Posted on 09/29/2006 5:40:58 PM PDT by KevinDavis
Admittedly, at least for now, the idea of a beanstalk-like space elevator connecting Earth and space is a stretch.
But next month’s X Prize Cup will host the Space Elevator Games, an unprecedented challenge for today’s engineers looking at ways to alter the future of access to space.
Teams from around the country will gather October 20-21 in Las Cruces, New Mexico to compete for $400,000 in prize money as part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges—the space agency’s program of prize contests to stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration.
No matter how you look at it—from the top down or bottom up—building a full-scale space elevator is an uphill battle. But at least physics is in your favor.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
With the possible exception of sending a man to the moon, this would be about the most amazing thing mankind has ever built!!
ping
They don't have suitable material (carbon nanotubes would have to be meticulously made).
The technology will be useful whether a space elevator from earth surface is ever built or not. Cables of tensile ultra-strength will allow construction that is impossible now.
The weight of the supporting cable would drag the whole mess back to earth, unless an elaborate counter-weight system were devised to anchor the cable far *beyond* GSO. It would never work.
The lower the orbit the faster the mass must move to sustain orbit. The lower sections of cable would be moving *far* too slow and a staggering gravitational force would pull those sections of cable downward toward earth. A counter weight much farther out from GSO is the only way to counter that force, but the cable would be ridiculously long and not have the tensile strength to handle the forces.
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