Posted on 03/29/2017 4:36:58 AM PDT by Candor7
Just like intergalactic flight, this idea is possible but not likely.
Yeah? And how to they plan on getting you there to your apartment? And where do you park the car?? Stupid.
Certainly not if the asteroid has a giant anchor dragging through our atmosphere attached to it.
How you gonna effect the ever changing density - gravity of the asteroid and maintain it in proper orbit? And positioning it so the bottom of the tower is only a few hundred feet above the surface?
Call me skeptical but I never thought that Hillary would win the presidential election in November either.
They’re not proposing a geosynchronous orbit, they aren’t proposing attaching it to the ground with a cable, they are proposing hanging a giant building from it that won’t reach the ground.
It’s not a space elevator and the concept won’t work even with infinitely strong materials.
Its ok to flush beyond the 2 mile limit.
The cable alone, once it penetrates the atmosphere would be more than enough to bring the entire satellite back down to the ground.
This is what liberal run education system gets you.... idiocy like this... and the designer got paid for it.
Yeah having worked with cables and pipe in the oilfield at depth, my first thought was ‘stretch’. The weight of the building itself will cause it to stretch and compress limiting the total length...nanotubes might work, but that is still a long way with a lot of weight.
Also the depicted move from Dubai for construction to over the Americas, presents a bit of an issue with shear forces that would exceed the static load requirements significantly.
And then there is just weather. Wouldn’t want to be over Florida in Hurricane season.
I’m sure they thought about how the tether would steer clear of all of the geo-synchronous satellites buzzing around the Earth...
The Moon is inching away from the Earth every year and satellites require fuel to correct their orbital decay. The tidal force that the Sun and Moon would have on this mass would cause considerable perturbations and the thing would either descend to the Earth or get pulled further out into space. I suspect that the friction from the Earths atmosphere would cause the thing to come closer to us. At 1,000 mph they had better come up with some heat shielding.
The moon isn’t attached to anything, so there’s no drag. The asteroid would have millions of tons of drag, as well as thousand of miles of ribbon creating air resistence.
The most collossaly stupid idea ever.
There is no atmosphere 30,000 miles up, so no friction for orbital decay. The moon is receding from earth about 1.5 inches per year because it is not in geosynchronous orbit. The earth’s spin is faster than its orbital period, and tidal friction is pushing it away. Geosynchronous satellites do need to correct their orbits occasionally because of tidal forces of the moon and other objects, however. But if we can bring an asteroid into earth orbit, we should also be able to correct it occasionally. We’re talking about a small asteroid, not a flying mountain.
Yes I was considering the air resistance from the atmospheric part of the cable constantly moving from northern to southern hemispheres. A stationary space tether over the equator would have very little of that, however.
My thoughts as well. Slow news day?
What about the drag of a million ton building itself?
Did you forget about the big chunk of building hanging in the atmo?
We’re talking about a small asteroid, not a flying mountain.
A flying (floating) mountain is precisely what they are talking about. Just that its an extra-terrestrial mountain.
NASA’s latest plans for redirecting an asteroid into somewhere near lunar orbit has a boulder-sized rather than a mountain sized one in mind. But who knows what this pipe-dream article has in mind. A true space cable would have very little atmospheric drag on the lower part of the cable because it would be stationary, not moving at orbital speed. it’s an elegant concept but I doubt it will ever be possible in the near future. Plus there are a plethora of dangers inherent in it.
Spend the resources on a space elevator instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.