buckle up - here’s an elevator that can transport travelers and cargo from ocean to space

Jordan William Hughes designs project ascensio

Foster + Partners’ concept artist and architect Jordan William Hughes designs an elevator that can transport travelers and cargo from the ocean to space. The conceptual artworks, designed without the use of AI, combine an ocean-based space elevator with a multipurpose spaceport. Named Project Ascensio, the space elevator would have cables attached to an asteroid locked in geostationary orbit, and from here, the elevator is lowered and lifted up from the spaceport in the middle of the ocean to outside the Earth. Jordan William Hughes’ design was recently crowned the 2023 Architecture and Innovation for the Space Grand Prix Award by the Jacques Rougerie Foundation.

images courtesy of Jordan Williams Hughes, via Jacques Rougerie Foundation

Foster + Partners’ artist imagines mixed-use space stations

Jordan William Hughes’ space elevator is more than just transporting tourists and travelers to the cosmos. The lift also doubles as cargo transportation for the samples and equipment that researchers and scientists may need to take or bring to and from space. The Foster + Partners concept artist imagines Project Ascenscio as having mixed-use space stations for this reason. As seen in the images, the interior of the space elevator is not sterile but resembles luxurious accommodations with lush greenery and even hotelier concepts through bars, spas, and restaurants.

the space elevator is designed with mixed-use space stations in mind

Space elevators with glass floors and large windows

There seem to be several rooms in each space elevator. Jordan William Hughes imagines the use of advanced materials such as carbon fiber, carbon nano-treads, and Amorphous Silicon Carbide for the platforms and floors of Project Ascensio’s interior, blending with a transparent smart-glass to produce a sense of transparency everywhere and fully immersing the travelers in the outside-the-planet trip. Large windows, made possible by local magnetic field shielding, peek through the void and Earth outside, and other rooms within the space elevator to underline recreational luxury, from the gold accents to the services offered. Outside the space-travel transport, the hexagonal elevators are attached to sturdy wires that bring them up and down with ease.

Project Ascensio begins its ascend from an ocean-based space elevator

Project Ascensio is dubbed to dream of a future where improved material sciences and technology can come up with a space elevator that is multipurpose and lightweight. A game-changing space-exploration mode of transportation, the lift may be considered as an easily accessible gateway to space and its tourism. The technology and architecture may be ambitious at the moment, but the rapid and incessant developments within space travel designs may offer Jordan William Hughes’s design a chance to be manifested. Cost-wise, it may require a hefty amount, given that ports are needed, and constructing the elevator might take investments and time. However, as Jordan William Hughes tells designboom, the concept of a space elevator can radically provide more cost-effective solution for space travel, when compared to rockets.

a series of cables attached to an asteroid lifts and brings down the space elevator