one above, all the way to the top.
05:36 If the residents were to use as much water
05:39 as the residents of the Burj Khalifa do per day,
05:42 we estimate that our space tower would use about
05:46 13 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water per day.
05:50 And that's a lot to pump up.
05:54 And even if we solved all those challenges,
05:58 there would still be one underlying issue
06:01 that could inevitably sink the whole project.
06:05 I'm talking about the Earth's crust.
06:08 The Earth's crust is only about 30 km (15 mi) thick,
06:12 with a soft mantle underneath it.
06:15 Like a house on unstable soil,
06:18 the tower would start to sink down into the ground over the years,
06:22 as the Earth's crust would be unable to sustain its weight.
06:27 So for now, maybe we'll just have to settle for the tall towers we already have.
06:34 Or if you really want that nice view from space,
06:39 you could always sign up to be one of the first space tourists.
06:43 But that's a story for another WHAT IF.
06:48 [music]