Posted on 06/25/2004 2:21:35 PM PDT by Junior
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) wants to return to the moon and put a man on Mars. But scientist Bradley C. Edwards has an idea that's really out of this world: an elevator that climbs 62,000 miles into space.
Edwards thinks an initial version could be operating in 15 years, a year earlier than Bush's 2020 timetable for a return to the moon. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors.
"It's not new physics nothing new has to be discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch," he says. "If there are delays in budget or delays in whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic estimate for when we could have one up."
Edwards is not just some guy with an idea. He's head of the space elevator project at the Institute for Scientific Research in Fairmont, W.Va. NASA (news - web sites) already has given it more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.
"A lot of people at NASA are excited about the idea," said Robert Casanova, director of the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts in Atlanta.
Edwards believes a space elevator offers a cheaper, safer form of space travel that eventually could be used to carry explorers to the planets.
Edwards' elevator would climb on a cable made of nanotubes tiny bundles of carbon atoms many times stronger than steel. The cable would be about three feet wide and thinner than a piece of paper, but capable of supporting a payload up to 13 tons.
The cable would be attached to a platform on the equator, off the Pacific coast of South America where winds are calm, weather is good and commercial airplane flights are few. The platform would be mobile so the cable could be moved to get out of the path of orbiting satellites.
David Brin, a science-fiction writer who formerly taught physics at San Diego State University, believes the concept is solid but doubts such an elevator could be operating by 2019.
"I have no doubt that our great-grandchildren will routinely use space elevators," he said. "But it will take another generation to gather the technologies needed."
Edwards' institute is holding a third annual conference on space elevators in Washington starting Monday. A keynote speaker at the three-day meeting will be John Mankins, NASA's manager of human and robotics technology. Organizers say it will discuss technical challenges and solutions and the economic feasibility of the elevator proposal.
The space elevator is not a new idea. A Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, envisioned it a century ago. And Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Foundations of Paradise," published in 1979, talks of a space elevator 24,000 miles high, and permanent colonies on the moon, Mercury and Mars.
The difference now, Edwards said, is "we have a material that we can use to actually build it."
He envisions launching sections of cable into space on rockets. A "climber" his version of an elevator car would then be attached to the cable and used to add more lengths of cable until eventually it stretches down to the Earth. A counterweight would be attached to the end in space.
Edwards likens the design to "spinning a ball on a string around your head." The string is the cable and the ball on the end is a counterweight. The Earth's rotation would keep the cable taut.
The elevator would be powered by photo cells that convert light into electricity. A laser attached to the platform could be aimed at the elevator to deliver the light, Edwards said.
Edwards said he probably needs about two more years of development on the carbon nanotubes to obtain the strength needed. After that, he believes work on the project can begin.
"The major obstacle is probably just politics or funding and those two are the same thing," he said. "The technical, I don't think that's really an issue anymore."
What if (i.e. not well thought out) you counter ballance weights by moving equal amount up at the same time as down. Perhaps by mining from the moon or astoriods? Send ore down and machines up?
It would be a terrorist magnet.
Kinda a huge No-Pest Strip.
What a kite string does, this will do in spades.
Ain't seen a darn thing made out of carbon nanotubes yet.
Buy some sunscreen, though you won't be able to se the nanotubes unless you have a STM. Buy a bullet proof vest or one of the new military grade Humves with the special ballistic coating.
I am having trouble visualizing this.
The lateral velocity of the cab is zero relative to the surface of the Earth, and remains so as it ascends or descends. There is no spinning.
I could see the beanstalk requiring counterweights, but I don't see what your skater has to do with anything.
A stick of dynamite on a kite?
Good point. But I still prefer dropping water balloons from 67K miles... "Look Up!"
This is in FR archives. The cable doesn't even have to be anchored at the equator.
Well, you've got a single location out in the ocean on the equator off the coast of South America. Pretty easily defensible against terrorists. Can put in a pretty enormous no-sail/no-fly zone that wouldn't negatively impact much of anybody.
Carbon fiber is not carbon nanotube.
So then why do you bring it up? Some car bumpers are being made with nanotubes.
GREAT IDEA!!! Build the most desirable target in the world, AND fully protect it. More like a giant flyswatter in front of the biggest bowl of honey.
That'll just make it worse. :)
Do some googling on the Roche Limit. The more mass you put at the extremes, the more it'll tear things apart in the middle. It's like being drawn and quartered. You can't compensate for one horse pulling on your leg by adding two horses to your arm. :)
Then came the earthquake in 1994 after I had moved to Canoga Park and my wife's traumatization to any sudden noise or movement and got stuck here in Nashville where time stands so still you jumpstart every day with yesterday's beer.
I got a great sense of direction.
And this isn't considering the atmospheric drag on it. Don't we have some pretty brisk winds a few miles up?
You know, that's a grand idea; first operate the cab with a storage battery, and use a D.C. motor. When the lowered cab comes down the motor becomes a generator replacing .7-.8 of the current used going up.
Will we be able to see the glow of the elevator from Texas? Sure would make a nice beacon or "South Star" for orientation.
Would the static charge be a problem? It would be cutting some major flux lines.
It IS something out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel: The Fountains of Paradise.
Arthur C. Clarke also came up with a little notion that was equally ridiculed: geostationary satellites.
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