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Space Elevator Conference Wraps Up
slavitos writes "The
Space Elevator: 2nd International Conference,
organized by the
Los Alamos National Lab
and the
Institute for
Scientific Research
has just finished its work in New Mexico.
To be sure, most people still think
it's absolutely ridiculous to even consider building
such a thing.
However, that's exactly what organizers
wanted - an open discussion on the issue, plus
some free PR."
Won't this thing make an astonishingly large target for terrorists, or even for enimies in a wartime situation?
imagine the propagana and demoralising effects a hit on such a target could produce.
Ok, so the shuttle seems less practicle, but this isn't the answer.
I think it's a pipe dream - a nice, exciting pipe dream, but still a pipe dream
I can't help but think that, if we ever start building this thing, people are going to be like, "There are starving children that need food, and we're spending how much on a frickin' elevator to space?!?!" or "With that much money, we could buy 10 aircraft carriers!".
Seriously, to many people, a "space elevator" is going to sound like the "escalator to nowhere" from the Simpsons - a fairly frivolous-sounding projet, and not as inspiring as rockets. Okay, so it'll make space exploration cheaper - what benefits does it have for ordinary people?
Kids today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates 400 BC
I'll bet you didn't like the war in Iraq (going on a limb here, you might have). Would you approve of the US/UN going to war and knocking out several other "innocent" goverments? (for some definition of innocent?) Most starvation is caused by goverments not allowing the food, of which there is more than enough, to get to the people who need it. Generally they have a political gain of some sort to doing so. (you might not see it as a gain, but they do)
As for a space elevator. Well I think private eneterprize should do it, which means get NASA out of the way and loosten up the laws preventing private companies from going to space. (Okay, it isn't exactly illegal, but it is nearly impossible to get the permits) At least in the US this is a problem.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"We got attacked by 19 guys with boxcutters and one idiot with a shoebomb, therefore we should quail in terror and keep our heads down. Don't build any tall buildings, don't fly unless absolutely necessary, and don't even think about building infrastructure that could open up the solar system to the entire human race. Somebody with scissors might try to cut it loose.
This is one of two exactly identical posts that were posted successively to the same parent by the same poster, only 5 minutes apart. Since this is the second, it more fully qualifies for a Redundant rating than any post I've seen in a long time. And yet, inexplicably, it garners an Insightful. I know you are used to checking all Redundant mods as Unfair, but in this case the moderator who gave it an Insightful deserves to have his/her moderation privileges yanked for a week. And yes, I did mod the first version Interesting.
Yes, but what about end of the word catastrophe possibilities? What about the possible asteroid that is to impact the planet in approximately twelve years? Are we just going to screw over space exploration and technological advances and risk the end of humanity?
If you're religishitty, KILL YOURSELF!
It sounds like the conference was a success. Critics were given some podium time, and Arthur C. Clarke updated his now famous prediction to a bolder "10 years after everybody stops laughing". (He originally said "50 years after everyone stops laughing".)
At LiftWatch we're putting up reports by people who attended, as they become available. Blaise Gassend, one of the speakers, posted some good notes on the first two days of the conference.
While the space elevator visionaries gathered in Santa Fe I feel it falls to me to point out a glaring hypocricy in the way that that conference was organised.
Despite the cost saving benifits of the elevator approach to accessing space, they are still advocating the ongoing use of shuttles as can be seen at the bottom of their about page.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
World hunger is actually more of a problem of transportation and politics at the current time then it is a problem of food production and cost. Using the money given by large nations and contributors at the current time, the food overproduced due to farming subsidies in the developed nations (mumbles inaudibly) we could feed all those starving. However, due to trade sanctions (More inaudible disgruntled mumbling that sounds surprisingly like cursing), local corruption (Iraq was a good example of plenty of food that was being held back for no better reason then the government officials wanted to be bribed to do their jobs), and lack of reliable infrastructure (See problems of food distribution in Central Africa) that was most likely the cause of the food shortages in the first place.
