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Space Elevator vs Wildlife
An anonymous reader writes "The longest test yet of the technology that might one day lead to space elevators has revealed some unusual problems. From the article: "There were several unexpected encounters with wildlife. More than a dozen insect egg colonies had been laid on the tether and curious bats flew around the balloons, apparently attracted by the sound made by the tether's vibrations. Late in the test, swallows were also seen swooping down on the balloons, possibly to sip the morning dew on their surfaces." Maybe all the critters just want to go to space too."
How adaptable nature really is. Other than things that really destroy an environment, all human interaction and structure isn't harmful. Who knows what type of new eco system could be in the works!
As a rule, I never trust dark brown ketchup.
No, you fools! It's mother nature trying to keep us from leaving this planet! She wants to take us down with her!
"Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese." - C. M. Burns
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The space shuttle sucks, a space elevator swallows.
Late in the test, swallows were also seen swooping down on the balloons ...
african or european swallows?
Nature may abhor a vacuum, but it loves a space elevator!
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Once it gets out into space, wouldn't the long carbon tether become charged?
Like the static we discharge walking around the office, any critters setting up home will be in for a nasty shock.
liqbase
... never had any problems with his glass elevator!
Hm... do you think that if your tether is beginning to BUCKLE AND DEFORM, you might have a slightly more fundamental problem than just needing to redesign the robot?
Well, I'm sure they're aware of it. But this kind of thing probably won't become more obvious until they do a 6-month test, I guess. Or 6-years. But the potential for your tether to break off eventually is probably going to be a slight drawback.
He said it best. "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, meh, hehe he...hehehehe...."
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Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
Dont anthropomorphize Nature. She is beyond your feeble powers to add, detract or anthropomorphise her. :-)
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
won't someone for once think of the pirates the elevator would put out of work, well atleast they would be unemployed until interstellar space travel is invented...
actually, they'd be able to travel faster because there would be more accelleration time. It would take just over ten seconds at 1G (2G force on the passangers) to get to a velocity of 100meters per second, at which point you have 360,000 seconds, or 100 hours. Now with a lower accelleration, but a longer acceleration, that could be cut down significantly. Once acceleration stops, you are back to 1G (minus the effects of your distance from earth).
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FTFA:
If the platforms were used as Wi-Fi stations, robots would one day be needed to climb up the tethers to deliver new helium tanks for the balloons (Image: LiftPort Group)
Or how about a tube running along the tether? Or just using a normal tower for this? I don't see how there can be profit in using a tether system as a glorified radio tower.
We aren't even 100 orders of magnitude close to having a tether material that work, yet people are spending their time on robot designs that are a trivial problem. Why don't these contests focus on high alitutde tethers?
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This idea just doesn't seem possible. A 60,000 mile tether, strong enough to carry a satellite sitting on a robot elevator all the way up into space. And then successfully deploying the satellite off the elevator. And this would be cheaper than rockets that send satellites into orbit now?
A space elevator sounds great, it just seems far-fetched. A 100 meter test. Only 96,560,540 more meters to go.
The pollution (and therefore environmental damage) caused by using a rocket to put one ton of payload into space is about a zillion times what would be caused by using the space elevator for the same load. The problem is that the space elevator would be so much cheaper that many more tons of stuff would be put into orbit. So, the total pollution would probably end up being more. On the other hand, we have many more people trying to get into space now. It's probably just a few years before we have at least one private company putting stuff into orbit so the pollution will happen anyway.
Trying to put everything into perspective, the elevator is probably the least offensive solution in terms of the environment.
"SNAKES . . . IN SPACE", and can the porcine Muppets be far behind?
If the dolphins start trying to jump on these things we might need to start worrying.
If these space elevators do take off, would they need their own air traffic control at each one? Imagine a plane clipping one of these things while people are going up? Tower of Terror would lose all it's business.
Can I bum a sig?
The correct term is space Freight Elevator. Secondly they can go a lot faster.
Crazy thought:
Assuming ants can climb up the elevator, I wonder which altitude they could reach, given the fact that they supposedly don't need a lot of oxygen with their small bodies. (I know that ants don't have lungs and breathe through tiny pores, but still)
The snozberries taste like snozberries.
did they have any coconuts with them?
You can't handle the truth.
Isn't this how Earth aracnids manage to enter space and mutate. Once we have interstellar travel, we might reencounter another space faring species from Earth.
