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Still More on Space Elevators

Posted by michael on from the stopping-at-every-floor dept.

parseexception writes "The NYTimes is reporting Not Science Fiction: An Elevator to Space. Not a whole lot of technical detail but good read. It is interesting to see alternatives to current space technologies being explored."

4 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Happy Google linky no reg by borgboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not Science Fiction: An Elevator to Space

    --
    meh.
  2. Fountains of Paradise by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Clarke's Fountains of Paradise is a wonderful book. It presents the basic physical problems of a space elevator and some ways to solve them (and it has a great plot too).

    Right now, as Clarke envisioned, carbon nanotubes are the only engineering material that could be used to make this elevator. The basic technological question is whether we will ever be able to make cheap and long nanotubes. Despite the enthusiasm for a space elevator in the NYT article, we really have no idea how to do that. And any cost estimates like "$6 billion" are very immature without that kind of detail.

  3. Space elevator news by Quaelin+PoD · · Score: 5, Informative
    I help run a space elevator news / portal site:
    LiftWatch.org
    We've got links to this story and many more... plus reports on the recent SE conference in Santa Fe, discussion forums, image galleries, etc. Check it out!

    I've put in a request... hopefully our headlines will be added as a slashbox here soon.

  4. Re:Balance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    No.

    Orbital paths are dictated by velocity and altitude.

    Any objects,regardless of differances in mass, at a given velocity and altitude will orbit along the same path.