Slashdot Mirror
Interview with Dr. Bradley C. Edwards
Keith Curtis writes "I recently discovered that Dr. Bradley C. Edwards, noted expert on the Space Elevator pays $4 for coffee at the same Starbucks that I do. I asked him if he would meet up with me and chat and he graciously agreed. I recorded the interview for posterity. In our wide-ranging conversation we talked about NASA politics, getting energy from space, location, space tourism, software, nanotech, and several other topics."
Considering the estimated costs of rebuilding New Orleans, I think his statement is pretty fair. The ISS is a much more tangled, complicated project, and it totals about $100 billion. New Orleans is now being estimated at $200 billion.
So that's really not BS...
... of harmonics? That is, how on earth (or wherever) are they going to keep a giant 20,000-mile long (minimum) string from vibrating, tearing itself away from its moorings and giving passengers a severe case of lawnmower shakes? Awful hard to do the random weighting thing they do with high-tension power lines when you want a robot to climb it (fast). ... or terrorist attacks? Yah, I know that's passe and overrated as a topic, and that it applies to any transport medium. But it still ought to be dealt with at the design stage rather than afterwards, I think. ... or birds? Doesn't anyone care about birds? :-).
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I just don't see one, the most fundamental, question in all interview. I don't worry about climber construction or powering them (it's after all "just" engineering - even if powering means, that you'll put very very small reactor on the climber and restrict it going only from 1000 Km and higher and for 0-1000 you'll use chemical rockets) - BUT (!) AFAIK the material is problem! I've read somewhere, that the strongest nanotube ever produced is still only 50% of necessary strength - and THAT'S a LONG way to go! (you can't use just 100% necessary strength - you need more for safety - something like 130-150%!)
I never understood why man is obsessed with going to space... I bet it has nice view of our globe ;) but I understand its the most dangerous place on earth (hmm... actually off earth), right after port morsbey ;)
;)
The concept of having a big "rope" in the middle of the sea, reaching out to space, with elavator/s connected to it, exposed to attacks from Al Quaida, Bush (if Al Quaida ever uses it), The sea, the wind, commets, space debree, mir stations, dumb people pressing the wrong buttons, harrasing the elavator or crowding it (especially with the overweight problem in the world) and whatnot.. it will NEVER work (Just like trying to make medicine of germs). Mark my words
"From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen" - Cat Stevens
As innumerable slashdotters have said before, when Bradley Edwards can build a bridge as long as this one out of nanotubes of the requisite tensile strength, then I'll take the space elevator seriously. Until then, it's science fiction and NASA's quite correct to plan its Moon-Mars program out of technology that actually exists.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
1) What does he know that he can tell usabout electrical potential differences along the cable, both crossing Earth's magnetic field lines and between upper atmosphere and ground? I think yet another short tether test is anticipated soon by satellite, I recall the first one failed. I know quite a few methods are used to trigger lightning now, from rocket-carried wires to lasers ionizing a column of air.
2) Where can we invest?
3) Wouldn't a branching structure like a suspension bridge -- several orbital counterweights somewhat separated, crosslinked, and several sea level contact points -- be safer than a single cable, spread out to protect against the random meteor or space debris impact, lightning strike, aircraft strike, or structural flaw?
4) When I lived in Seattle in the early '70s, before Starbucks, there were good coffee houses all over the place. Does anyone besides Starbucks sell coffee in his neighborhood now?