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Thoughts on the Space Elevator
Keith Curtis writes to tell us that Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, has posted his thoughts on why NASA should be building a space elevator instead or their current plans. Keith has also posted his throughts from an engineer's perspective (although admittadly still not a rocket scientist). "The challenges are many, but it has been a viable option since carbon nanotubes, structures so strong that one the width of a human hair could lift a car, were invented. A space elevator could be between 10 and 2000 times cheaper than conventional technology and will force NASA to change just about everything they do. Hopefully one day that bureaucracy will wake up and realize it."
Sigh. Ya know, we could build a structure to space with todays (hell, 20+ year old) technology if we wanted. The Launch Loop concept was published 20 years ago and is viable today. It costs less than a space elevator is predicted to cost and, unlike the space elevator, can be built from the ground up instead of from orbit down. So yeah, please stop saying stuff like: once we have strong carbon nanotube fibres we'll have a space elevator two weeks later. It doesn't work like that. The majority of studies that remain to be done to make the Launch Loop a reality are much the same as the many studies that still need to be done to make the space elevator a reality. Someone has got to finance those studies and unless you can get PhD students to do it on government funding that means you've got to pour money into a hole that might never fill up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The August issue of IEEE Spectrum also had a story about the space elevator. This article is available online here. Not knowing much about the space elevator, I found this article very informative.
"But, I don't remember ever hearing that we actually have the technology to produce enough carbon nanotube material to actually build a prototype device of some sort let alone a cable spanning to LEO."
A space elevator must extend to geosynchronous orbit, 36000 km up.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
The LiftPort Group of companies working towards a space-elevator are making a great deal of progress. Slashdot reported on the faa approval of their high altitude tests, for example. See here and here for more LiftPort specific information. Check here and here here for several reports concerning the viability of the elevator -- be sure to check the NIAC pdf. Blaise Gassend has a great collection of information. Finally, though carbon nanotubes are still in their infancy (its been a little around ten years since they were discovered) - their theoretical tensile strengths are perfect for application in a space elevator construction. This recent development spells a rosy future, and many innovations yet to come.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixie_dust
It already exists. Just not for what you are thinking about using it for. IBM owns the patent on Pixie Dust. Although I can't see that they care about it anymore now that they sold thier hard drive division.
It's not that easy, the space elevator is supposed to work because it has (will have) a counterweight on geosynchronous orbit that keeps the elevator in place. The space elevator is more like a string tied to a balloon than a wooden stick.
A space elevator will be made of carbon fiber nanotubes correct?? What would be the effect on a hurricane hitting the elevator? Can the string be realed in from one end?? Would it be more prudent to build this in a place far away from a coastline??
negliable if built correctly. The local winds wouldn't have enough kinetic force to move the cable much.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Liftport is testing weak ribbons. The sort of ribbons they want simply do not exist. It's unobtanium.
If you read our literature (blog, press release, articles - heck you can write and ask) you'd discover we're not testing ribbons at all.
What we are doing is testing lifter technology. Sending a bot up and down in a reliable fashion is one of those easy-until-you-really-think-about-it deals. A whole lotta picky engineering needs to be ironed out to make those work in a reliable fashion.
Display some adaptability.
Actually, the design for one of the ribbons was so thin and wide that the wind resistance alone meant that it fell at about the speed of a cardboard box.
See http://www.elevator2010.org/site/primer.html and http://www.liftport.com/faq2.php#science2 for starters, Google for more.
What really makes sense is an infrastructure that makes getting people and payloads in particular to and from space cheap and reliable, even ordinary. The only chance for that right now is a space elevator.
You have a 3% chance of death flying on a space shuttle. That's an incredibly poor record, and incredibly expensive.
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