Space Elevator

Post by **Xouqoa** » September 18, 2003, 1:10 pm

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... loftygoals

Wow... just, wow.

This is something straight out of a sci-fi novel, and it could exist in 15 years. Crazy.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » September 18, 2003, 1:21 pm

Talk about prime terrorist target!

Pretty amazing though..

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 1:22 pm

*boggle*

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 18, 2003, 1:30 pm

Maybe I missed it in the article. Is this the massive counterweight lift the sci fi writers were dreaming of a decade or so ago?

If so, I vote for a nice decades-long test over Mars before they park one above Earth.

Post by **Xouqoa** » September 18, 2003, 1:49 pm

It would be extremely cost-prohibitive to try and build one on Mars before we built one here. I don't see that happening.

Why would you want to do that anyway?

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 18, 2003, 1:49 pm

Have you seen the scenarios on what happens if the payload-side cable happens to break?

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 18, 2003, 2:02 pm

Fallanthas wrote:Have you seen the scenarios on what happens if the payload-side cable happens to break?

guess a bunch of people in Ecuador get smoked?

Post by **Xouqoa** » September 18, 2003, 2:02 pm

No, send link!

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 2:06 pm

Fallanthas wrote:Have you seen the scenarios on what happens if the payload-side cable happens to break?

I imagine it could get really bad. The way I see this thing, its basically a vertical conveyor belt. It snaps, and payload from cupolas on the upside of the belt comes crashing down. Shit would be crashing down everywhere!!

The stuff that WAY up there could impact miles away, causing some serious destruction.

EDIT: Imagine the base-jumping potential!!

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 18, 2003, 2:28 pm

Looking for a decent link.

If that 'ribbon' snaps, you suddenly have not only a payload crashing to earth, but the ribbon itself, charged with an immense amount of momentum energy decending through the atmosphere, heating up, etc. The ribbon would coil around the equator (given where they would like to anchor it). If they used the carbon fiber technology they are talking about, you would also get some wonderful particulate rain that would shred your lungs from material shedding off the ribbon during it's descent.

A nuclear bomb wouldn't even make the news the week this sucker failed.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 2:30 pm

Fallanthas wrote:Looking for a decent link.

If that 'ribbon' snaps, you suddenly have not only a payload crashing to earth, but the ribbon itself, charged with an immense amount of momentum energy decending through the atmosphere, heating up, etc. The ribbon would coil around the equator (given where they would like to anchor it). If they used the carbon fiber technology they are talking about, you would also get some wonderful particulate rain that would shred your lungs from material shedding off the ribbon during it's descent.

A nuclear bomb wouldn't even make the news the week this sucker failed.

Coil around the equator?

How long do you think this thing is?

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 18, 2003, 2:49 pm

Low Earth Orbit is ~500 km

the circumference of the earth is 40,000 km

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 3:01 pm

Voronwë wrote:Low Earth Orbit is ~500 km

the circumference of the earth is 40,000 km

km!? KM!?

MILES, man MILES!!

You live in the USA, wtf are you doing speaking in klicks? For SHAME!!

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 18, 2003, 3:05 pm

They are talking a ribbon approx 10,000 km long. That's a metric fuckload of kinetic energy if it breaks near the top.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 3:11 pm

Fallanthas wrote:They are talking a ribbon approx 10,000 km long. That's a metric fuckload of kinetic energy if it breaks near the top.

Holy Fuck! Actually, its longer!!!

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology ... 327-1.html

Forthe · Post by **Forthe** » September 18, 2003, 3:12 pm

Skogen wrote:
Voronwë wrote:Low Earth Orbit is ~500 km

the circumference of the earth is 40,000 km
km!? KM!?

MILES, man MILES!!

You live in the USA, wtf are you doing speaking in klicks? For SHAME!!

198,839 furlongs!!!

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 3:18 pm

If they pull this off, it begs the question: WTF are we going to do with the inevitable large amounts of space junk that will accumulate in orbit? It's going to get dangerous! Shit, it is already dangerous!

Spankes · Post by **Spankes** » September 18, 2003, 3:50 pm

most junk will burn in to nothingness long before it hits the planet, should it come back in to the atmosphere.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 18, 2003, 3:54 pm

Spankes wrote:most junk will burn in to nothingness long before it hits the planet, should it come back in to the atmosphere.