I would've guessed that wildlife would've been their last worry. I didn't read the article, but did they mention how a space elevator would WICK THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE INTO OUTER SPACE! First person to try and build one of these things is gonna get a swift kick straight to the nuts, so help me...
Think of applying all of the force of the shuttle's engines to moving, instead of all that action/reaction cloud of steam and pollution.
Before OBL's little performance piece of Arab street theatre, I used to work in the WTC and I lived across the steet in Battery Park City.
I loved that my comute was 1,000 feet in two directions: back & forth and up & down.
Now, I could live around 4,000 miles away and still take the elevator for about as long as I, uh oh. Walking that far back & forth would be a bitchin' commute in the mornings.
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I can see tethered cellular towers as well as WiFi towers (802.11n, something with some range) at elevations of a few thousand feet -- high enough to give them excellent line-of-sight coverage, but below air traffic corridors.
In situations like Katrina, or western wildfires, these could reinstate the communications grid very quickly and at minimal cost.
All they need as payloads would be a solar cell array and batteries for power (or run a power cable up the tether), a lightweight omnidirectional antenna, and a lightweight communications processor/router/transceiver that seeks out neighboring nodes in the communications grid, joins the grid and relays ground signals to the self-organizing grid. At some point (or points), the grid connects to the ground-based network. Eventually, the helium would leak out and they would settle back to earth, being reeled in by the tether anchors, as slack was detected in the tethers. They could then be replaced/re-filled and sent back up. My guess is that these cost for these would be well under $5K per node, which is a lot cheaper than a conventional cell tower.
No better way to drive the technology forward than to start using it commercially.
Not really - nature abhors a vacuum - but gravity loves it.
I think it is talked about far more than it should be considering it is little more than science fiction. Prove to me it is the focus of substantial research and I will reconsider.
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;-p
Luckily we will be able to shoot them off the elevator with the laser beam that powers to climber
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
..when you compare it to the support city that will spring up around the base of any such endeavor.
I'm not saying that is a bad thing, btw. If done will, maybe this technology would be cleaner overall than rockets or some kind of mythical antigravity fusion powered jet-pack thing.
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"Energy only flows if there is a difference in current."
Should read: 'Energy only flows if there is a difference in voltage.'
It's the potential difference that causes the current to flow from one point to another; it makes no sense to talk about a 'difference in current' in this context. (You could certainly have a difference of current, but that would be if you had two separate currents and were comparing them.)
If you connect, via a conductor, an area of higher potential (aka, voltage) to an area of lower potential, a current will flow between them through the conductor.
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No, there's plenty of idiots like you out there.
Well - its not as simple as that. Think about the problem - you need to pull on a cable most likely with a force of several tons. Now you are saying that you want to do that at 1/3 mach - tricky. Probably can be done, but not a whole lot faster than that using current technology (remember - you can't add anything to the cable, not even paint because it would weigh too much). You also want to avoid wearing out the cable - and the faster you go, the more wear you cause.
So you really are talking about several days to get to geo - personally, I don't think that will be competitive with a normal rocket made with the same bucktubes, but whatever. (What makes rockets hard to do is essentially the whole "must be 99% fuel" thing. Buckytube fuel tanks would make rockets simple.)
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I predict that the Space Elevator will turn out to be just like the Space Shuttle; obsolete upon completion. Progress has already been made upon the quantum-entanglement physics that will someday permit the construction of a Transporter system. Search on PhysicsWeb http://physicsweb.org/
Remember the future...
I don't think that robot was pulling on the cable, nor would these elevators be operated by cable.
The principle would probably either map to a solenoid gun (good idea, could also capture energy from a descending cage), or wheels that hug the cable and roll up/down it without actually pulling.
The purpose of the tether is to anchor the station, so to speak, and act as a guid for vehicles going up/down.
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Here's a quote from an IEEE Spectrum article (Aug, 2005):
"It now costs about US $20 000 per kilogram to put objects into orbit. Contrast that rate with the results of a study I recently performed for NASA, which concluded that a single space elevator could reduce the cost of orbiting payloads to a remarkably low $200 a kilogram and that multiple elevators could ultimately push costs down below $10 a kilogram. With space elevators we could eventually make putting people and cargo into space as cheap, kilogram for kilogram, as airlifting them across the Pacific."
The article answers many space elevator-related questions. Those who want to know more about the project can read it here:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aug05/1690
There are some technical problems (mainly related to construction of the cable) to be solved first, but the space elevator idea is definitely worth serious consideration, as it could provide humanity with extremely cheap and easy access to space.
