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."

Comments

Google Suggest query!

[dextroz]

I have been using Google Suggest for a while now. I was wondering what is the criteria or threshold of search popularity for a phrase/word before it enters the Google Suggest database?

Yeah...

[ImaLamer]

If only it could lift people out of Darfur...

(I'm afraid to fly, logic aside, *this* terrifies me.)

Re:Interesting interview

[LurkerXXX]

There may be less lightning, but there is still lightning in deserts.

Re:wrong concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

"The elevator is in the middle of a frickin' 4000 square mile no-fly zone. They'd see him coming for several hours before he got there."

I think you need to work on those maths a little more. 4000mi^2 is only a radius of ~36mi. A Boeing 747 has a cruise speed of 570mph, which means it would take ~4minutes to travel from the perimeter to the center.

That fact is aircraft fly in designated 'roads' in the sky corresponding with the jet stream and the elevator would be placed several hundred miles outside of these routes.

Re:Interesting interview

[LurkerXXX]

Which would mean it would be in a location that does have lightning.

The only places in the world that doesn't have it is in the arctic and antarctic. Here is a map.