Posted on 08/16/2015 7:23:13 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Canadian firm has been granted a patent for a space elevator which will shoot cargo 12.4 miles into the stratosphere from where it can be launched more easily.
According to Thoth Technology, the lift would cut the cost of space flight by around one third because shuttles would not need to carry enormous amounts of fuel to get themselves off the ground.
Astronauts would ascend to 12 miles by electrical elevator, said Dr Brendan Quine, the inventor.
From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refuelling and reflight.
...
Engineers had always believed that space elevators would be unfeasible because no material exists which could support itself at such a height - although diamond nano-threads have been suggested.
However the new design by Thoth gets around the problem by only building the elevator to 12.4 miles so that it sits in the stratosphere rather than going all the way out into geostationary orbit, where satellites fly, which is around 22,000 miles up.
Dubbed the 'ThothX Tower' it would be inflatable, made with reinforced segments and topped with a runway from which satellite payloads could be launched. It would stay upright using a complex arrangements of fly-wheels to compensate for the tower bending.
The patent suggests that either pressurised cars would run in the core of the structure like in traditional pneumatic tube message systems, or alternatively, they could climb up the outside of the shaft like a funicular railway. Each car could carry around 10 tonnes of cargo.
According to the designers, the tower could also be used for scientific research, communications, and generate energy from high up wind turbines.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
But what happens when a line of Class 2 or better thunderstorms rolls through?
Remember the US Akron
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron_%28ZRS-4%29
and the USS Macon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron_%28ZRS-4%29
The mass of a runway (yes, an actual runway) 12 miles up is unworkable. Add to that the winds (in different directions) along that 12 mile cylinder.
Timber!!!!
That is one of my favorite songs. It’s weird, though... because I like Slayer too.
Yawn, we will never see this implemented in our life time - I’m willing to bet on it. They’ll just sit on their patent and prevent anyone else to develop it. I hope theres a shelf life of these patents. If nothing are moving forward then they lose their patents
Tower of Babel?
It would obviously have to be built over DC to have half a chance at gathering the amount of hot air needed for inflation
Won’t work.
In stage two of construction, “then a miracle happens” , will Not build confidence in getting this thing completed
Parts of the lyrics were as fitting as the title.
They can yammer all they want about complex arrangements of flywheels compensating for “bending” and such, but we physicists in-the-know here know damn good and well that the thing is going to be held up with skyhooks. That’s the only thing that’s going to work.
Mine is a cross between an industrial strength version of this:
this:
and this:
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