Nature is the ultimate check on hubris as she either gives you walls you can't surmount, tests you constantly for weakness, or patiently waits for your first fatal mistake.
Sort of like God, without the compassion.
Oh, wait. There is no God, only some mythological patriarchal Hairy Thunderer, worshipped by the warring monotheists. In reality there is only some kind of feminized Gaia Spirit, albeit one that is stern and unforgiving and seeks to impede human progress.
Okay, I got it.
Maybe the wildlife is trying to let us in on what the Dolphins already know?
Jonathanjk.com
The problem with using a solenoid based system is that a solenoid's pull is based on the "cable" part of it not being symetrical from the solenoid's point of view. (That's probably hard to follow - basically there has to be a part in the field and a part out of the field, and the solenoid pulls both into the field equally). Some kind of no-touch system would be desireable, but those either require help from the cable (which weighs too much because of the necessary cable changes) or operate very slowly (a kind of eddy current device could probably be made to work at lower speeds).
As for the wheel idea, I think that is what every is looking at right now. But the wheels have to pull (or attach to, if you will) the cable with a force of several tons (or else the cargo container would fall), and that is extremely hard at high speed.
Of course the real problems we haven't even gotten to yet - maintainence. In LEO, at least, a cable does not last very long because of micrometerite abrasion/erosion. This is not a problem with larger objects, but every time you are hit by one of the quadrillions of micrometeorites you lose an area of the cable a couple 100 microns cubed. It doesn't sound like much (and to normal objects, it isn't much), but to a thin cable the cumalative damage actually cuts it pretty quickly, on the order of days for a cable as long as a space elevator. (That said, we don't know if the micrometorites become less of a problem further out - but even so this will be a major headache)
Of course, take my analysis with a grain of salt - I am getting close to launching my own orbital launch vehicle, so these guys are ostensibly my competition! (On another note, would you pay $30,000 to go to orbit for a few days?)
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Well, for the solenoid, I was thinking more along the lines of the solenoids are fixed, not around the cable, though a solenoid around the cable, with magnetic chunks spaced evenly around it could work. Basically, take a multi-cable system (2-4 cables should do it), and build solenoids anchored to the cables all the way up (NOT cheap), and then put the cage in the center... A cable with magnetic chunks and the solenoid going around it would be cheaper. As for the micrometoriets, take some structural cables, not used for transport (except for the fixed solenoid ring system, then transport cables work too), and attach mounting brackets around them and just build an aluminum, iron, whatever tube around the whole mess. Again, kindof expensive.
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Yeah, but if you do that you end up putting juk on the cable - which really doesn't work, because the cable has to lift its own wieght, including all the extra junk. For example, if you spaced out a 100 gram winding (rediculously light) spaced at 1 meter intervals (rediculously spread out), you would have 36,000,000 of them - for a total mass of 3,6000 tons. That's almost certainly more than a 100 gram winding could possibly lift, most likely by a huge multiple. So now your cable needs to be far thicker / stronger than originally. Shielding is even worse.
Hey, I hope it works out - but I'm not holding my breath!
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... but the Apple Store sure as heck did!
I do work on a 100 foot tower and for some reason bees are attracted to it, they're buzzing around me all the time up there. They don't build nests on it though. Spiders build webs all the way up though.
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Unexpected by who? If you build outdoors, Mother Nature is going to get involved - I could have told the that.
neither am I. There are too many issues with the concept - it's nice, and I like trying to solve problems, but I think the problem of gravity manipulation will be solved before the problems of a space elevator.
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You know that ants breate through tiny pores, because they actually do need oxygen, "but still" what?
If you had read Liftport's website FAQ about this, they've already considered this possibility.
For one thing, it would be sensible to have some military presence guarding the elevator to prevent any airborne attacks. But even if it did happen, it would only affect the bottommost part of the ribbon (it will be over 60,000 miles long, remember). All they'd have to do is lower a little bit of the ribbon and re-anchor it.
Your model airplane scenario is pretty silly, BTW. A couple of CIWS (Phalanx) cannons could easily and automatically take out all those planes.
Would I be able to base Jump off it?
I'm sure there were people like you back in the late 1800s saying the same thing about "horseless carriages".
News flash: No one cares about your opinion, and no one cares if you'll "reconsider".
I think it is talked about far more than it should be considering it is little more than science fiction.
