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Space Elevator Company Fission
Dag Maggot writes "Highlift Systems seems to be going through some turbulent times with cofounder Michael Laine leaving to form his own space elevator company LiftPort. Interestingly, Liftport pledges to be a "transparent" company, and as such have provided the full text of the original space elevator proposal which was made to NASA NIAC." We mentioned Liftport before, but the proposal is new and quite interesting.
It's about time they started using fission for space elevators. They were much too slow when they were coal fired.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Let's hope their space elevator can support more users then the web site.
to the term "Elevator Music"
Imagine a few hours of that o_O
Damn, what civilization advances did I need for space elevator again? I'm gonna lose out on the space race!
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
...please use the stairs!
Invest in this company NOW! It can only go up.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I guess it is time to make a kind of "I survived slashdotting" signs for web-sites. Or T-shirts or something.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
1. Found (space) elevator company
2. ???
3. Prosper!
=If life was easy, i would be out of a job=
... but they can't build a website that can handle slashdot ;)
I'll try later, eh?
WTFDTM?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
I admit this is off-topic, but I've been dying for a new space elevator story so I could ask this question again. I was too late for the last one. Excuse me while I repost what I wrote belatedly after missing the last one a few weeks ago.
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I am a big fan of HighLift and the tiny nanotube thread, but I'm just not convinced that a steel tower is impossible given the right geometry. (Note, I'm not suggesting the ascii below is such a geometry, it's just to illustrate the point)
Sure, maybe a steel cable could never work, but at some scale it must be possible to build up a tower or, alternately, to build down a beam of of interconnected steel tubes.
Building down it seems we could use steel beams made of elaborate geometries like we see in some space frame construction. The members could be spring loaded to distribute stresses therby adding vast amounts of tensile strength. Just because the material itself lacks tensile strength over a given length, that doesn't mean all structures composed of that material would share that property.
A mass of steel triangles or other geometries is not not as elegant as using a single strand of nanotube composites, but it uses existing materials in plentiful supply at a good price.
At some scale a steel mesh tower must be capable of reaching into the edges of the atmosphere. They're building 500 meter buildings left front and center all over Asia. It would only be necessary to stack up a few hundred of them in an octet "truss" type formation to make a nice dent in a trip to orbit.
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X|
|X
Now this rather homely ASCII art is not meant to be a prototype, but you get the idea. Replace each leg of an X with a 500meter steel tower and you could easily imagine a ten kilometer tower. Sure, that's not even close to orbit, but it's higher than Everest. At some scale this has to make a dent in the cost of launching to orbit if you build up from the ground.
Of course coming down from space instead of builduing up you have the issue of materials transport. But I think it's got to be possible even with steel.
But what if something were to go wrong, and somehow radioactive goo starts leaking a mile above the Earth. Then the wind starts spreading it all over the place, and we all end up with mutant powers or three-headed pigeons or ***Insert imagination here***.
Yeah but what about the drawbacks ?
"I want to build a space elevator to the moon!"
...
"No, I want to build a space elevator!"
"No, it's mine!"
"No way! I had the idea first!"
"No, I did!"
"MOM!!"
You're all a bunch of loonies.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
>
> WTFDTM?
YKYBR/.TLW... Y already KWTFTMt :)
*rimshot*
Bungeeeeeeeeeee...!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing