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Continued Success for Space Elevator Tests
Jacki O writes "According to their Web site the Space Elevator company Lifport recently managed to get their platform and climbing robot to the mile-high mark over the Arizona desert." From the announcement: "A revolutionary way to send cargo into space, the LiftPort Space Elevator will consist of a carbon nanotube composite ribbon eventually stretching some 62,000 miles from earth to space. The LiftPort Space Elevator will be anchored to an offshore sea platform near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, and to a small man-made counterweight in space. Mechanical lifters are expected to move up and down the ribbon, carrying such items as people, satellites and solar power systems into space."
I should have asked this before, but does anyone know how we plan to keep this space elevator up? Also, if it's connected to nothing, then I suppose it isn't very useful for getting items to the moon? Unless of course, the items come prepacked with some sort of mobility enhancing functions.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
This is just a meaningless press release meant to drumm up publicity.
The tough thing in building a space elevator is fabricating the Carbon Nanotube ribbon. Making the robots that move up and down the ribbon is relatively simple by comparison.
This "space elevator" thing can't be for real.
The safety issues involved in a thousand-mile ribbon falling to Earth are totally intractable.
The dynamics of this thing in weather will be impossible to prevent.
The reaction of it to pertubations in the Earth's motion will be impossible to compensate. (Oh yes, kids, the Earth does not turn like a perfect sphere in your imagination; it sloshes side-to-side, and its period is not close enough to a constant for this to be feasible.)
The idea that these people have tested a device that can climb a wire being any sort of proof of any concept worthy of funding the attempted launch of the real thing is laughable. I can point to any window-washing rig as an example of that sort of technology. They've done nothing significantly new.
Someone is taking the money-men to the cleaners on this boondoggle.