Space Elevator Prizes Proposed

colonist writes "Space elevator proponents are planning competitions for space elevator technologies, similar to the Ansari X Prize. Elevator:2010 will organize annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems. In other space elevator news, researcher Bradley C. Edwards recently left the Institute for Scientific Research to work at two companies on materials and technology. Also, the space elevator has caught the interest of Google's founders: 'At a space camp in Alabama last year, Brin talked about creating a space elevator to transport cargo up a special tether attached to earth. Also last year, Brin joined Page in proclaiming they should found a nanotech lab at Google.'"

Comments

Re:As I understand it...

[cjameshuff]

A space elevator is a really long "superstrong" ribbon.

Correct.

But then things get confusing. It's pretty obvious one end hooks to Earth, but what do you hook the other to? The Moon? An asteroid?

Not the moon. And not necessarily an asteroid, or anything. You could build a ribbon that extends far past GEO, and you won't need any kind of counterweight. As long as there is enough mass higher than GEO, the elevator will stay up.

Assuming we find a substance strong enough to build such a cable from, don't we then have to worry about the strength of the tethers and ultimately the consequences of altering Earth's rotation?

As mentioned, we have found materials strong enough, the problem is now producing them. And there will be no significant effects on Earth's rotation. Yes, momentum for the payloads will be taken from Earth's angular momentum...but Earth is really, really big and massive. Tidal effects with the moon will likely have greater effects than we could cause with beanstalks.