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NPR Talks Skyhooks
David writes "NPR's Talk of the Nation this past week featured Brad Edwards, President of Carbon Designs Inc., to talk about their plans to develop an elevator that would lift people to an object orbiting in outer space. The project's homepage details their plans and ambitions. The discussion expands on callers' concerns about such problems as commercial airliners running into the super long cable or if it would act as a conduit for lightning."
Here is some money that NASA could "invest" in another x-prize like compitition. Get some innovation back into the space game. Maybe once China starts blasting some people towards Mars the US will get off its ass again.
The more you know, the less you understand.
I was thinking the same thing. It's way overhyped. Although, the concerns cited in the summary aren't that major.
Commercial airliners will never get close to it; that's what no fly zones are for. Even if an airplane crashed into it, one solution successfully deals with both airline impacts and lightning: "maypoling" the skyhook as it nears the ground (i.e., splitting it into several cables, of which most, but not all, are needed for stability/strength.) As for lightning itself, most types of CNTs would be the "path of most resistance", barring heavy condensation on the cable. Plus, some sites in the world have very little lightning.
We should start dealing in those black-market beagles.
http://www.isr.us/video/SE-INTRO_Final-1stream-384 .wmv
Covers the basics of the elevator, what it looks like, how it works, etc...
The question of how this thing is powered never popped into my head before, but the video shows that they will use a lazer shot from the base station. Crazy stuff.
One weakness of the plan, as I see it, is the all or nothing nature of the plan. A less risky plan that could be a stepping stone to a space elevator is to start with a much smaller rotating tether in orbit.
Imagine a thousand mile long tether in orbit with its center of gravity 600 above the earths surface. In addition to orbiting the earth The tether would rotate about its center of gravity at a rotation speed such that its speed relative to the earths surface at its ends closent approch would be zero.
A rocket would have to ascend to 100 miles up and rondezvous with a a tether end that, for the moment, is stationary. It would remain atteached to the tether while the tether rotated 180 degrees about its center of gravity. At tht point the rocket would be 1100 miles above the earth and traveling at about twice orbital velocity. If the rocket detatched at this point would would be well above escape velocity.
Longer tethers would reduce G forces and avoid the need for the first 100 mile step. The ultime version of the tether would have a CG in geosynchronous orbit and aon end on the ground.
There is no such thing as a place in the world that doesn't have lightning. That's just stupid.
Besides, there doesn't need to be lighting for electricity to be an issue. You can generate electricity by moving a conductor through a magnetic field. I would think 62k miles of carbon nanotube ribbon running through the magnetic field of the earth would make a pretty good generator.
IIRC, they already have to deal with this when tethering satalites to the space shuttle. I remember hearing that every material they've tried has some length at which it generates enough power to burn itself up (though that length might be several miles).
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
> Put the base in the ocean, and stick a carrier task force there to protect it.
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Better yet, put it on Nauru.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
With the phosphates gone, the international money laundering (er banking) industry dismantled, and nothing else on the horizon, this could be just what this island nation needs.
Finally something that severe isolation is good for.
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