Going up? Space elevator wins support U.S. company builds on Russian idea

National Post ^ | 8/13/02 | Dan Rowe

[Restorer]

The world's number one terrorist target!

[RightWhale]

Something is up with the database. Same thing happened to my double post.

[RightWhale]

compensate for the extreme forces

That is why, while I know the thing can be built, it won't be a yard wide and paper thin all the way up. At the point of maximum stress, which is, if I recall, quite a ways up toward geosynch altitude, it will have to be really thick, like a mile in diameter and taper towards each end.

[Brett66]

The world's number one terrorist target!

It will be that, however I think the security problems are negotiable. No fly zones around it with missile batteries ready to launch would be appropriate defense, also the passengers will be scrutinized more severely than any airport. El-al hasn't had any terrorist problems for a while, no reason we couldn't match or exceed their record with proper planning.

[aruanan]

Unlike the science fiction version, this space elevator need not be anchored improbably both to Earth and an asteroid.

The idea of anchoring the ends to the Earth and an asteroid aren't "improbable" or "science fiction"; this is what was proposed at a conference on the subject at Marshall Space Center in 1999. Read about it at this NASA site The Audacious Space Elevator:

Current plans call for a base tower approximately 50 km tall -- the cable would be tethered to the top. To keep the cable structure from tumbling to Earth, it would be attached to a large counterbalance mass beyond geostationary orbit, perhaps an asteroid moved into place for that purpose.

[Oztrich Boy]

Nowhere near that much

Accordint to an article by Charles Sheffield in 1979 A constant cross-section Marsstalk was just possible with carbon whiskers 5 times as strong as drawn steel. For Earth it mught need something 5 times stronger, or a CSA taper of 40000 (ie a diameter taper of 200)

Make the material 4 times stronger and if reduces by the fourth root to a CSA taper of <50: Diameter 7 to 1.

I think we have a go here

Earthstalks for Cotopaxi, Kilamajaro and Kwoka (Irian Jaya)!

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Nobody mentioned tourism. I look forward to apending time in an orbiting hotel, but not during its first year!

[RightWhale]

I think we have a go here

I think so, too, even if it requires more than a paper-thin sheet. The elevator will be heavy enough that it should handle far more than this current proposal; like a car bridge, the weight of the load won't matter compared to the weight of the structure. It will be the best thing we have ever done on earth.

[D-fendr]

The Babel Project.

{^_^}

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

How about Jack and the Beanstalk?

[anymouse]

Russian idea!!? What a load of B.S. What Russian proposed the use of space teathers?

If they are referring to the proposal to boost the orbital altitude of the now defunct Mir space station using the electromagnetic properties of a teather fed with power from Mir's solar arrays, then they are mistaken. That teather was invented and built right here in the USA (San Diego to be precise.) I know the guy who invented, designed and built it, and he certainly was not Russian. He also built previously flown teathers used by the DoD, academia and NASA to do teather orbital dynamics research.

[Brett66]

Uh-oh, he better let these journalists know about it or he'll become the next Elisha Gray.

[RightWhale]

This is not tethers. This is space elevator. All the way from ground to geosynch.

[PeterPrinciple]

That's a lot of carbon.

Maybe this would save us from global warming?

[RightWhale]

this would save us from global warming?

Probably not save us from an imaginary fate, but it would use a lot more carbon than what is readily available. We would have to dig for coal, pull dissolved carbon from the oceans, maybe take CO2 from the air, tap volcanic vents, even mine the ocean floor for those frozen methanes.

However, it would allow heavy industry to move into space where they could meet their power needs from sun power and take themselves off the grid. We might generate less waste heat way down here on the surface, whether it matters to the climate or not.

[Bush2000]

From there, a 100,000-kilometre-long ribbon about one metre wide with the thickness of a sheet of paper would be propelled by rockets beyond the point in space where orbiting objects remain above a fixed point on the Earth's surface, the so-called geosynchronous orbit.

"Oh, sh*t! We have a knot!"

[TomB]

I just started Clarke's Fountains of Paradise, something I last read in high school. It really is such an elegant solution to a difficult problem. It's encouraging that there are as many people working on this as there are.

It amazes me the number of whiners on this forum though. Anytime a revolutionary idea is brought up, there are always posters who are convinced that it won't work or find reasons not to develop the project.

What's the matter with these people?

[John Jamieson]

???We have MIT degrees in aero/astro??? That can really slow you down and turn you into a real dummy.

NASA 67-94

[TomB]

huh?