Best possible Idea, build the Space elevator and use it to deliver food supplies via sub-orbital air drop. Even if it doesn't work right we would end up with a ton of good blooper home videos from the endeavor.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
To take it out in a big way you would have to load a bomb onto a elevator car and take it up to quite high altitude, taking maybe a few days or a week, before detonating it. Needless to say, with sensible security practices at the embarkation point this is unlikely to be a problem.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Yeah, because all that vacuum is going to hold the radiation around forever and ever...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
thats great... then hurricane Nemo comes along and wipes the whole thing out since its in the middle of the ocean.
considering the nature of this think by the way, wouldn't it make sense for the bottome to rest on the equator at the very place where the earth can give it the most centrifigal force? if so , i cant think of any particular hurricane free zone in that area...
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Eat at Joe's.
I thought of this about 20 years ago... I hadn't heard of Aurther C Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise [amazon.com] but I also wasn't naive enough to think it was the first time anyone thought of it. But I gave it a lot of thought...instead of paying attention in spanish class. It seemed the first problem is weight but, as most have, I put that on the back burner. I thought about a tower about 100 miles high. The main problem I could think of is speed. The top of the tower would have to travel faster than the bottom, which would make it continuously bend towards the east if built near the equater. The simple solution is to built it at the north pole or the south pole. Another problem is heat. IANA Physicist but I imagine structure so heavy would generate heat on the structure. The cool water of the north (or south) could be used to cool it. The only other ideas I could come up with was to build a thin frame from titanium. Carbon nano-tubes would work better but thats vapor-tech for the time being. A self-powered cart could crawl up the interior of the frame. The frame could have a system of gyroscopes and small rockets every 500M or so to keep the tower straight. Does anyone know how much gravity the Earth exerts at 100 miles versus sea level? 30%? That would still be a lot of fuel to put a sattelite into orbit! But if it could be done, it would certainly be revolutionary to space travel. -Steve
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Just because it is a huge target doesn't make it accessible to terrorists, or any other kind of enemy.
The WTC was accessible in part because it was in the middle of a city. If this thing was built in the middle of Nellis Air Force Base (for example), just getting within sight of it would be a challenge.
The space elevator makes so much sense it's amazing we even made a space shuttle at all.
The way I look at it is this. We have been shooting humans into space atop monolithic, ubelievably dangerous explosive devices. A rocket is an explosive device.
If space were a cliff and we wanted to get on top, the current way we are doing it is by laying a board over a fulcrum, sitting a guy on one end and dropping a volkswagen on the other. Boing! he flys through the air and rolls to a stop atop the cliff. How does he get down? he jumps and hopes to land on a soft spot. Lots, LOTS can go wrong, and death is almosts as likely as success.
The space elevator is the equivalent of (rather than launching someone up) throwing a rope and hook up the cliff face, securing it, and then weaving a rope ladder.
Higher success, cheaper (no volkswagen involved), and safer (though less exciting and dramatice albeit).
Has long been the leader in absolute dollars, though the US may have surpassed them last year.
However, per capita or as percent of GNP, the US is very low on the list. It depends how you count.
We give a lot away, but a lot of that comes back as those countries contract with american engineering firms, or buy american arms, and I just don't like the indignation of the parent post, where the assumption is that we are great, we save the world, we are selfless, and they just hate us anyway... biting the hand that feeds them.
America profits FROM the world, from doing business around the world. Which is great, by the way! Let's just face facts and not act all indignant and hurt like we should get less stink-eye from the world.
-pyrrho
My grandfather made things out of wood, and he sometimes held pieces of wood together using little tapered cylinders of iron or steel called "nails" and "screws".
It was very difficult to cause these cylinders to enter the wood simply by pressing on them, so he used hand tools called "hammers" and "screw drivers".
All of this occured long before Apollo.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
It's possible that it might make an appealing target for terrorists. But come-ON, I want my space elevator! Every innovation I have ever seen has always been greeting with various forms of "you cant do that because XYZ" from the experts. Two things I am sure of : A continued program of space exploration is important and necessary. Rockets are not a good solution. Besides which, a space elevator has such propeller-head appeal, woot!
The infrastructure can also be used to build powersats relatively cheaply. Would the Third World benefit from being able to buy power cheaper than they can get it in the form of oil from the Arabs? Would we? The other obvious point is that the sun isn't running out of juice anytime soon, which is something we can't say about oil.
That's just the beginning. Space elevators can throw the whole Solar System open to industrial exploitation.
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