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To: unibrowshift9b20

That is where the distinction between geosynch and geostationary comes in handy. An elevator anchored off the equatorial plane would settle down to a kind of asymptotic line once it is built.


277 posted on 06/27/2004 1:56:42 PM PDT by RightWhale (Destroy the dark; restore the light)
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To: RightWhale

Yes, but if the main station is at the geosynchronous point and pretty much all manned flights get off the elevator here, then you are actually only about 40% of the way up the length of the elevator. So lets say you build it at 30 degrees north latitude (as I understand, that would be doable on earth) then at 40% down, with a concave curve, you're over about 5 degrees north latitude. I'm getting all this from sketching out a model to scale.

So, if your elevator ride ends at the geosynchronous station, then you're orbit is going to have a declination of 5 degrees right?

Does anybody know what the exact theoretical maximum latitude on earth a tapered space elevator could be built at?

I remember somebody asked something about whether CNTs conducted electricity or not. Depending on the chirality (the angle at which the graphene was rolled up) it can be semi-conductive, or really conductive, it can also be superconductive at low temperatures. But I have no idea how it would conduct as an actual ribbon. One good thing is that it will burn up at like 3000K I believe. So if it ever starts to short out the atmosphere, it would burn up before it destroyed the world's weather.


278 posted on 06/27/2004 7:12:35 PM PDT by unibrowshift9b20
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