Slashdot Mirror
Space Elevator Group to Open Nanotube Factory
FleaPlus writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Universe Today report that the LiftPort Group, a consortium dedicated to commercially developing and constructing a space elevator, will be opening a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant in June of this year. The new facility has been dubbed LiftPort Nanotech. Many expect the LiftPort Group to be a front-runner in NASA's recently-announced Centennial Challenges competitions for space elevator technologies, which begin in September of this year."
RTFA: The plant will be in NJ because they have a cheap electricity source.
Assume nanotubes get used a lot, what will happen to their waste? Will stuff made of nanotubes corrode or how will nature decompose it?
Regards, Tommy
Such carbon nanotube-filled plastics are already being used by automakers in fuel lines because they are conductive and can thus be grounded to release static electricity, which can ignite flammable gasoline
/. crowd, it's only half a lifetime.
I have a question that still remains unanswered. what are the ramifications of having a 40,000km cable that is primarily composed of a semiconducter, carbon, stretching up to orbit. Also compare the size such an antenna, with recent solar activity being any indicator, and what effect will this have on the geoclimate and magnetic pole position?
Have we really thought everything through, before rushing into such an epic project, with potentially epic consequences (either a leap in evolution, or the end of an age)? 2018 may seem like a long time from now but for most of the
I hate to break it to you guys, but don't expect poeple to be travelling on the space elevator once it comes into service. It will travel extremey slowly compred to traditional orbital insertion techniques. Expect it to take days to reach geo-stationary orbit.
Travelling through the upper atmosphere at such a slow speed will vastly increase your exposure to raidiation (van allen belt) and electrical storms. This technology is designed for lifting material into space, not passengers. We are still discovering much about the upper atmosphere, including huge electrical storms - as seen in national geographic a few years ago) so don't think that everything is completely accounted for and solved.
Later on, I would expect a faster model capable of lifting less weight but at much higher speeds to allow for human transport.
Once we can actually get a lot more material into orbit then we can build larger solar power collectors in space and power this passenger space lift. If I only has to lift 2 tonnes, rather than 20, then it should be able to move 10 times quicker. With materials science improving as we go better raidation shielding should also be possible.
The elevator won't mean the end of ballistic rocket launches. But hopefully the nano-tech that is in development will also help reduce the weight of horizontal take-off and landing space planes at the same time. Lighter materials for the hull and super-structure of the plane, as well as better fuel tanks, lighter wiring, more efficient engines, etc.
Why not use the elevator as a source of power?
The difference in potential could be used to power the elevator. And if you have more energy than you need, use it for other things. Hell, sell it into the power grid.
Imagine the world having thousands of space cables, because they produce clean power.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
If you actually read this guy's work, he admits a huge problem with this approach. An Equatorial elevator has zero theoretical force applied to the base, this one would have immense pressure trying to tear it from the mooring brackets and pull it to the equator.
As such the cable needs to be thicker, and the thicker the cable, the more the force, etc etc
We'd likely need another revolution in materials technology over and above nanotech for this to even be possible, and it's still vulnerable to breakdown/sabotage, as a snapping off at the moor would be disastrous (as opposed to an Eq Elevator in which case the moor is largely a moot point when loads aren't actively climbing)
And because he hasn't used real constants he has no numbers to give us. You can't base any serious theoretical ideas on this guys work, for all we know the force of the pull is ludicrously huge.
So don't pin your hopes on this.
in his words:
In my opinion, the main drawback with the off-center elevator is that there is a huge tension on the anchor point. This means that the cable will have to be heavier. Also, it means that a way has to be found to get the anchor setup. When building an equatorial elevator, there is no need for a force from the anchor point, so the elevator can simply be extended up and down until it reaches the ground. The off-equator elevator needs a force from the ground to stay off equator, so that strategy won't work. The only idea I can think of is to make an equatorial elevator, and then move the anchor point to the desired position. I am not sure how hard pulling the elevator into place would be, because I did not do the simulation with real numbers.