Space Elevator (Prototype) © 2022, Gordon Murray

A space elevator is a planet-to-space transportation system first conceptualized in 1895 by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian scientist who studied lighter-than-air powered flying machines. He championed the idea of the diversity of life in the universe, and he was the first theorist and advocate of human spaceflight.

In this image, three birds defy gravity to perch impossibly, and another flies upside down as Gordon Murray re-imagines the ladder as a space elevator’s 21st century prototype. The actual tower is a 1930’s relic of the U.S. postal system’s Highway of Light—a series of beacons erected from coast to coast to help early airmail pilots navigate at night, and in poor weather. The historical beacon is located on a small airfield where Murray flies.

Murray made this image as another Russian, Vladimir Putin, was invading Ukraine, and the planet teetered precariously on the possibility of World War III.