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NASA Still Wants Space Elevator

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the buying-a-stairway-to-heaven dept.

Jerry Smith writes "The Guardian reports 'Each of the groups that will gather in New Mexico is competing to win a NASA prize set up to encourage entrepreneurs to start development work on the technology needed to create a space elevator.' It still might take a while though, progress is slow, so slow."

1 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What happens by Alaria+Phrozen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was going to pick on your math for the 99.999% thing, but that's actually decently accurate (at least according to the article). I thought satellites were much much closer to earth (600ish miles) but after a little research I found out those are the asynchronous orbit ones. For true geosynchronous orbit you need an altitude of 22,223 miles. Roughly 1/10th the distance to the moon! Space is a wee bit bigger than I thoguht ;-)

    The one thing that does seem far-fetched is the several-thousand-mile-diameter-no-fly-zone-idea... isn't that a significant portion of the earth (neighborhood of 1% of the surface area)? Maybe I'm just tired, but these differences in scale are just insanely hard to get my head around.