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Space Elevators Could Be Lethal
Maggie McKee writes, "A new study reports that passengers on space elevators of current design could be killed by radiation. Even traveling at 200 kilometers per hour, passengers would spend several days in the Van Allen radiation belts, long enough to kill them." Looks like the elevator scientists will get this one solved before liftoff.
From TA: "it's going to make things a little more complicated and a little more expensive"
Everybody panic! Apparently, "a little more expensive" == "potentially lethal"!
I guess people should buy from Wal Mart instead of Target, since the latter is "a little more expensive". Obviously making a purchase at Target will kill you. I love sensationalist headlines.
Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
I thought the main idea was to send equipment, not people? If we can get one in place (which doesn't seem particularly likely any time soon), it'd be far cheaper to send tons of heavy stuff into orbit via a tether than via a rocket.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
"All that radiation doesn't just disappear."
Your right. I mean look at the lamp next to you pumping out radiation when you turn it off it doesn't just go away!
Actually most of the radiation in the Van Allen belts would possibly heat the water a little. a tiny amount might convert some of it to deuterium and maybe He3.
Another option would be to use really powerful magnets to shield the car. The radiation in the belts is there because it is charged and is earth's magnetic field keeps it deflects it. Can you say superconductors?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
But how do you avoid the radiation on the way back down? Free fall?
"Yeah - Like China will build a 4000 mile long wall."
"Yeah - We are going to build a tunnel under the English Channel."
"Yeah - We are going to dig a ditch to let boats cross America."
"Yeah - The Egyptians are going to build a gigantic pyramid that will still be standing in 4500 years."
"Yeah - We will propel a highly explosive cargo ship to the moon carrying people."
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Seriously, why humans? Get your fix riding your local space tower / space needle ride.
The problem it solves is CHEAP transport into space for cargo. NOT people. robots will be better than humans for nearly all space work. It will be a long time before we NEED human space transport.
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Do you seriously think this would be a major design impediment? Look, you figure out how to make a structure 36,000+ miles long, I'll take care of the glorified container truck.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It's a horrid idea, and it STILL takes just as much actual energy to put anything in orbit...
No, it doesn't. Most of the energy used by a rocket goes into the exhaust's temperature and velocity, not into the payload's velocity. Better yet, much of the energy that goes into a space elevator payload comes from the Earth's angular momentum, not from the beamed power source.
You're right that laser launch may be a good idea, and you're right that the materials necessary to build a geosynchronous tether on Earth do not exist in bulk and may never be good enough... but there's obviously still a gap between the amount of passion you've spent learning about both subjects and the amount you spend speaking about them. Calm down, take a deep breath, and back slowly away from the Caps Lock key...
Ionizing radiation is just awful on chemical bonds and crystal structures. After all, it works by knocking electrons or whole atoms loose from the nice, bound states they were in. That's how the radiation damages you, too -- it's just that biological systems are a whole lot more sensitive to being scrambled, than are bulk objects like bricks or (to pick a not-so-random example) bundles of carbon nanotubes.
High doses of radiation do strange things to materials -- increase cross-links, damage coherent structure, add skillions of crystal defects. If you lower a nice flexible, white piece of polyethelene plastic into a nuclear reactor for a while, you are liable to pull out a yellow, harder, brittle, fragile piece that has the same overall shape.
If I understand the nature of the space elevator right, each particle "hit" would tear apart a carbon nanotube, gradually shortening the average tube length and weakening the whole bulk structure. I'm sure someone has thought of this effect, but we haven't seen much of it in the space elevator press packets.