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Going Up?

Posted by michael on from the keep-arms-inside-the-car dept.

jmiyaku writes "The National Post is reporting that NASA has given a Seattle company a $570,000 grant to continue its investigation into constructing a space elevator. Coupled with some production-grade technology from a Japanese car company (carbon nanotube composites), this elevator could be a reality within 15 years..." The Highlift website has some more information.

4 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. Easy target? by grumwork · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Doesn't something like a Space Elevator become an incredibly large and tempting target for anyone looking to kill/injure/destroy American/Western World society? There cannot possibly be away to "guard" the entire length of the elevator on Earth, and if it were to break and come crashing down...

    1. Re:Easy target? by Oculus+Habent · · Score: 1, Redundant

      And how do you propse to keep an elevator working if the top of it isn't above the bottom of it?

      If you slow down the top, you'll create tremendous tension on the shaft, causing it to A) snap and cause horrible local destruction, not to mention the swath of chaos a broken dragging cable will cause; or B) slowly curve the elevator until it starts to fall to Earth.

      If the system is geostationary (and I'd like to see one that isn't :) then a break in the cable will cause horrible local destruction as the bottom of the cable falls to earth. After some point (don't know enough about the physics of the situation to say where), it should stay where it is. If a break happens, there should be a destruct capability that would break away the cable below this point. If should break into sufficiently small pieces so it doesn't cause mass devastation.

      The best place to put this cable would undoutedly be in the middle of the Pacific, on a huge floating installation, guarded by a fair portion of the Pacific Fleet. I imagine the UN would have control over it. That way any local damage caused by the failure of the cable would be greatly reduced (Oh no! We broke the ocean!) and the entire world could use it. Also, it would be hard to pretend to "accidentally" go near it without the military knowing.

      --
      Kaunakakai - We've got a POP there!

      --
      That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
  2. Dad are we there yet? by gelfling · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Hey you kids sit down and behave before I come back there.

    Daaaad I gotta peee

    You should have gone before we left now you'll jut have to wait.

  3. Re:Security..... by dbrutus · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Well, once you get it up once, you just stock a few spares in orbit at $100/kg so when (not if, it'll eventually happen) the ribbon gets cut, you just have to drop down one of the spares to re-establish the elevator. It's only the first one which will be expensive all subsequent ones will drop in price substantially.

    I expect that you'll protect it like they protect everything else, a bunch of guys with guns will shoot you if you break out of certain paramaters.