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Lunar Space Elevator Instead?

Posted by michael on from the think-big dept.

koa writes "We have all seen articles on building a Space Elevator on the earth, how about this article about experimenting with the Moon first since the technology we have available to us is sufficient, as the Moon's gravity is 1/6th that of Earth's (the cable weight would require less exotic materials such as carbon nano-tubes). One could make a very good argument for commercialization of Space if getting materials to and from the Moon's surface was vastly cheaper and easier."

2 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Terrorist! by mangu · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I guess "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" will be one of the first books to be banished and burned once the revised PATRIOT act goes into effect ;p


    But you are absolutely right. Having no atmosphere, the Moon is the ideal place to put a railgun. Besides Heinlein, many other authors have used that concept, among them Gerard K. O'Neill, who popularized the L5 orbit concept.

  2. Re:Except.... by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It would like when they were building the first highways across America. The company would build a "seedling mile" of good highway along a stretch of crummy road near some town. After people tried that mile of good road in the middle of a stretch of washboard, it was a lot easier to get them to vote for the taxes to pave more of it.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.