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Space Elevators Could Be Lethal

Posted by kdawson on from the fried-by-van-allen dept.

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.

3 of 428 comments (clear)

  1. Aqua viva by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the most popular (and massive) items that will need to be shipped to orbit will be water; and water makes a good shield against radiation. Just make your passenger cars with a living unit inside a larger freight unit, and fill the gap in between with water. If you used filtered fresh water you could even have windows on both walls and be able to look through.

    1. Re:Aqua viva by malsdavis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Many water companies already treat tap water with gamma radiation to remove things like bacteria.

      Radiation - unlike radioactive particles - won't cause any further radioactivity within water.

  2. Rockets? by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How much thrust would a rocket need to zip you through those sections if you waited to fire it until reaching, say, 500 - 800km? Surely by then you'd be far enough away from Earth that a little bit of push would go a long ways, compared to firing a rocket from the ground?

    --
    Unpleasantries.