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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.
From TFA:
We firmly believe that the set of technologies that underlie the infinite promise of the Space Elevator can be demonstrated, or proven infeasible, within a 5 year time-frame. And hence our name. Elevator:2010. we promise to get an answer for you by then.
Message 5 years from now:
42
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I guess the old prank of jumping onto a crowded car and pushing all the buttons would be a no-no...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
It always comes up, but protecting a space elevator is really
simple to solve. Put the base in the ocean, and stick a carrier task force there to protect it.
We already have an example to follow. Fort Knox has a tank combat training ground there, and plenty of tanks stationed there permanently. Good luck trying to raid the place.
Terrorist attacks are dangerous because they could happen anywhere, but that doesn't mean that we can't make a single known place extremely secure from that sort of thing. If it is decided that no aircraft will approach within 100 miles of a space elevator, a single carrier task group could enforce that easily. Revenues from the space elevator would easily pay for the security force too, and it'll still be the cheapest way to get something into space.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Please. Stopping the construction of fabulous new projects because they could be terrorist targets is defeatist at best.
Besides, the very first use of the very first skyhook should be to build the *second* one. It only gets easier the more we do it, and boy, does taking an elevator beat strapping an explosion to your butt.
Here's to audacity and dreaming big dreams.
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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.