No, the junk that's in orbit! We need to find a way to get rid of it.

SHARKS WITH FRIGGIN LASER BEAMS!!

Spankes · Post by **Spankes** » September 18, 2003, 4:01 pm

An object released at the cable's far end would have sufficient energy to escape from the gravity tug of our home planet and travel to neighboring the moon or to more distant interplanetary targets.

Send it to jupiter, or pluto or some shit~

I think it is about time we start polluting the other planets in our solar system too!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 18, 2003, 4:03 pm

send it to the sun. recycle!

masteen · Post by **masteen** » September 18, 2003, 4:30 pm

All these plans still don't explain how they're going to deal with the massive amount of static electricity that a giant conductor sweeping through the atmosphere at however many k/s would build up.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » September 18, 2003, 4:32 pm

It's all nanotubes these days!

Krimson Klaw · Post by **Krimson Klaw** » September 18, 2003, 4:34 pm

masteen wrote:All these plans still don't explain how they're going to deal with the massive amount of static electricity that a giant conductor sweeping through the atmosphere at however many k/s would build up.

WHat are you, a moron? All they have to do is get Gambit to channel it all into an Ace of Spades, then throw it at Saudi Arabia.

Spankes · Post by **Spankes** » September 18, 2003, 4:37 pm

masteen wrote:All these plans still don't explain how they're going to deal with the massive amount of static electricity that a giant conductor sweeping through the atmosphere at however many k/s would build up.

It will charge a heating element at the base of the elevator in the midddle of the ocean...turning it whole pacific in to a very large hot tub.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 18, 2003, 5:43 pm

maybe they can use the generated potential to power the elevator ^^

Homercles · Post by **Homercles** » September 19, 2003, 6:33 pm

that would be one long ass elevator ride. Id probably go insane listening to musak for that long of a stretch

VariaVespasa · Post by **VariaVespasa** » September 19, 2003, 8:31 pm

What do you mean "sweeping through the atmosphere"? It wont be sweeping anywhere- the atmosphere sorta revolves at the same speed as the rest of the planet you know. It wont collect any more static electricity than a (really really) tall flagpole. The atmosphere will pass around it at the same speeds as it passes over your house- 0-10 mph at ground level usually and faster up around the jetstream etc, but still nothing fantastic. It will still collect some electricity, but nothing that cant be bled off easily enough.

*Hugs*
Varia

Kudo · Post by **Kudo** » September 20, 2003, 4:21 am

how can you be so sure Varia?

its never happened before, so you really have no way of knowing what will happen

VariaVespasa · Post by **VariaVespasa** » September 20, 2003, 7:06 am

Kudo wrote:how can you be so sure Varia?

its never happened before, so you really have no way of knowing what will happen

How can I be so sure? Because I went to school and paid attention in physics class. What did you do during physics?

*Hugs*
Varia

Drolgin Steingrinder · September 20, 2003, 8:53 am

Very Niven-esque (that's Larry, not David)!

I don't see it happening. The desire to explore space may still be there, but the desire to fund the exploration isn't.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » September 20, 2003, 10:39 am

I hit it 2x!

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » September 20, 2003, 10:40 am

VariaVespasa wrote:
Kudo wrote:how can you be so sure Varia?

its never happened before, so you really have no way of knowing what will happen
How can I be so sure? Because I went to school and paid attention in physics class. What did you do during physics?

*Hugs*
Varia

Ah the problem there is most of my physics classes used "light intensile strings" or the phrase "ignoring friction".

Once you get outside certain ranges you can no longer adjust for the wind, and the bigger something gets the more small indefineables become large problems (insert video of wind harmonics destroying that bridge in here) You're also starting to venture into the world of quantum physics, and you didn't do that in high school =p

As for nothing fantastic; winds in the order of 100MPH at 30-50,000 feet aren't exactly uncommon... but the air also gets thinner as you go up, so the over-all effect... who knows =)

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » September 20, 2003, 12:01 pm

Very Niven-esque (that's Larry, not David)!

Actually, more Clarke-esque, since he wrote a book about it (back in 1978).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=books

Good book btw.

Drolgin Steingrinder · September 20, 2003, 12:35 pm

I stand corrected!

