Notes From 3rd Annual Space Elevator Conference

colonist writes "The Space Elevator: 3rd Annual International Conference was held recently. Blaise Gassend, a PhD student at MIT, took notes. The main obstacle is still the material: transferring the strength of the nanotube to the ribbon. Other topics include: the nanotube tether Centennial Challenge; Elevator 2010, a challenge for a 250 kg climber to climb a 16 km tether; objections and refinements to Bradley Edwards' design; non-equatorial space elevators; replacing the term 'space elevator' with 'space bridge'; testing the space elevator material on cable cars; science; defense and economics."

Comments

Practical problems to sort out first

[jandersen]

Before we can take on a project of this nature we really need too solve a large number of more pressing problems. As I suspect you Americans may be beginning to realize, a big thing like a space elevator is likely to be vulnerable, and to be quite honest: the answer to all security problems isn't bigger guns, more surveillance and less personal freedom.

Think about it - as long as there are people out there that are willing to fly a passenger plane into a tall building, we shouldn't create an even bigger target. It was bad when the twin towers fell, both in terms of human life and longer term consequences, like pollution etc. If we suddenly have 100 miles of superstrong material slamming down at hypersonic speed, it's going to be extremely bad - somebody ought to calculate how many Teratons of TNT that corresponds to.