So was spaceflight, once. I even have some of the pulp magazines from back then. And that "little" is "potential for multiple order of magnitude decrease in marginal cost per kilo lifted to geosynchronous orbit". When Clarke and Sheffield were writing, that might have been fair; with the discovery of fullerene tubes that are may allow for the required strength-to-weight ratio, there's a lot less bolognium amd a lot more real engineering involved.
Prove to me it is the focus of substantial research and I will reconsider.
Will you settle for a quick couple hundred citations? I can't list all the indirect research from materials science and engineering, I've other work to get to.
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There are scads of research programs working on long-chain carbon nanotubes, which are the single greatest technological challenge to building a space elevator. So far Liftport is the only organization working on the lifter and power delivery systems, but the government seems to be taking them quite seriously.
Check out their site (www.liftport.com), get the full story, and then make an educated assessment.
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Nature still abhors a vacuum. It's just that 0.000...0001% matter is the best she can do with the available resources.
I wrote a paper about this once.
The entire universe is "vacuum" if by "vacuum" you mean the absence of "solid, extended" matter.
Matter isn't solid. It's make of loosely bound atoms. Even atoms aren't solid. They're tiny nuclei surrounded by lots of "empty" space, filled only with infinitesimal electrons (i.e. point-particles, with a size of precisely zero) and the forces they exert. Those forces are what keep other atoms from occupying the same space, and what give the atoms the appearance of being solid. We all know that much around here.
But the nuclei themselves are composed of separate nucleons bound together by nuclear forces, and it's just those forces which keep nuclei from occupying the same space, same as the electromagnetic force keeps atoms "solid". Inside the nucleus is still more "empty" space.
But those nucleons themselves are just bundles of quarks held together by still different nuclear forces.
Quarks, however, are infinitesimal point-particles, just like electrons. They occupy no space; they're just points of zero extension.
Nothing in the universe is "extended", and things are only "solid" to the point that nothing below a certain energy threshold can overcome the forces keeping things out of a certain part of space, i.e. "solid" is relative. There's just infinitesimal point-particles and the interactions (forces) between them. The rest of it is "empty" space. Though as that space is universally permeated by the forces of those point-particles (there's electromagnetic fields, albiet sometimes very weak, everywhere in the universe), and has effects of it's own (e.g. gravity, which also permeates the entire universe), it can hardly be called empty.
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This is NO WAY that the space elevator will EVER get completed. (There. That guarantees that it will be completed!) Cragen
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... we could use them to power the Space Elevator!
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So what you're saying is, electrocution is always a potential problem?
Shocking!
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100,000 km is right. The balance point is just above GEO. The extra bit above is for a counterweight.
Display some adaptability.
Do you know what damage that does? Of course not, your an Republican aren't you?
Oh ok, so let's poor millions of dollars down the drain on something we know can't be done! I know, let's build a wormhole transportation device. It will create a wormhole in space and time and allow instantaneous transport! All we have to do is try and we can do anything! I'll send the proposal off to the NSF! /sarcasm
Rei has a good point. Why are we spending time and money on the robots when we don't have the material to build the space elevator in the first place?
Sadly missle defence is also science fiction - even Israel's giant laser didn't help against second hand Iranian rockets left over from the 1980's.
And of cause we can't connect the nanotubes together can we. For example rope.
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Aircraft carrier... plane launching... cable...
Pulling on a cable that fast isnt that big of a deal.
Though as Jim or someone else pointed out, there are plenty of other alternatives to a cable driven system.
-Robert
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
When a carrier can throw a plane off the deck at above mach, let me know. Besides, that is actually an easier problem (a large caliber gun does that, for example). What we are talking about is that the plane stays still and the carrier is thrown forward above mach.
New rule: No throwing of aircraft carriers is allowed by international law...
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New rule: No throwing of aircraft carriers is allowed by international law...
But that would be so much fun!!!
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Using hydrogen instead of helium for lift has many potential benefits. Hydrogen can lift a larger weight per unit volume. Helium atoms are slippery and can even escape from solid steel containers, while hydrogen, generally stays inside an intact container. Helium is made in reactors, the sun, and by alpha decay of transuranic elements, hydrogen can be generated through electrolysis. Hydrogen is really cheap, helium is fairly expensive. Since the ballon is both mechanically and electrically tethered, static charge can be safely sent to ground. Hydrogen is bouyant to ~500000 feet, helium, looses lifting power at around 350000.
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