Kudo · Post by **Kudo** » September 20, 2003, 8:39 pm

How can I be so sure? Because I went to school and paid attention in physics class. What did you do during physics?

Oh yeah totally, because in physics clas we obviously studied what would happen when cables break that are that long.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » September 20, 2003, 10:02 pm

I think its called kinetics, and its a pretty simple formula.

Its not like its possible to teach every single physical thing that could happen in the universe, so they teach you formulas.

VariaVespasa · Post by **VariaVespasa** » September 21, 2003, 11:37 am

Zaelath wrote:
VariaVespasa wrote:
Kudo wrote:how can you be so sure Varia?

its never happened before, so you really have no way of knowing what will happen
How can I be so sure? Because I went to school and paid attention in physics class. What did you do during physics?

*Hugs*
Varia
Ah the problem there is most of my physics classes used "light intensile strings" or the phrase "ignoring friction".

Once you get outside certain ranges you can no longer adjust for the wind, and the bigger something gets the more small indefineables become large problems (insert video of wind harmonics destroying that bridge in here) You're also starting to venture into the world of quantum physics, and you didn't do that in high school =p

As for nothing fantastic; winds in the order of 100MPH at 30-50,000 feet aren't exactly uncommon... but the air also gets thinner as you go up, so the over-all effect... who knows =)

Well the question I was addressing was the static electricty buildup, not the inherent strength of the thing, which is a different issue. Wind harmonics dont worry me particularly any more than I worry about the harmonics of guitar strings, and for approximately the same reason- Strings, large, small, or ludicrously huge in this case, are built to flex like that. That bridge wasnt. Yes, there are some issues too, in the same way a guitar string can break so theoretically could the space elevator, but the difficulty of fixing the problem is minor compared to the bridge issues, and can be solved fairly easily by overengineering, if nothing else.

Quantum physics- Dont be so sure!

OK, maybe not quite that advanced, but english schools (where I went till 18) are about a year ahead of american and canadian schools. I had to do bugger all for my first year of college except for a couple of electives because it was all repeats for me.

Wind speeds- yes, 100 mph is a good speed to you and me- my point was that it is nothing compared to the nearly 1000mph or so that the atmosphere is travelling to keep up with the surface of the earth as it revolves. Masteen seemed to think that the elevator cable would be travelling through the atmosphere at nearly orbital speeds or something and generating huge static charge, whereas in fact it will just sit there while the atmosphere (comparatively) gently sweeps around it.

Kudo- No, we didnt study what happens when long cables break, but the subject of the original post you asked how I could be so sure about was static build-up, not cables breaking. Apparently you dont pay attention here either...

*Hugs*
Varia

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » September 21, 2003, 4:15 pm

Interesting paper on space elevators.

Warning, its a pdf file

http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/pdf ... evator.pdf

masteen · Post by **masteen** » September 22, 2003, 7:14 pm

VariaVespasa wrote:Wind speeds- yes, 100 mph is a good speed to you and me- my point was that it is nothing compared to the nearly 1000mph or so that the atmosphere is travelling to keep up with the surface of the earth as it revolves. Masteen seemed to think that the elevator cable would be travelling through the atmosphere at nearly orbital speeds or something and generating huge static charge, whereas in fact it will just sit there while the atmosphere (comparatively) gently sweeps around it.

This gentle sweeping is exactly what causes bolts that pack gigawatts of power. Now factor in something that crosses the multiple atmospheric boundaries, including the ionosphere, which has enough free electrons to block and reflect radio waves.

Also, the farther away from Earth the tower goes, the faster the top will be moving to maintain its position relative to the ground. Even at 370 miles, the upper end of that thing is going to be moving.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » September 22, 2003, 9:21 pm

I see some scientific ownage going on in this thread!

Vaemas · Post by **Vaemas** » September 22, 2003, 9:35 pm

Wired wrote about space elevators back in April:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/nanotech.html

Wired 11.04 wrote: The climbers will be powered by earthbound free-electron lasers, which is the same tech behind Stanford's linear accelerator. The lasers are aimed at photocells on the climbers' undersides, the photocells power the climbers' motors, and the elevator goes up. Edwards reckons it will feel like taking an elevator in a tall building. In a few hours, you'll reach outer space. In two weeks, you'll reach the ribbon's end - one quarter of the way to the moon.

So basically we aren't talking about hitting space, we're talking further out.